What colour????

[PJ57]

Hi all, after removing the dodgy wrap on the bonnet of my Chimaera, despite being super careful and using a heat gun, I still managed to remove half of the lacquer in the process I'm getting v-expensive quotes to put the bonnet right due to the cost of paint and there's a very small chance that the new paint will match, I think saving for a full re-spray if the way forward.

Anyway, whilst looking at colours, I was wondering if returning the car to it's original colour (Halcyon Blue) would have any bearing on the cars overall value?

It's currently a flip colour as below


Was thinking of this....Viper Blue


Or is it worth more to repaint in the original Halcyon Blue (which I believe was a limited run of Chimaera's painted in this...or am I wrong??)



Any thoughts greatly appreciated

[PJ57]

phazed said:

You might as well keep the colour, redo the bonnet matt black and replace the wheels with some nice wider polished rim wheels to set it off, (as it's non standard anyway).

Loving those rims, look a perfect fit and make the car look so much more aggressive.
I'll be selling mine on soon (Think they are wolfrace copies of the SP12 style), as the offset's all wrong. The rears are too far in the wheel wells, and the fronts too far out. I had to change the front tyres to 215/40/16's as the ones on the car were rubbing on the inner arches.
With the lower profile, they now look lost in the front arches.
Currently bidding on some standard wheels at the moment as an easy fix, and kinda thought going back to stock may be an idea, although the tuning bug is starting to bite already.

I like the current flip paint, but it's tatty in places but the cheaper option of the black bonnet may be a better option to tidy the car up for the time being.

[PJ57]

V8 GRF said:

My Griffith is Halcyon Atlantis to give it it's full name. It wasn't a limited edition colour but was introduced in the latter end of the production life of the cars I believe. The last (official) Griffith 500SE was painted this colour

It's a great colour and generates much attention and comment.It has a good range of shade from Blue to Green depending on the formulation and the position of the sun/shadows, not easy to photograph.

Edited by V8 GRF on Thursday 17th July 18:06

Thanks for the photo, that does look lovely in the pic.
I need to get out more, as haven't seen this colour in the flesh yet
Think that may be the way forward once I've got the rest of the car up to speed......still loads to do

[PJ57]

Dr Mike Oxgreen said:

Personally, I don't think you should worry about the effect on the car's value. There's a far more important criterion: which colour do you like?

I like them both TBH, but after seeing the colour in the photo from V8 GRF, I'm definitely leaning towards the original colour now

[PJ57]

s p a c e m a n said:

Was just having a google to see if anyone made some vinyl wrap close to the colour that you have and found this..

http://www.fxuk.net/image-gallery-more.aspx?gid=39...

That join line was disgraceful

Bloody hell, well spotted. Do you think I should let them know the wrap doesn't exist anymore

They actually did a great job fitting this, the line across the bonnet is actually the Armourfend that was fitted when the car was painted. That was the part that started taking the lacquer off when I removed the wrap

[PJ57]

Rib said:

The cost of the paint from tvr guys is, well, a lot. Might be worth seeing if custompaints have that particular flip colour? However unless you had the the same paint and know how many layers it had it will probably always stick out.

Cool, will have a look and see what they've got....Thanks

[PJ57]

s p a c e m a n said:

Looking at some of the chameleon vinyl wrap colours that are available I reckon that you might get a decent enough match if you find someone who knows what they're doing.

5 mins on ebay got me fairly close, a proper vehicle graphics firm might have a nice big database to buy from and it'll only cost a couple hundred quid to wrap that.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Chameleon-Car-Wrap-1-52-...

Thanks, May be a good option, will have to check how much it will cost to cut back the deep ridges where the lacquer has come off. Had loads of coats on it, as there's quite a step in the paintwork

[PJ57]

pk500 said:

my chimaera is halcyon Atlantis pearl

Wow, that's stunning. Did you get it re-sprayed recently? or is that very well looked after original paintwork? Definitely a great looking colour.
Love the rims too, set the whole car off nicely

[PJ57]

Chuffmeister said:

pk500 said:

my chimaera is halcyon Atlantis pearl

Now I like those wheels!

They fit the car perfectly, what offsets are you running??
Unfortunately on mine, they are back to front with the rears too far in and the fronts too far out, so looks a bit strange at the moment

[PJ57]

Chuffmeister said:

Silver... With silver!

Looks amazing, love the way the lines are accentuated more with the silver.

[PJ57]

V8 GRF said:

When that photo of my car was taken the paint was 10 years old, it still looked as good when I had my accident last year.
S&D repaired and repainted the car in the same colour.(Which is the same as the Chimaera) It's not one of the more complex flip paints so isn't ridiculously expensive. You can control whether it's more blue or green by the amount of tint.

Here's a pic of mine in paint:

Yep, seriously nice....sorry to hear of the accident though...What happened??

[PJ57]

V8 GRF said:

I lost an argument with the central reservation of the M6 Toll on my way to the TVRCC AGM.

