Politically incorrect (was: chameleons)

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@domain.elided>]

Doug Harris asks our collective opinion whether it is 'okay' to repaint a car
in a different color, and raises several implicit questions along the way.

First, personal opinion, I would dispute his suggestion that "The paint has
come to show the alligatoring common to Italian coachbuilders who relied on
thick coats of primer as body filler". The hand-hammered-on-a-stump
pannelbeaters necessarily used generous fillers and primer-surfacers, but the
production cars from Portello, Arese, and Grugliasco (Pininfarina, and Bertone
after the artisan-to-industry transition) did not. Any of these cars can be
taken down to bare metal and (except where accident-damaged) can be flawlessly
repainted with no more thick primer than you would find on a Mercedes, BMW,
Volvo, or Lexus. The non-metallic Alfa finishes were enamel, the metallics
(including silver) were lacquer, and twenty-five year old lacquers which have
been exposed to the weather have long passed their life-expectancy. If, from
the start, they were meticulously maintained and the car always garaged or
covered you might stretch it, but in any case this type of failure on old
lacquer should not be blamed on post-metalwork filling and heavy priming.

Second, an ancient and highly respected but parsimonious local Alfa guru,
commenting on a color-change repaint of a client's XK-E Jag, made a compelling
case to me that cars are commodities and that it almost always make more
sense, both qualitatively and economically, to buy what you want and sell what
you have and don't want. Even if you have a wad invested in the engine,
etcetera, you can swap-out the power-train, wheels, tires, upholstery, and
tidy-up the redundant car (repainting the worst-crazed panels, for example)
and sell it, winding up with a better entity and a fatter bank account. That
route also affords the opportunity to exercise other preferences- like getting
a '74 if you prefer the earlier bumpers, or a roundtail, or a last-series
car.

That said, the current norm of having the door-jambs, trunk interior, AND
engine bay finished in the exterior color is a byproduct of production
economy. In a less production-economy driven age it was quite normal to have
the fenders a different color than the body, the underside of the fenders yet
another color, the engine-bay painted as an engine-bay rather than as a
byproduct of the exterior color choice, even the door-jambs finished
differently. The color choices throughout resulted from thought about purpose,
not just convenience. I would not be disturbed by a rational choice of
engineroom color, black, white, whatever in a durable, solvent-resistant
material with an entirely different finish on the exterior, but a deteriorated
metallic silver lacquer engine-bay in a pristine newly-painted crimson
exterior would be a real turn-off for me. YMMV.

Also that-said, my first Alfa, a Giulietta Spider, was red (AR 514, Rosso
Italia, a.k.a. Rosso Farina, Signal Red, Rosso Semaforo etc) but that was
thirty-seven years ago before every second econobox or funcar on the street
was painted a similar heylookatme red, resale red or arrest-me red. Excuse me,
but I hope I will never be tempted by that much of a cookie-cutter aesthetic.
If I DID own a red Alfa, it would have to be a true Alfa Red, like AR 501,
which I believe has never been used on a production Spider.  But there are so
many other nice Alfa colors, including some (like the silvers) which are
sufficiently low-key that one can see the Alfa with an incidental color rather
than seeing another red convertible which is incidentally an Alfa.

Now that I have offended half the digest, including some friends whose
friendship I value highly, I better quit before it gets deeper. Sorry-

Enjoy yours,

John H.

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