PAINT

This is normal, as there was NO CLEAR COAT on Ferraris until 1992. Original paint is single stage paint, without clear coat...it's up to you to decide whether it is best to stay original, or to cover it with a clear coat.

Rgds

 

Hi, My father had a auto body shop and I've been painting and restoring cars for many years and have been to many OEM paint training programs over the years. The first thing is to define clear coat because there are clear coat paints and clear coat paint protection systems. The OEM's did not start using clear coat paint on top of colors until sometime around the late 80's early 90's and started with metallic colors first (not sure when Ferrari started clear coating red). If you are getting red on your cloth, the car was painted with a single stage finish and never had a clear coat paint (two stage finish) from the factory. A clear coat paint protection system would be beneficial and there are many levels from a basic organic (carnuba) or synthetic based (Teflon) wax to a more in depth polish applied system. A true clear coat paint would require the same surface preparation as an actual repaint of the car and I would not recommend that unless the car needed repaint in general. So if you get no red color on your cloth from the front portion of the car, you are likely discovering that they repainted the nose using a two stage paint system (base coat color + clear coat paint). This aids in the color blending and matching process so the base color can be faded back to avoid a panel to panel match and the clear paint seals it all in. The Rest of the car from the windscreen back has OEM single stage paint with the exterior resins combined with the pigment in one process. Excessive machine polishing will continue to thin the paint and shorten its gloss life. I would investigate clear coat protection systems carefully and once you have the shine you want, future hand waxing of the original paint will preserve it much longer than repeated machine polishing. I hope this helps!


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You raise a great point.
Whenever I polish a fully original 20 plus year old car (very rare I know) they always leave paint on the pads, rags etc. Trouble is most of the paint refinishing is needed at the front and that is where the problem lies. The more you repolish the more you take away the paint and the less paint you have to work with again.
I would say 80% of all Ferrari's in the 70's, 80's and till the mid 90's would have had some paint at some stage, especially on the front bonnet otherwise they would be covered in chips.
In my opinion the best option is to have original paint from the lower windscreen back and clear coat forward from then on. It gives you the best of both worlds as it allows you to have a much harder paint on the front for chips and repolishing, while the rest of the car that tends to have less exposure remains standard.

See this link below as it talks about the over polishing problem in a bit more details...

Why Over Polishing Cars is a Problem

 

I use Swissvax or Meguiar's. As long as it's a good quality wax most are fine. The issue is not to over polish the car. Waxing won't take paint off, polish will.