St!!!! thought it was going to be a parking scratch of something. Gutted for you, that's proper nasty. Hope it was only the car that was injured and all is back to normal now.
I guess that's the only downside with the fg bodies is the damage they sustain when they hit something hard.

Mine was re-sprayed after a prang, the documentation listed it as a "Badger Strike" Did make me laugh a bit when I read it, although I feel for the badger

[PJ57]

AlexHillTVR said:

Starmist Green

There's definitely something about a British car in dark green, similar to British Racing...nice

[PJ57]

s p a c e m a n said:

Are we all posing pictures of our cars to tempt you into a colour now? Sod the paint, go dirt green

Will need a lot more than that to cover my dodgy bonnet

[PJ57]

911legend said:

paint the bonnet black £300 JOB DONE.......

Can't do it, really didn't like the black carbon wrap on the bonnet before, really didn't suit the car....Hoping Specialist Paints will see me right, for not a lot more money

[PJ57]

QBee said:

OP, tell me more about your wheels - size, offset etc. Just to see if we can solve your problem, as they look nice on the car.

Thanks.

TBH, All I know is they are 16's initially running 225/50/16's on the front (Changed to 215/40/16's to clear inner wings) and 17's rear with 235/40/17's IIRC....Cant check the rear sizes at the mo, but will confirm tomorrow.
All I know with the offset is the rears sit in the arches about 1 1/2" more than the fronts and I'm not keen on running spacers on a performance car due to the extra load put on the wheel bearings.

I have just won a bid on 4 standard Imola wheels 15's and 16's that I know will fit well in the meantime, so the current ones will be up for sale soon with pretty much brand new tyres on
Thinking of powder-coating them a graphite colour to be a bit different until I can decide (save up for) bigger rims as they do look fantastic on the cars above.

[PJ57]

QBee said:

I will have a look at mine tomorrow re the appearance of the offset. The 225/50 16 Tyres you took off the fronts will be perfect for the Imola rears - standard factory size. Fronts for the Imolas was 205/55 15 on Chims....and that will look correct. Given your catching issues, I wouldn't go too wide on the front.

215/40 16 is too small for fronts - I run 215/40 17s on mine on the road, and 215/45 17s on track.

Offset will be stamped inside the wheels, prefixed maybe with ET. You need this for the advert, together with the 4x108 stud pattern and the diameter of the centre hole.

Thanks for all the info. I picked up the Imolas this morning with pretty dead R888's on, running 225/50/15's on the front and 225/50/16's on the rear. To be fair, the 225's on the front do look a little too wide for the rims, but all the tyres are completely buggered, so will need new ones all round.

Stupidly I've sold the 225/50/16's on ebay without thinking I would go to stock rim sizes...DOH!!!
Will need to do some shopping for the best road tyres, the R888's look awesome, but think they will be wasted on a road machine.
Would go with Federal RSR's if I could as they are awesome tyres, but don't do them in the correct sizes sadly

Thanks for the stud pattern sizes, will make selling the wheels to fund new tyres much easier.

[PJ57]

davelittlewood said:

When I find that spare couple of grand behind the sofa I'm going for candy apple red with a black roof and back interior

Very much a pipe dream though

Nice!! Keep dreaming, one day it may well happen I dreamt of owning a Chimaera for years, even bought the Bible a few years back (Sad I know), and hey, I now have an awesome vehicle to go with the book

[PJ57]

QBee said:

R888s are squarer shouldered than standard road tyres. My 215/45 17 R888 fronts are 15mm wider than my same size Bridgestones. Hence why they look so wide. If the R888s still have 2mm of tread on them stick them on EBay. You might be surprised......

I run Federal 595 RS-Rs on the road on my car. Give a lovely comfortable ride, deal with moderate amounts of wet, yet give track day levels of grip. I did the entire TVRCC track day on them and overtook a Cerbera 4.5 on R888s several times.

Beware - there are other variants of Federal 595. You need the RS-R.

Thanks Qbee, the R888's do look massive. Unfortunately they are completely knackered, and pretty much bald. The previous owner definitely got their use out of them

I love the 595RSR's, had them on my 440bhp RX7 and they put the power down phenomenally with great ride comfort considering the type of tyre.
Would definitely get them for the chim, but they don't do them in 225/50/16 sadly. the fronts on 205/50/15 are fine though
Strange as I thought the rear sizes were far more popular

[PJ57]

QBee said:

You need 205/55 15 for the front. Please be careful with wheel and tyre size selection. It affects handling.
Email me if you want a chat on the phone about it, and I will explain the details to you with pleasure.

Thanks, that was quick.

Oops, my mistake, although there seems some debate as to wider tyres on the front for cars with power steering??

Just going to stick to basics and go with your advice. Just want to get the car sorted and enjoy Hope to get them sorted next week and put some miles on it, although it's back to Elmwood on Thurs to get the service finished

Many thanks for all your advice, hugely appreciated