308 Euro Front Bumper Removal & Red Bumpers

It's pretty easy. Remove the grill, then unscrew the 4 bolts that hold the bumper to the brackets. Someone should hold the bumper while doing that otherwise it falls down, but other than that, it's that simple. You might wanna respray both bumpers to have the same finishing.

I've seen Belgian 308's with red bumpers, but I'm not sure if this is original or not. However I do like the yellow foglights! Great looking car!!

 

The Red front bumper on French Market cars was definetly not done by the factory!!!

These are "owner customisations"......French QV's had the yellow Cibie Airports in the grille),other Euro's were clear and yellow Carello headlight glass....these are French market legal requirements.....other than that the French QV's were identical to other "Euro's".

Hope this helps,
Pete

 

I have a french QV as well. Painting the bumper back to black will help plenty. Nice to see that your car retained the original euro blinker repeaters on the front fenders (see how they are smaller then the rear fender markers). I really want to convert mine back to those and remove the rears which were added during federalization.

Nice looking car. Is this the one that was kicking around Craig's List out in Arizona a few years back? I enquired about a car that looked exactly like yours when I was looking, but never received a response. Any more pictures?

 

Brantley, you should not need to remove the bumper bracket nuts (2 on either bracket). Each bracket is mounted to a pipe which in turn mounts to a mating pipe on the chasses which is secured by a mounting/securing bolt. This allowed for the bumper to be adjusted. It should be able to be removed by simply unfastening the securing bolts and sliding the bumper off. I can show you if you like as I am local. PM was sent

 

Nice looking and rare example......spray the bumper black, definately......as noted you could remove and patch the rear side markers and lose the shields for a really nice OEM look.

Congrats on the purchase!

 

you can also use Jack stands on either end of the bumper to hold it up but I can't imagine its anywhere near as heavy as the US POS bumper!

 

You bastard! You bought that car out from under me! LOL! Seriously...I was in contact with the seller and he told me you were waiting to liquidate some funds but if you hadn't, that car would be mine! So give me a ride, would ya?!

 

Mine has red bumpers too....it was painted by the 1st owner.....what is the correct black? Flat/matte? Also, is there a slight rubbery feel to black for it to be correct?
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I guess it should be somewhere between glossy and matte, is that silk or satin? Anyhow, let's get those red bumpers back to the original!

 

I would take it to a Body Shop.

The bumper IS rubber!

So they have used a flex additive in the paint to get it to 'stick' at all.

They will know what to do the strip the paint back to the underlying black rubber, but getting it to "look nice" again is anybody's guess.

You may end up replace them with some that have not suffered the indignity.

There are plenty out there, as owners do a "Euro Upgrade" to fibreglass ones.
One of the repro comapnies (MacCarbon?) was going to do the North American shape in 'glass, to get the weight savings without changing the grill bars.

Painting those satin black might be a way out of the woods.

 

Maybe a French Ferrari dealer offered this as a dealer-fitted option on new cars??
I believe many of the color-coded roof spoilers on later 308s and 328s were done by dealers.
I think it looks pretty good actually! The US spec bumpers defintely dont look good in red though.

 

I guess they were chasing the 'modern look" of the 328.

A shame really as the lighter 'look' of the early cars is a real asset, IMO.

 

My bumpers have a satin finish. You can get suprisingly good results scuffing the bumpers with 320 grit and spraying with SEM Bumper Coat. I would recommend against purchasing a bumper finish at the local auto parts store. Duplicolor in not in the same league as SEM!

 

Good advice!

I know there have been some split rubber ones succesfully repaired and painted.
It's doable.

 

I refinished my bumpers using SEM rubber and trim paint.
They look great.

 

I have SEM bumper paint also.

 

Front bumper and loovers are black now.
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MUCH better!

Thumbs up on your ground up restoration!!! LOL!

 

Bumper looks much better! Now what have you decided about the back bumper?

 

Actually have not decided yet....i was going to do it the same time but i realized the rubber flashing? that is riveted to rear body panel above the bumper is red too. I think that would mean taking the car to a body shop to do it right? So....it is staying red for now. Actually, the rear bumper in Red is growing on me.

 

This is one gal that looks better without the lipstick and rough.

 

LOL!