1989 Saleen #50 – Getting New Clothes!
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Initially we were planning to only touch up parts of this car. During the initial conversations it was apparent that the car had had a little paint work but not much. Upon detailed investigation when it arrived the cars past revealed a lot more paint work. AND you can read here how we found that it was an early build 89. < Tap/Click. What was under the 9 stripe decal revealed the cars past. The owners have made their choice on what to do with the car with the stripes. Stay tuned to see what they have decided to do.
In a full deep inspection of the car it showed that all but one door, one quarter and the roof had paint work at some point. The rear bumper looked to be original paint as it still had the VIN decal.
So we consulted with the owners about all that the car was revealing to us and decided to go to a full repaint. It also makes sense based on the recent values of the Saleen Foxbody cars.
As you can see, the car is getting a full repaint including the engine bay.
Prior to taking it down to metal as pictured above, we had a Paintless Dent Removal (PDR) of the car done to help reduce the amount of time in smoothing the car over AND to reduce the amount of filler put on the car. The less filler there is, the less likely you’ll see things in the paint later on as it shrinks.
The car is coming along nicely. There’s plenty more to go though. We’ve got more to report in a little bit on the motor.
I’m restoring 88#363 as well. Starting work on engine bay to paint. As you have the car bay ready for paint. All the things left were painted by Ford. IE bumper shocks, hood latch receiver ?All else looks like it’s removed. How far back under the tunnel are you going to paint. Is the paint the same as the exterior minus the clear?
We’re planning to replicate the factory overspray for the most part. It will be a little better than OE. This car wouldn’t have had a clear coat so it would only have overspray into the engine compartment. Cars with clearcoat would have some clear sprayed into the engine bay just across the top of the firewall and down the tops of the inner fender aprons. All as overspray. The hood latch receiver wasn’t painted body color. Only the mount it goes on is painted body color. The small hood bumpers should be painted body color and will be.