250 GT California SWB Original paint depth

I have the paint gauge readings off the car from the Baillon Collection. I know with Ferrari's there can be a huge variance. What should the proper range be?

 

I think you want to move this to the vintage section. This area is more about the Vintage market.

 

Regardless of paint depth, the California Spyder sold for 16.3 million Euros or almost $18.6M USD!

16.3m euro California Spider rounds up barn-find frenzy at Artcurial sale | Classic Driver Magazine

 

I have no idea what paint depth really means, but I think it was black this morning.

 

Paint thickness

 

Yeah unlikely to be relevant for a 50 year old car in this condition.

 

However, assuming the car's never received any paint/bodywork since new, paint thickness will give a good historical reference for just how thick the paint + other underlying material on top of the metal are supposed to be for an original/unmolested Scaglietti-bodied early-1960s Ferrari, etc.

 

Please share the paint gauge readings for the total thickness of the paint + underlying material up till the metal, etc.

 

Does not mean anything as something like 30-70% of the mass has evaporatated during the past 50 years and the layers have gotten much thinner in the process. I just removed something like 13-16 coats of paint from my GTE and had no idea there were so many as the newest layer was sprayed around 1970 or so and as a result of evaporation the total thickness of the "cake" matched maybe 3-4 fresh coats of paint.

 

You cannot use a paint thickness gauge on a Ferrari from that vintage and carrozzeria and expect to get consistent readings. The craftsmen at Scaglietti would coat the entire car in a thin/thick coating of bondo/filler and then sand the car smooth before painting it.

They were hand built and hand painted cars. They are not like a modern car. The information from your gauge will be useless.

 

+1
Although I'm not very familiar with earlier Scaglietti coach work, but my (limited) experience with Daytonas has revealed surprising (shocking ?) amount of fillers (which BTW includes A LOT of lead) being used to produce reasonable surface for final paint.
I can only imagine how things were ten years earlier (=less experience?).