Were new 911s ever sold with an orange peel finish?

Orange peel is a variable. All cars have some degree of orange peel.

Kevin

Orange peel is caused by the earths rotation

Having convinced their loyal fan base that it’s OK to produce SUVs and a sedan that looks like a turd, Porsche has moved on to convincing them that orange peel is a sign of a quality paint job

OEM Porsche paint is very nice but not dead smooth. If it's too smooth or too much peel, it's not oem.

Yes early 911's where orange peel up to about 1980 when they went to robot painting. That was part of the "handmade" experience.

All manufacturers ship with paint defects, I worked at a Porsche dealer recently for 6 years in both service and sales. They have some orange peel but then there’s shipping issues too, they’re not fully covered on the boat over so condensation gets all over and penetrates sometimes. We used to full color sand and polish every sports car and send the bill to Porsche, they never denied the issue.

My new 2022 F150 has a fair amount of orange peel. I did not know it was a thing with base coat/clear coat?

2 stage let’s you get away with more than single stage. The gloss of the clear moves your eyes away from the orange peal.

I know Mercedes has different paint finishes depending on the model level of the car. I imagine Porsche does as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if their high end and special edition cars get better paint treatments than the cayenne, Boxster, etc.

Friend painted a car factory style at the owner's request...came back with appropriate bit of peel. Then had to polish it smooth when the owner didn't realize he should have stated factory + 40 years of buffing etc.

On a more serious note, it is worse with water based paints that have been forced upon OEMs and the repair industry.

High solids and less solvent (whether water or solvent based) leads to more propensity to orange peel.

Clear coat doesn’t really solve it the problem but gloss can sort of trick your eye and mask it to a degree as mark stated. If you have orange peel in color coat, clear coat just builds up those same hills and valleys. Sure, you can then wet sand the clear coat, but eventually, you’ll cut into the peaks of the color coat and may never touch the valleys. Better to use the appropriate flash rate solvent and allow both the base and the clear to flow properly.

I prefer an orange peel finish, traditional with older German autos. As memory serves, it was a synthol enamel?

Seriously? then Maco and Earl Schieb are there for you.

To each his own. Some people prefer 914s to 911s

A rear engine car with it's center of mass behind the wheels is a fundamentally flawed design. 911s are dangerous & prone to spin out. So is a mid engine car if you lock up the brakes.

I’ll agree to a point. The early cars don’t look right with a perfectly smooth “show” finish.

Here’s a photo I took of a brand new Mercedes G wagon in the showroom a couple months ago. It has orange peel and it’s a $200’000 car.

same spray booth
same gun
same paints
same beer
same guy?

why would 912s, 911s be any different?
all 60s 912s and approx half the 60s 911s came from osnabruk.



Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

paint naturally does it.
unless you go back and sand it.
and.......maybe rolls royce did that.
but even back in the day mercedes did not.
the art was to control the orange peel and have it just there.

When I did my friends 280Sl it had paint drips on the lower edge of the trunk lid. My friend asked me to recreate them because the Concours judges look for them. I guess it's a thing.

you got to be drunk by 10.30 am in the morning to recreate a 1960s german factory paint job.

they used to drink the beer to get the taste of the paint out of their mouths.
(not joking).

We have an old resto and it cost more to wet sand than to paint. Three weeks of sanding but the paint is like a piano.

Finally - someone that appreciates a nice paint job!

There is virtually no orange peel on my 914. The paint is original.

you are special then.
be happy

if you ever repaint it the painter is going to be happy too.
won't be tormented to recreate "shitty" moments in the paint shop at the factory.

truth is its probably been buffed out of your car over the years?
and it may have been very mild originally.
here is a good article even though it concerns modern paint methods.
scroll down the little section "the orange peel moment".

https://newoldcars.com/orange-peel-why-your...ay-look-so-bad/

orange peel happens naturally when the paint cures and drys.
period. to all paint.

on high end cars they buff it out at the factory.
that costs money in extra time.

also the dealers used to do a lot of prep work on porsches back in the 60s and 70s.
the distributor here in aus had a paint and detailing shop out the back.
the cars spent serious time in there before they were delivered to the customer.
truth is that is probably where the car got its real high end "quality" finish.
attention to final detail was probably after it had been shipped.
back then the cars came here in standard cargo (non container) ships and were just in the hold. they could cop a beating on the trip out half way around the world despite protective coatings. the dock workers used to walk all over the tops of the cars.
boot marks everywhere.

And FYI if you talk to any paint chemists, when modern paints dry, the good stuff that protects it comes to the top. Just like Concrete.

Kevin

A local collector had a early 930 turbo with very low miles. When it has been shown it looked like a cheap resto job until you looked at the sub 10K miles. This car had lots of orange peal and the fitment and finish of the flares was not great either (early cars had welded on flares). Standard today is perfect paint and body but that is not how they came out of the factory.

john

There was a lot of hand labor on these cars and I’m sure the workers learned on the job.

FWIW, neither one of my relatively new Toyotas has orange peel.

Porsche was a small company in the 60/70’s. Everything was hand done and they did what they needed to do to get cars out the door.

As stated above. Hans also probably had a nice buzz from both the fumes and brews to get the finish just right. Ha

We had a member in the San Diego region of PCA that had purchased a new 1968 911L in black from the factory and proceeded to sand out the finish ( very carefully ) to achieve a perfectly smooth finish. He was a concours competitor. He even had a tech session to show people how to do it.

looks like all your cars are special!!!! you did well.

i have a renault sport clio 2002. about the same level of orange peel as the 74 914.

also a high end 99 citroen XM (french trying to do merc level quality)/original paint.
same level of orange peel as the renault and the 914.

i have a slightly abused audi A3 that i inherited. it does not really have orange peel.
you can see it in some light but its very mild compared to the other 3.
i suspect it got its paint very heavily cut after some earlier collision damage to repair the nose. might have knocked the original factory finish back smoother that it was showroom.

i have client with a recent toyota prado (not sure if its called that in usa, SUV).
its white and very orange peel.

so i dunno. could depend on the factory car came out of as much as the brand.

sounds right.

i seem to recall stories from the early 80s here that 924s had better paint than 911s.
highly possible that the old NSU factory that was used to build 924s had more up to date paint tech/equipment than the garage in stuttgart. bit hard to know if that story was true since its kind of slightly before my time sticking my noses into porsches.

the NSU RO80s were built to an unbelievably high standard to take on mercedes benz.
it probably wasn't just the rotary engine sent them broke in the end but also the massive investment they made to try and jump up the quality ladder.