Wordless Outtake: A Study In Contrasting Reds
– Posted on August 22, 2011
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I’m a sucker for red cars – such a pity the colour saturation doesn’t last. Broke my heart watching my last car turn from rich red to faded pink. Now I have a “metallic-plum” coloured car and the sunlight doesn’t harm it at all.
Yeah, me too. Both my cars are red; the 2003 Dodge van, a Florida vehicle I bought from a sunbird, now looks like it’s done up in red-brown primer. The smooth, shiny red in the door jambs are a shock.
The lesson I take from this…is that Detroit still has a long way to go on paint durability. And the Italian? If experience is any guide, it won’t last long enough for the paint to fade.
And the Italian? If experience is any guide, it won’t last long enough for the paint to fade.
Um… that’d be recent experience then would it?
I can’t speak for Detroit’s paint expertise, but they’ve getting pretty good at mixing a lasting red here in Europe the past decade or so (perhaps ‘cus we’re not so twitchy about Reds over here… *grin*)
For the record my folks’ first Mk2 FIAT Panda (the car the 500 got its platform with) was red and stayed bright as the day the bought it (not to mention mechanically sound and trouble free, unlike the Mercedes it replaced) until they traded it against another Panda a few years on.
No, not recent experience. Memories of 128s and Stradas on the hook of my tow truck…we did contract work to the local Fiat dealer before Fiat, and he, disappeared.
And there was a reason for that. And I’m suspicious of “We’re a different company now!!” hype. There IS such a thing as institutional memory and corporate culture; and while 29 years is long enough to change it, there first need be a will.
The Yugo was a Fiat 127…right down to interchangeable ventilation parts and dash-panel switches. For all my grief on the Yugo, parts were less of a problem – I was able to get air-box cables and a flap door straight out of a 128.
And – need I say it – the Yugo, too, was trash. It was never noted in Europe; Yugos, Zastava Jugos over there, was just like Fiats.
Justpassinthrough,
You ARE being a bit harsh on the FIAT. I know they had a reputation from the past that was, shall we say, less than reliable?
That said, I’d suggest you read up on what they ARE doing to help make the case for reliability and good service before you spout off.
I’ve read up on them and what they ARE doing and Marchione is part Canadian if that’s anything. Besides, I’m planning on buying one before long.
As has already been said, the Panda has proven itself to be reliable and a GOOD car. Even the 4×4 Country can hold its own in the bogs when pitted against a Range Rover, true, it’s not a quick as the RR, but it CAN traverse some of the same rough terrain without incident.
Fiat has been through the bankruptcy thing brought on by the appalling rubbish they used to build and having been basicly booted out of some markets after being forced to buy their cars back from customers seem to have learned their lesson The newer models seem reliable even durable perhaps Fiat can teach Chrysler how to build cars properly. GM OTOH need to study what their non US divisions do to learn the same lesson
I know their reputation, I was in high school when they retreated from the US.
Still, they ARE making a comeback and that’s what’s important.
Respectfully, distant memories of 70s/80s products from any company just aren’t going to be relevant to the quality of same company’s products today. Nor are licensed soviet built clones of said company’s 60s/70s designs.
Who would have thought the answer to “how to make a 4th generation Camaro look small” was to park a Fiat 500 in front of it??!!!
I’m trying to come up with a joke that links Italian communists with guys with mulletts in trailer parks, but I just can’t get there.
My mind was going more for something about how both owners would often display untamed armpit hair, the American redneck male and the Italian exotic woman coming together in international harmony in cars that will surely wind up on concrete blocks behind a doublewide, waiting “for when little Giovanna Dale and Dale Luigi get their licenses…”
God bless Rosetta Stone, lemme tell ya.
That Fiat is meant to be a small car Still prefer the Camaro
The size mismatch between these cars has to be a trick of the camera angle. I quickly looked-up the dimensions for comparison:
Fiat 500
wheelbase 90.6″
track front/rear 55.4/55.0″
overall length 139.6″
overall width 64.1″
overall height 59.8″
ground clearance 4.1″
1997 Camaro
wheelbase 101.1″
track front/rear 60.7/60.6″
overall length 193.2″
overall width 74.1″
overall height 51.3″
ground clearance 4.0″
Thats more like it My little Xsara is about the 500 size and it no way dwarfs a Camaro but cars really have grown over the years I was shown a 1922 Rolls Royce with a blown motor this morning and the passenger cabin was not very large in relation to the size of the car
Good catch, I think the height difference is the key ingredient here
I agree, to the point that I thought it must be photoshopped.
It’s weird. I saw my first 500 today, flat red no stickers. It was parked next to a 2nd gen Prius and the Prius looked miniscule. Perhaps it’s due to the Fiat’s height?
I had opportunity to test drive a 500 about a week ago, and while cute, it was sluggish and *very* ‘cheap-plasticy’ feeling. I was honestly afraid to exert too much pressure on anything in the car, including the shifter (I drove the 4-speed ‘Sport’ model). It was, on the other hand, comfortably roomy, even for my 6′-5″ frame (presuming no-one sits behind me).
Oh, and red pigments fade the fastest of any color…
Red is the most expensive colour to have mixed too doesnt seem fair it fades fastest
I wonder if this pic is Photoshopped, and the Fiat wasn’t part of the original picture?
Since Paul posted this pic, I assumed that he shot it himself, and he wouldn’t trick us with Photoshop. 🙂
I was thinking the same thing and in fact I had to get the nerve up to post the comment lol. My last thought before I hit the post button was ‘I hope I don’t offend Paul!’ I think I’m in the clear though 😀
Definitely agree on the way reds fade…my neighbor bought a new red Supra that made my old red Firebird look quite dull and brownish by comparison. It’s not as bad as it was though – back in the 60’s and 70’s I remember seeing old red Ford pickups that had faded to a whitish pink color. I even had one myself for a while.
One thing to remember, in the early 1990’s when this Camaro was built, clear coating was not a common thing at GM apparently as I once knew a fellow who had a 1992 S-10 that was NOT clear coated and when he had the left front fender repaired, it was repainted and it WAS clear coated and it looked luscious compared to the rest of the car.
I would suspect the FIAT was clear coated as pretty much ALL cars are now and I’ve noted cars don’t fade nor get as dull as quickly now thanks to the newer paints generally.
I have a green 1992 Ford Ranger that still looks decent all these years later. True, I don’t live in the sun belt, but I’ve noted card here DO fade over time.
So that’s something to think about.
The harsh New Zealand (and Australian) light plays havoc with red – especially on older cars. Back in the early 90s I had a 1984 Ford Sierra wagon, which was painted Monza Red. Allegedly. I counted one day (I was a student, I had nothing better to do!), and it had faded to 11 different shades – ranging from red to pink. It was an ex-rental car, so I decided it had had numerous paint repairs, all of which were fading at different speeds… The bonus was I could hide the rust patches by simple application of red felt-tip pen.
GM’s southern outpost Holden wasn’t exempt either, as it got into serious legal trouble here in the mid-90s, when the clearcoat fell off a large number of their VL (’84-’88) Commodores. Some friends had a 1987 Commodore, and its clearcoat was totally gone by 1995. What was once shiny champagne looked like it had been painted with light brown blackboard paint… A consumer TV show got involved, court action followed, and Holden ended up having to pay for repainting of hundreds of cars.
Even today I love red, but am too scared of the fading-to-pink-attack to buy a red car!