My ugly baby.

I love my car, and have been fixing it up for a few years now. I've spent a lot of time and money making it run great, but all that people can see is the outside. Unfortunately, about 7 years ago the factory paint was dulling pretty badly, and the previous owner decided to spruce it up with a cheap Maaco paint job. That paint looked great for about a year, but is now peeling, and some of the factory paint is coming with it. Throw in the normal Porsche problems (cracking rock guards) and some body worked that needs to be cleaned up, and I have a project on my hands.

I looked at the possibility of a professional paint job, but a few hundred dollar paint job would only multiply the existing problems; and a pro job would run $3k-$20k depending on the quality. Spending more than the value of the car (BlueBook-ish $5k) just doesn't make sense. So I was left with the only other option, paint it myself using good friends and some great resources.

I spent the better part of two years looking at different paint lines, and reading every resource I could find about DIY garage automotive paint jobs. My very favorite book was:

How to Paint Your Car on a Budget (Cartech)

It was about as informative as possible, and geared towards painting in the garage, unlike most other paining books that focus on pro painters or hot-rod builders. I also checked out several Paintucation movies by Kevin Tetz from my local library, which were pretty good, but I don't have a VHS anymore and it was a paint to track one down. They were good information as well, though to be honest I saw pretty similar content just by surfing hours of videos online. One of my favorites was this crazy angry guy who makes videos about his body work. He's worth a watch and some basic info about painting. I also liked this more professional youtube channel of some high level body work. Also many thanks go out to the dozens of Rennlist users who posted info about their painting experiences, and of course clarks-garage which has the best porsche info on the web.


I recently found this site by Burton's Customs that is so extensive, I'm surprised the guy doesn't charge for his info, or make a book. He has some great tips, and his site is worth a solid review. I thought of making this blog that educational, except I really don't know what I'm talking about, and this guys has already put in a lot of time and effort. Check it out.


After all this time researching and thinking and planing, I finally decided to document the process. One of the things that I was frustrated with my research was not seeing some of the finer details about the process. Really detailed notes on time spent, actual materials needed, good pictures, and some 944 specific notes. This blog will be written with the fellow 944 owner in mind.

Investment to date: several hundred hours reading books, and blogs, about auto restoration, and countless websites, shows and youtube videos. I'm not going to count research and education in my real tally, nor the $3.40 in late fines for not taking back videos in time. Thanks a lot public library!