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cvlcporsche cvlcporsche is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 541
Paint meter.... Either it's original or it's not. If you are worried spend a few hundred bucks on a paint meter. Get a base reading in the door jam. These cars were painted when new by an actual human vs. the modern cars painted robotically. As such paint depth varies more than a modern car. As a general rule OE paint air-cooled cars should show 3-4.5mils in the jams as a baseline. A typical range would be 4-6mils, generally higher in horizontal surfaces. While you are doing this be looking for other signs of paintwork: mask lines on the edges, overspray on trim, texture or color variances, etc. A reading much higher than 6 should be looked at carefully. Higher than 8-9mils and it's definitive.

The other challenge is that some cars were repaired before delivery either at the factory, the port or the dealer due to QC issues or transport damage. So it's not a perfect science, but it certainly takes more than just an eye.

In the end in today's market original rules the day, however in my experience very, very few air cooled cars are still 100% original paint. Probably single digit %, however I find probably at least half the sellers say they have original paint. When pressed they usually say "well it looks original to me"
Old 01-17-2014, 07:09 AM
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