Back in beige

[murph2309]

Wow Jamie, that looks absolutely fantastic, and as you say, you know it's been done right. That's absolutely the very best bit of getting your shell done by Barry.

Takes me right back - and even though it was over two years ago for me (where does the time go??) I still vividly remember what an amazing process the whole shell restoration was and how good it feels to get it back in the garage....btw I sprayed & wiped liberal amounts of WD40 on the shell which stopped the surface rust and doesn't seem to cause the painters any issues....

Congrats though, great job for saving another one and congrats to Barry too for another amazing contribution to keeping the cars on the road.

R

[jamie]

Hi Jamie - car is looking great. Mine's off down to Barry in a couple of months and I like the idea of the lowloader you used. Exactly how difficult was it to get your car on and off? Like yours mine is currently on a dolly.

Thanks.

Hi Keiron,

Loading was OK - Barry had some strong ramps (scary rolling the four-steering-castor up it, though). Unloading, however, was made tricky by lack of ramps at my home. I won't explain how we got it off the van without them (took the three of us ages and was scary), just rather recommend you borrow some ramps if you do plan to go this route. The van option is much nicer than trailering it home behind the salty spray of the towing vehicle, I reckon.

Jamie

[964RS]

Look how nice that shell can look when finished mate:

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.vi ... 1714852371

Mmmm beige, keep going, you've made great progress

Summer is only 5 months away

[jamie]

So it's Christmas Eve, technically now the early hours of Christmas day, and I find myself sitting in my office in a very quiet house (not a creature did stir, etc...) looking at paint finishes on the internet. I have become a c***.

For many months before the shell went off to Barry's workshop, I had been thinking a lot about paint. I'd think about paint in the early hours of the morning, like this, or when I was sitting on an airliner on the way to a job, or waiting for an airliner, or sitting in a hotel waiting to go wait for an airliner to come back from a job. And so on. Basically, whenever I had a chance to think about something that wasn't work, or daily life, then it would be paint. I narrowed my choices down to original Sand Beige, Bahama Yellow, or Crystal Blue. All colours that would have been originally available in 1968. It's difficult to choose colours on an old Porsche because they look great whatever.

Then incessantly thinking about paint started to hack me off, so I made a concious effort to stop, and for a few months I did.

The shell then went off to Barry's place for repair, and after it had been there a while, and I had seen the beautiful work that was being done to make it original again, I settle my mind on Sand Beige. As Barry himself put it in a subsequent discussion, you can paint the car any colour you want and be disappointed when it goes out of fashion, but you can't be disappointed with the (not-fashionable-since-the-60s) original colour because, well, it's the original colour (and hasn't been fashionable since the 60s). I have applied this theory to my kitchen floor, which is cork and is awesome. Anyway, like all men of excellent taste, I do love Sand Beige on an early car, and figured his point was pretty valid, so no more decisions were to be made - just pay the right guy to do a mega Sand Beige paint job and be happy with a beautiful original car. At first I really struggled with the idea of spending the money, but the more I looked at it, the more I could see a £10k paint job vs an £8k paint job vs cheaper paint jobs still. Despite having spent a decade of my working life throwing light at car paint, I had never given much thought to the process involved in getting it on the car. Turns out it's quite a thing to do. So it had to be done right, and, unless I got lucky and found a painter with low self-esteem, that was going to be 200 hours of prep and a bill at £10k. Time to dig deep, big hitter.

Meanwhile, during all of this, a plastic 356A shell came up for sale over on a VW forum. I've always wanted a 356A, in satin silver, with some sort of aero theme going on. I love flying (of the non-airliner variety), and I thought it'd be super neat to have a car that channelled that vibe. A proper 356A is too expensive (for me) to mess with, but a plastic one checked out OK.

But I'm not really into owning loads of cars, and I already have this 912 on the go. It needs to get finished, and I'm never going to be able to afford that 200-hour prep job if I go buying another car. So I killed the 356 idea before I had a chance to mention it to anyone, and luckily someone else bought it a few weeks later.

Many years ago, on this forum, a man called Phil McGovern posted a photo of his 912 parked in front of a rapeseed field (I didn't know Phil then, but I subsequently went on to do some work for him whilst he was a PR for Jaguar in Dubai. He left Jag a few years later and started a website called Crank and Piston, which is worth a look if you haven't already). Phil's car was silver, and the way it was lit in the photo made it look like it could have been painted in matte paint. It looked absolutely incredible, the light picking up the sweep of the rear haunch in the most sensual way, and I became a bit obsessed with the idea of a flat silver hotrod. At the time, I owned an original-paint RHD Blood Orange 1972 911T that was a reference time-capsule of a car, and therefore couldn't ever be changed. And all that time, all I really wanted was a car I could f*** around with.



