To paint or not to paint

[tincan]

Like lots of older cars, my ’88 3.2 has a small number of tiny paint chips on the front end and on the mirrors. These are not particularly noticeable; at 8 -10 feet she looks great. The dilemma I have is - do I paint and aim for a perfect car or do I leave her as is, which is totally original but remarkably fresh for a 20 year old? One of the main reasons I opted to buy her was that she was original and needed no work of any description plus the history file that came with her. But - there is a niggling doubt that has me seesawing from painting her to leaving her. Is minor cosmetic paintwork regarded as ruining originality? One issue is, that I can’t find a touch up paint in Venetian Blue to do some very localised touchup so it would mean having paint mixed and probably applied in a shop.
Is there a value to maintaining a totally original car? I don’t just mean monetary value as I have no intention of ever selling, she will become something for my kids to fight over when I am gone. In fact that fight has started already with questions being asked about who will inherit her when the time comes. I have told them that I expect to drive her until they pull my licence and hopefully I will manage a bit longer than my own Dad who drove until he was 89, which still leaves me 30+ years, so I want to do the right thing now. I wonder will there be many 50 year old cars running then.

Noel

'88 3.2 Venetian Blue

[petrolblue83911]

personally I would leave it and not paint it. The issue is, the more you paint, the more the other areas arent going to match, and you either end up painting the entire car, or having mis-matched panels!

I think the patina you describe is more desirable because,
1. it shows that the car is origional and not hiding anything
2. you won't be afraid to drive and park it!
3. the origional paint is by far the best you will ever get, short of a full body off resoration

The only reason I would re-paint would be if you are noticing rust forming between panels-ie under rubber trim, behind the windshield, around the headlight buckets etc....

[Dantilla]

If you will never sell, then resale value means nothing, so do what you want. The most anal thing to do is to get some paint matched, and fill each chip with several coats from a tiny applicator until the fresh paint is the same level as the original. Thats the best of both- No more chipped paint, and it's still original. Just very time-comsuming.

[ChkbookMechanic]

I used to worry about the rock chips and things like that then realized, I drive it on the track or I drive the car daily and as soon as I repaint it.. the chips are going to show back up again anyway. So now I don't worry.

If you aren't going to sell the car.. put off painting or fixing rock chips until it is really, really bad.

[Nine, Frau!]

I thinks its really hard to beat the quality of the paint job from the factory. I just accept the fact that some chips happen if you drive the car. Its ok.

[rw229]

Nice car... what you have is less than normal road wear. (patina)

Many, including myself place a high value on original paint. It's a 20 year old car and some honest wear is expected.

I'm not sure about the metallic colors, but the solid colors can be touched-up nicely using something like Langka or Dr. Colorchip.

[Flieger]

Looks great to me- as is

[Aron in Toronto]

Looks great as is but if the chips bother you you can have them professionally repaired w/o an entire respray or panel respray. Just have the chips color matched and airbrushed by a pro, or you can DIY with paint from paintscratch.com or other sources.

http://www.paintscratch.com/cgi-bin/makepaint2.cgi

[tincan]

thanks for your opinions, I checked paintscratch.com and they classify venetian blue as a difficult colour. I also located a local shop here in Dublin who will mix to match and he told me to bring the blank for the towing eye as a match. I will only be doing very localised touchup based on the advice received

thanks again
Noel

[RacerX1166]

I would try to do the touchup on the worst chips first. Langka is your friend for touching up chips. It's a long, labor intensive process but the results are worth it.

I had a black BMW 540 with a Breyton air dam so I got quite good at doing touchup.

Also, I'll add my vote for don't repaint unless it's going to be a total garage queen.

[David Borden]

Id recommend leaving and doing very careful touch up using factory touch up paint. You can actaully dab the paint in the chip area and slowly build it up, then color sand and buff. If done right, it should look very good.

The problem with re-paint, is if you drive it, its just a matter of time before you will be back in the same position you are now. Driving a perfect car is more of a curse then pleasure IMHO. I have a recently completed car that Im pretty much afraid to drive or track for fear of chips/damage to a freshly painted body.

David