Auto Painting

1972 Ferrari 365 GTS Daytona Spyder

Original paint had some serious cracking. Completely stripped to bare metal and painted in lacquer.

1968 Chevy Nova

Originally Sequoia Green. Rear wheel openings enlarged, retaining original shape and lip. Painted in Classic White lacquer.

1970 Chevy Camaro

Stripped to bare metal, enlarged rear wheel openings, fiberglass front end & hood. Painted in white pearl with candy apple red & candy tangerine stripe.

Mercedes Benz 300 SL Gullwing

Still had original paint, but in extremely poor condition. Body was very good shape. A lot of time spent getting this perfect for new black lacquer.

1969 Chevy El Camino SS396

This was an original SS396 still in the original black paint. Interior was very nice, but did not run and the body was in bad shape. 2 new quarter panels, 2 new door skins, and 2 new front fenders. Body came out perfect, new wheels & tires, and a new 396 350HP.

1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4

This was brought to me painted candy apple red. Not what you would expect on a 275 Ferrari, and it was a bad job. Stripped completely and painted Ferrari yellow in lacquer.

1972 Chevy Corvette Stingray

It was Orange Firemist when I bought it in 1973, with a luggage rack! 454 270 HP with a Turbo 400. The only thing I liked was the interior. I installed a 427 L-88, aluminum open chamber heads, 11-1 compression. This was the first car I painted pearl white.

Datsun 240Z

This was a fun project. I bought this in 1976 for $1,100. It was green when I got it and there was not a spot on the body that did not have damage. It was always parked on the street in Chicago. The interior was perfect and it ran great. The pictures are old and faded. In person the car looked perfect after it was painted.

72 / 74 Camaro Pro Stock - This is a sad story!

There are very few pictures of this project and none of it completed.

The above Barry Setzer 72 Camaro Pro Stock came to Ronnie Kaplan Engineering in 1974 with a new owner. This is when Greg Kaplan, Woody Mays and I worked together.

We ended up keeping the roof, doors, quarter panels. A complete new tube chassis was built and the fiberglass was updated to 1974.

I rebuilt the rear wheel openings and made them look stock, but larger. The rear tires were now inside the fenders, allowing the rear of the car to sit 4 inches lower. All the body and fiberglass work was completed and the chassis was painted silver, the body painted pearl blue (front), and navy blue (rear).

You can see I started buffing the body in the last picture, but had not painted the hood scoop because VFN had not completed the hood yet.

When the car was completed it was really nice and the paint was perfect.

During the trip home with the completed car, the truck and trailer went off the road and rolled numerous times. The Camaro was completely destroyed and sold for parts.

1967 Chevy Camaro

Tony Christian's race cars were always black. After I painted my 72 Corvette pearl white, I wanted to paint his Camaro pearl white too. When the rear end was narrowed and the rear wheel openings needed to be enlarged, it was time to paint it white.

The first race with the new paint job, the front end got covered with nitro when a top fuel dragster was starting on the rollers at Union Grove, WI. The paint was only a couple days old and was really damaged.

I did a quick job spotting in pearl on the front end and roof so it was ready to leave in a couple days for a points meet. If you look closely, the front fender does not match the door. The plan was to repaint it completely, but the Camaro eventually went to a friend and that is when I repainted it.

1976 Mercedes 450SL

Compete body restoration & paint

1976 - repainted 4 Alfa Romeos at one time

Ship from Italy caught fire, these just had cosmetic paint damage