white gecko
New member
I did this one a while back but hadn't gotten around to posting it. This rare car was brought to me in order to recondition it for sale to get the most value possible for it. This was a first year example of the very rare coupe. The custom built Italian body was mated to an American platform and engine. The coachbuilt car cost between $22,000.......in 1971.....In today's money the equivalent price in today's dollars is about $123,000. When production ended in 1987, approximately 500-600 cars had been built.
Some of the features of this odd vehicle: 19 ft long, a 455ci V8 producing 425hp, getting 8mpg, and propelling the hefty car to 60mph in 8.9 seconds. The paintwork on the car took 6 weeks to lay the 18-22 coats of lacquer, which explains why my paint depth gauge was reading 450-900 microns of material on the all original paintwork. The interior included 24k gold, Italian AND English gauges, Mink carpet, a liquor cabinet in the rear (wow), and a host of other interesting features very uncommon in the 70's and even today.
It was set up for a complete reconditioning of the paint, chrome, and interior, while preserving as much material as possible, especially on the inside. Spent the better part of 3 days on it to achieve 90%+ correction and general tidying up of everything else. The interior was a little rough and and been re-dyed some time ago and not very well, limiting what could be done there. Some other minor repairs were carried out by the owner after the detail.
Onto the pics....
When it was dropped off....
The brightwork was a little rough
After a bit of polishing, the luster was beginning to return
There was some pitting too deep to be polished out.
After a quick test to feel out the hardness of paint, a 50/50 shows a color difference even in indirect light.
The other side of the trunk lid was pretty bad....
After several rounds of heavy compounding this was the result. The remaining marks were very deep sanding tracers, definitely below 1000 grit. Not perfect, but much better.
A rough 50/50 on the rear quarter/trunk
After working the hood for quite some time
Some of the features of this odd vehicle: 19 ft long, a 455ci V8 producing 425hp, getting 8mpg, and propelling the hefty car to 60mph in 8.9 seconds. The paintwork on the car took 6 weeks to lay the 18-22 coats of lacquer, which explains why my paint depth gauge was reading 450-900 microns of material on the all original paintwork. The interior included 24k gold, Italian AND English gauges, Mink carpet, a liquor cabinet in the rear (wow), and a host of other interesting features very uncommon in the 70's and even today.
It was set up for a complete reconditioning of the paint, chrome, and interior, while preserving as much material as possible, especially on the inside. Spent the better part of 3 days on it to achieve 90%+ correction and general tidying up of everything else. The interior was a little rough and and been re-dyed some time ago and not very well, limiting what could be done there. Some other minor repairs were carried out by the owner after the detail.
Onto the pics....
When it was dropped off....
The brightwork was a little rough
After a bit of polishing, the luster was beginning to return
There was some pitting too deep to be polished out.
After a quick test to feel out the hardness of paint, a 50/50 shows a color difference even in indirect light.
The other side of the trunk lid was pretty bad....
After several rounds of heavy compounding this was the result. The remaining marks were very deep sanding tracers, definitely below 1000 grit. Not perfect, but much better.
A rough 50/50 on the rear quarter/trunk
After working the hood for quite some time
