I love original paint bikes --- especially if the paint is beat up. To me, that means the scooter has been ridden and enjoyed. I would have loved for my bike to have paint worth saving. But it didn't --- no amount of polishing would bring the thin Indian enamel back to life. It had been sanded and primed so well, I couldn't even tell what the original color was from an external examination.
I started taking the bike apart and it became apparent the bike was originally black --- a fairly unusual Indian GP color as most were orange or blue. After doing some research, I found pictures of how the bike should look --- it should have orange stripes. A guy on the Lambretta USA Club website ran down this photo of a 1978 black SIL Lambretta. This is what I'm shooting for.
I started taking the bike apart and it became apparent the bike was originally black --- a fairly unusual Indian GP color as most were orange or blue. After doing some research, I found pictures of how the bike should look --- it should have orange stripes. A guy on the Lambretta USA Club website ran down this photo of a 1978 black SIL Lambretta. This is what I'm shooting for.
The goal is to make the bike look as good as possible without going overboard. In fact, I'd rather it be imperfect when I get through with it. Perfect bikes are no fun to ride anyway. I don't want to worry about dings, dirt, and the inevitable disaster of having a panel fly off and hit the pavement when I'm doing 40 m.p.h. (which has happened once on this bike already). Imperfections give a bike character and street cred. At least that's what I think.
My goal is to have a shiny paint job that looks good enough from far away, but I'm comfortable enough to let the paint get beat up from normal wear and tear. My hope is that years from now, the casual scooter dork will look at the paint and wonder if it's original because of the wear.
Of course it's more likely that the casual scooter dork will ask, "Uh, so you painted this bike yourself, didn't you?"
Yeah, I did. What of it?
My goal is to have a shiny paint job that looks good enough from far away, but I'm comfortable enough to let the paint get beat up from normal wear and tear. My hope is that years from now, the casual scooter dork will look at the paint and wonder if it's original because of the wear.
Of course it's more likely that the casual scooter dork will ask, "Uh, so you painted this bike yourself, didn't you?"
Yeah, I did. What of it?
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