We received this Dino “Black Beauty” a couple weeks ago. It’s had three paint jobs stacked on top of each other from previous restorations/re-paints throughout its life. It will be going back to its original black (Nero).
We have been working hard on stripping — and not so much on blogging — over the past couple weeks. We’re stripping the material off the car along with pulling the radiator, AC condenser and fans. This car will be converted to a European look. A lot like Oro Kelso, it will undergo fabricating new European front parking/signal lights (flush mount) as well as filling the U.S. reflector holes on both sides, front and rear.
The day has arrived… the Oro Kelso Dino is in its first stage of color! After many hours of color matching from the factory original color found in the door jams, we finally got to spray it on the car. The formula has seven toners to this beautiful gold color. Two of those toners being fine and extra fine metallic. We decided to base coat the car in two different sessions in order to bring the highlight out in the color.
Tomorrow we’ll sand the base coat in 1,000 grit and get it ready to dust a little bit more color and clear the car. Can’t wait. Here are a couple shots of the color before clear in its first base coat stage. Enjoy!
Thought you might like to see a few more photos of the 206 GT Nocciola — both before and afters.
My friend Jon G has just completed this beautiful Dino 206 GT I surfaced and painted. He re-assembled it including a new interior. It will be coming back to my shop after the holidays for its final detail before being delivered to the client. What a great feeling to be able to work on these cars but to accomplish the task of bringing them back to their original splendor.
I’ll post some more photos tomorrow.
Doors were re-installed with the rest of the body parts. Everything fits really well and now has a heavy guide coat. We use this guide coat process to help us read the surface from highs and lows when we’re blocking. When all the black guide coat is sanded off you have a perfect surface and it is then ready for paint. We use this process from start to finish. A car usually gets guide coated up to five or six times through all the stages of surfacing.
Getting the Dino doors ready to re-install takes time. Anyone that has done this job knows the front filler rubber can be a bear to get in on some cars.
During the paint prep for the jams, the channel where you slide the rubber in must be stripped so you can allow as much room as possible for the rubber to slide in easily. At that stage you can take a tool and open the channel a bit more to let the new rubber slide into it. The problem lies with the reproduction rubber; it is a little too big. The edge of the rubber that you slide into the groove on the door has two very small round rubber pipings molded into the rubber. Take a razor blade, and by clamping one end of the rubber to a table, you can carefully trim one of the rubber pipings off the rubber then sand the edge with 150 sandpaper smooth. Then liquid soap the channel and the new rubber will slide right in.
3M makes a great tape… a little expensive but it sure saves a lot of time and guarantees that it will be easier to pull and won’t leave any marks. We use 3M low tack tape to get a tight seal and protect from any over spray or damage to the new paint before the doors get re-installed. The Dino door hing slots should already be cleaned or reamed for over sized pins if needed before the doors go in for the last time. This Dino’s door hinges and original pins were in great shape and fit just right.
I pulled the Dino out of the spray booth today and had a chance to see the color in sunlight. It’s set up in the shop right now so we can re-hang the doors and the rest of the parts and give it a guide coat and begin our final blocking before paint. There’s a lot of sanding yet to do on the Dino. I’d like to get it paint on it before Christmas but I don’t want to rush through this phase.
The color looks beautiful in the afternoon sun! I really am looking forward to getting the car in paint.
Just got out of the spray booth. Painting door jams on the Oro Kelso Dino!! This is a beautiful color. I really can’t wait to see the car completed. Anyway, I hope to post some photos of the jams in color this weekend.
The owner of the Oro Kelso Dino is comparing a color spray out (bottom) with the original color from the inner door jam filler plate.
Painting a rare color has its challenges. Only three were painted this special Oro Kelso color from the Pininfarina special color chart. Furthermore, this Dino had only two paint jobs — the factory Oro Kelso and a very inexpensive, quick red paint job. The good thing about the second paint job is that the shop taped and masked everything off. So that left me with plenty of Oro Kelso color to match.
In an effort to find a paint formula for Oro Kelso I spent many hours researching either PPG or BASF, which were primary paint manufacturers used in Europe. Unfortunately, I found nothing. Since we had plenty of original color in the jams we opted to take the time to do a color match.
It wasn’t easy! We could tell that it was a fine metallic and we started from there. After over 15 spray outs we got pretty close. We got the face but it still needed more time spent to get the correct side cast and fall off. By using a little extra fine silver and flop control we nailed it! I don’t know if this color was considered a gold or a medium brown metallic but I can tell you that it is a beautiful color for a Dino! Pininfarina was a genius and surely knew his colors! The Ferrari world will surely miss this world class automobile designer.
I formulated this color and if any one needs this color just send me a note and I will be more than glad to send you the color formula. It would be great if we knew where the other two Oro Kelso Dinos are. Anybody know?
Bella Classics by Steve Kouracos 