Colour (sorry US Guys - ColOR) concerns!

[V8 Vum]

I think many of us either contemplating building or in the earlier stages of building, turn their thoughts and dreams to the sticky subject of colour of the finished article.

Indeed, I for one, have flip-flopped many times , experiencing the associated angst and stress that comes with wanting our prodigy to be unique, charismatic, and worthy of our efforts (and possibly a babe magnet! ...for those that won't admit it!).
Mix this with colour issues regarding to fading, gel-coat swirling etc, and you have a coctail for long-term pleasure/pain!

So, to a couple of questions:

RED & YELLOW - colours that really stands out above others in the visibility stakes, with BLACK being close adding sofistication. All hugely popular, as they are associated with super-cars, which the Ultima is!

But... RED painted - appears to be a problem which I would like to have confirmed or denied, in that every red car I have had, has shown fading (or milking) within a few years which rather takes the shine off the original choice, and seems impossible to reverse. Do all reds suffer this?

RED - gelcoat - appears as reported in some cases to suffer later with feint black swirls showing through.

YELLOW - does this colour suffer the same fate as above, but maybe at a lesser degree?

BLACK - very popular choice, but shows marks and general dirt very easily?

Comments please! - any technical colour gurus out there? Other suggestions?

[Pb3]

YELLOW - I have black showing through in places. My body was on the Donnington stand in 2001, car registered 2004. Black started to show in 2008, it is not excessive but if you look you will see it. Ultima told me that they had since changed the gel-coat and this was not an issue anymore

[Steve_D]

Red paint will always oxidize but can normally be brought back with a cutting compound. Gell will do the same but the Red gel/black swirls is another issue.

My colour choice is Yellow.

Paul was quoted £1400 to wrap an Ultima which is very cheap compared to having it painted so colour changes may not be so painful.

Steve

[LuckyP]

My black gel lasted very well and was alway uniform. I did find that towards the end of my ownership it started getting a little brown tinge to it. Difficult to explain. Always buffed up nicely, but once I noticed the brown, I always looked for it!!

[bluesatin]

The black gelcoat is based on standard british black and has quite a lot of red in the colour. After 8 years mine is showing more brown /red tinge but this is uniform. Only problem you will have is if you spray any part of the car.

[GTRCLIVE]

Gelcoat will always be great to sell, but a painted finished will always outlast it, as there no UV protection. Most Clear Lacquer's have a UV protection rating so a Painted lacquer finish will be best.
So buy which ever Gel colour you want but remember if you intend to keep the car for a while say over 5 years, then you eventually have to paint it to keep it pristine.

Just a foot note, alot of Carbon Products have a Sprayed Lacquer finish for the same reason, to protect the Carbon Epoxy resin from UV ...

[738 driver]

2000's w+d, a mist of clearcoat adhesion base and two coats of quality clearcoat with plasticiser additive will help protect colour-sensitive gelcoat.............along with a dark-coloured polyester glaze finish to the rear face of the GRP.
UV passing 'through' the body is the root cause of colour demise...the Ultima body is quite thin in most area's (think weight).
'Reds' and 'yellows' are a pain in most types of finish but the above mentioned will help Gent's.

[bluesatin]

You get UV inhibitors in gelcoat but not sure what are used by ultima. Saying that my Ultima is enterning the 9th year and still looks very black to me!

Clive- how long did you keep your car?

[andygtt]

The red gel coat fades and becomes transparent very quickly if exposed to a lot of sun... this exposes the black swirls of the painted underside.

after an accident the rear clip of my car (red canam) was left outside for a year and looked 100years old it had faded so badly.