So here I was, eight years on, looking at throwing £10k into putting a totally un-special (yes, I did say that) LHD 912, of which they sold gazillions in the US, back to standard. I rationalised it with the notion that I was getting older now, and that original cars are lovely things to behold, and that... that it would be worth £30k, because that's apparently what good, solid four-bangers are worth in these crazy times.

Those of you that know me well enough will know I hate discussing values. Inflating values slowly took-over my relationship with that bargain-bought 911T to the point where using it became a burden on my conscience. It simply doesn't make sense that anyone with real passion for something would ever celebrate it getting more expensive to buy, maintain and insure. Next time you're talking to someone and they get all sweaty about the value of their car, question whether they love the car, or simply just love money. I like money, but I'm not in love with it, so I avoid, as much as reasonably possible, letting monetary value get too far in the way of my vehicular decision-making process.

So what was affecting my decision-making process, which started with the project being 'fun' and had now somehow ended-up nearer 'now a bit f***ing serious', was that Barry had put 241 hours of his epic skill into fettling the shell back to near perfection, and return, I had paid him 241 hourly gold coins. And now I had a very proper shell, with lots of gold coins invested in it, which really needed to be painted properly to suit.

As I stood in my garage this evening, staring at that rear haunch in bare metal, I wondered - what had happened to the flat silver hot rod dream from all those years ago...?

[jamie]

[johnM]

You been drinking Jamie?

[Bootsy]

No he's always been a bit la la

Listen to you heart Jamie. The voices in your head will just confuse you - they've been doing that for years.

[911hillclimber]

Only you can make the decision, but with a car like this/ours run with your heart, and keep the head in a closed box.

If you need a touch/lot of inspiration read through the cars in the new Mod-Rod thread in 'General section' if you haven't already.
Those are cars for the spirit, not the Pension Pot.

You will find a bit of Mo-Jo returning then.

Happy Xmas and a car with a heart for 2015.

[shoestring7]

Thanks Jamie, I can now give R4's Thought For The Day a miss with a clear conscience! Agree with you paint choice, and sympathise with the value dilemma. Someone I know recently sold a pre-war Alfa that had been in his family for 50 years. It had become so valuable he no longer enjoyed using it, so here's to a price crash in 2015!
C>

[Lightweight_911]

Great post Jamie - wish I could be so coherent at 3 in the morning !

My only comment would be that many other areas of the car are going to be non-original/modified so why get hung up on the original colour ?

[jb]

Perhaps paint the inside/ underneath in the original colour and the outside in whatever you like so if you change your mind it can be put back to original without a total stripdown.

[964RS]

Ate you going to keep it Jamie when finished and for how long?

This would effect my paint decision.

If you are going to keep it forever then sod the colour and do whatever you want! You can always repaint it in 5,10,15 years etc to suit your moods then.

Just get a really good 5k paint job that you wont worry about stone chipping and the odd scratch and ding and keep the other 5k towards the next one!

[DustyM]

If this is a car you plan to keep then turn it into the car you want not a car you think the next owner wants. You only live once and you can't take the money with you so pile it into the car and enjoy it.

Regarding the paint finish, it comes down to what type of car you want, if it's a car to show and for others to admire then it needs the 10k paint job but if as I suspect it's a car to be driven then go for a cheaper job. Paintwork finish tends to follow a law of diminishing returns, in other words a 5k job will be more than half as good as a 10k job.

[anglophone1]

Only you can make the decision, but with a car like this/ours run with your heart, and keep the head in a closed box.

If you need a touch/lot of inspiration read through the cars in the new Mod-Rod thread in 'General section' if you haven't already.
Those are cars for the spirit, not the Pension Pot.

You will find a bit of Mo-Jo returning then.

Happy Xmas and a car with a heart for 2015.

Beautifully put, +1 from me [mocha brown/RAL orange]

[sladey]

And me too.

Sounds like the work Barry's put into it is making you feel as though you have some sort of obligation to the future. F*ck the future. You'll be dead in the future. Enjoy it now - do your flat silver thang and love it

By giving in to this 'sensible' voice the money- lovers are grabbing you by the back door. F*ck the money-grabbers and follow your heart - you seem to love the quirky & cool Jamie and I'd love to see what you could produce if you make the 911 you really want








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