Kadett Chronicles 8: Progress report (4/26-28)

We finished stripping the car and it’s off for paint, baby! I’m extremely excited about this because I think it’s one of the few things that will make a huge difference in the transformation of the car. Most people I say that to responds with a resounding “duh” but to those that aren’t into restoring old cars, the transformation is actually mostly in the details rather than in big blanket changes.

Sidebar – I’m not sure that I qualify to fit into the “into restoring old cars” category, but the fact that I’m calling out transformation details, gives me carte blanche to go with it. That and it’s my blog and I can do what I want. So there.

For example, the weather-stripping around the windows of cars gets really rigid and brittle and cracked over time. It also fades some so it’s more like a charcoal grey than black. Replacing just that rubber around the windows makes a big difference in the overall look of the car. It’s really quite amazing.

The other subtle thing that creates huge impact is changing the rims. We went from standard and blah wheels to vintage and cool simply by putting on new tires white-walls out (for the vintage) and slot mag rims (for the cool). You can cause a sensation to sweep the nation with polished slot mags. It’s true. You can look it up.

So all that said, I’m still looking forward to getting paint on the car. It almost has that “it’s really real” feeling. Wait. The biggest portion of our budget is being spent on this. So that feeling might be the early onset of nausea as I’ve subconsciously realized that a large sum of money will no longer be in our possession come this time next week. Gasp. Sigh. Hmm. Meh. Oh well. I’m over it. Onward!

The Gearhead went to about a 42 body shops in the area, hauling around the car on a trailer so that the guys could all have a look-see and bid on the paint project. We finally decided on a local place to do the job. All the bids were pretty close to each other, but this place is right in our town and about a hop, skip and a jump away from our house so it’s convenient and they could get it done in the next week. On top of that, the painters are super excited to do it.

You know that feeling you get when you just click with someone who has the same interests that you do? The painters were gushing over the car, looking past all the surface rust and door dings and envisioning the car as it could be. They’d step in to examine some detail, then step back to ooh and ahh. One of them even started running his hand over the lines of the car, following it all around the Kadett as he gave it the once-over. The Gearhead ate it up. And for good reason really. It’s so nice to have someone you’ve brought into a project be as excited about it as you are. Not only do they get on board with your vision, but they put a little extra care into the job they are doing for you. They want to see the car look as good as you do and they are ecstatic to have a hand in getting something gorgeous out on the road again.

The paint we have chosen is actually the same blue that is already on the car. We’re really stepping out of our comfort zone on this one. But the thing is that I really like the baby blue. The lines on this car are smooth and curvy. The shape and style of the body almost remind me of an Austin Powers mobile. No gadgets or hidden bells and whistles though. More like the car he would have taken out on weekends to unwind.

There’s a perfect line that lends itself to a two-tone color combination, so we’re gonna class it up even more by adding white to the hood, roof and trunk top. So the top 1/3 of the car will be white and the bottom 2/3rds will be baby blue. The hood has two inset panels on it with a raised section in the middle that’s about a foot across. Following the line of the car means that we’re going to bring the baby blue color up and onto that raised section on the hood. So we’ll have a bit of a racing stripe effect. Beyond that, I think that the baby blue and white is so bright and fresh looking. It makes you smile to see it. Add in the black interior and now we’ve amped up the retro factor a bit too. Kool and the Gang.