Paintless dent/ding removal on Ferrari's from the 80's and single stage paint

I've pushed a few back on my 348 without a problem.

 

Even my local longtime specialist cringes at the thought of older cars, they used thicker metal

 

I've had the paintless dent removal done on both my former 308 and my current 328, and the service used by my local body shop did a great job. You would never know that the dings were there to begin with and the paint held up just fine through the process. The body shop then buffed the whole car out, and the paint looked great. Dings gone.

That said, in my experience with the paintless dent removal guys, it really depends on the nature and extent of the dent. Small door dings that are rounded in shape with no cracking or chipping of the paint seem to come out easily. The tough ones are the ones that have a sharp crease in them. They don't always come out cleanly. And if the paint is damage, either chipped or cracked, the dent may come out, but the paint will still be marred.

 

A friend of mine owns a paintless dent repair shop and he said that there's no difference in paint adhesion between single stage and base/clearcoat.

However there IS a difference between original paint and paint that is repainted, especially when it is applied over any part of the original finish (i.e., not applied to bare metal). It doesn't make too much of a difference for a dent than can be worked out from the back side, but if they need to use a glue stick to pull from the paint side then sometimes the repainted area can be pulled off the original finish.

The issue with older cars is not necessarily the thicker metal but rather the type of steel used. Newer cars use "high strength" steel which is not only thinner but also has a much more pronounced "memory" propoerty. So with the newer steel it's easier to release the stresses imparted by a ding to get the steel to spring back into its original shape.

 

No problem. I have had dings removed from a 78 308 GTS, 87 328 GTS and 1997 355 spider, all were sucessfully removed and looked perfect. They key is finding a good guy, with recommendations.