(Original Cars, Paint & Ideas)

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Original Restoration

I'm sure we have heard about individuals wanting to restore thier cars exactly to they way they were originally produced, or how they were when they came out of Demmer. If that's the case, then from what I've seen and what I've heard, you should do a slightly sloppy job. To me, it doesn't make sense to have a $10k to $20k restoration on a vehicle and have bad overspray areas, missed masked spots, uneven pinstriping, but that's the way things were. Most cars were in and out of Demmer in very few days and thier driving force may have been quantity not quality. Sure, most of us over-restore our vehicles, but if you spend $20k on a frame off restoration, the restorer is going to take his time because you are paying him top dollar. Go ahead and try to explaing to someone how you spent $10k to $20k on a restoration and why the pinstriping is uneven or runs on the chrome trim.

Below are multiple shots of 2 cars with original paint jobs and original condition vehicles. I took the pictures at the 105th anniversary of the Historic Cars of Lansing and the Hurst/Olds Club of America National Meet, August 3 & 4, 2002. The cars belong to Joe Spagnoli and Joe Wieczorek. Here are some good examples of original paint layouts, i.e. how the gold dips around the wheels and original engine compartment markings and other neat stuff... Some pictures provided by fellow 1969 H/O owner Larry Monk.

Notice the missed gold paint at the top of the fender just below the chrome trim. The gold must have been sprayed after the chrome was masked off.

Both door jams had the upper gold stripe neatly masked off, the other car is different.

The center stripe is a little uneven, i.e. the right side is closer to the scoop at the top of the stripe.

You can see the un-evenness here as well. Also notice the black pinstriping at the end of the gold stripe near the bumper. The pinstriping here just disappears as it was ended before the chrome trim.

Notice on the other car how the pinstriping on the nose runs onto the chrome trim....

Drivers side upper stripe overspray.

Passenger side upper stripe, no overspray.

Notice the masking job on the hood scoop.

Notice gold triangle overspray just passed the rear window. Also that stripe doesn't necissarily end directly underneath the junction of the drip rail and the lower chrome stip.

This is an original wiper motor sticker off of Larry Monk's 1969 H/O. Larry explains: here is a picture of my wiper sticker believed to be original. I was told that the bottom line will change on all of them, the first number means how many days into the year the motor was made my number makes sense, my car was made 5-2-69, so 97 days is before May 2nd and the next number 9 means 1969.

Lower stripes.

Here are some engine compartment shots, notice the lower altenator braket on non-AC cars is painted red.