sparkling.
In an attempt to spiffy up Roy for the upcoming event I decided to have some cosmetic changes done – repaint the hardtop and front bumper. Originally, the hardtop was Montego Blue and while it was an okay match at night, during the daylight the blue-green was quite the contrast to the rest of the car. I settled on having the hardtop repainted with Sparkling Black Mica (color code 35N), a black with gold metallic flakes; this color is found on some of Mazda’s cars, such as the RX-8, Mazda 6, and CX-9. As Justin put it – I was staying within the family. For the bumper, I stayed with Brilliant Black and waived to keep the holes for the emblem.
I took Roy to ProTech, managed by Anthony, to have the work done.
Here is the new Roy:
From a distance the hardtop looks pretty swell and acceptable, the subtlety of the gold metallic flakes and lighter black is a nice balance and I think stands out well. With that being said, getting up close, I noticed some imperfections with the paint /sad face. I think having rushed the job and not giving enough time for the paint to completely harden and dry led to a quarter-sized burn in the paint and swirl marks from having the hardtop polished. As a courtesy, Anthony had asked me if I wanted it polished and I agreed not knowing that the painted needed more time to dry! So off to Pro Tech to have the paint re-done!! Argh. At least I still have about 1 week before the big weekend and that should give enough time for the paint to dry.
On the other hand, the bumper looks so much better with a decent paint job. I’m not sure what happened with the previous owners, but a shitty job was done and the paint never really matched the body and an unsightly “pig nose” where the emblem was. I opted to not have the Garage Vary front lip painted – would it look cleaner if it was painted?
Unfortunately, this past weekend I took a drive down to Davenport and the bumper collected a bunch of bugs…there goes a brand new bumper! Hopefully this doesn’t affect the paint too much since I think the paint hadn’t completely hardened/dried – I might have embedded bugs…boooo!
Well, here’s hoping that 2nd time is a charm and the Sparkling Black Mica is perfect!
My inspiration:
(Silver hardtop with metallic flakes)
