Can you go back from black? Let’s find out through this makeover…
It was either an old wise man in his fishing boat on the Caspian Sea, or a divine messenger from heaven who first declared, “Once you go black, you can’t go back!”
But the Ferrari F430 we’re featuring here today clearly had other plans as it set out to disprove all notions of this belief with our most recent RV Sprayworks assignment. Just in time for the festive season evidently, red is now the new black for this iconic supercar as it readies to roar into the Lunar New Year in blazing fashion.
Here’s a look at the car when it first came in. You can tell that the original black had turned ashen with stone chips and other accumulated flaws from years of lapping up the tracks — subduing the stately spirit of the prancing horse. Similarly, the inner cabin was pretty worn out with the console plus other interior components sadly dilapidated far from its original condition.
Early pre-work shots of the vehicle on arrival at our flagship centre:
If you browse through our posts over the past year, you will see that we’ve taken on quite a number of restoration and makeover projects. More than just the paintwork, we also restore other major and peripheral components of the vehicle — turning back the clock and giving them a new lease of life.
At the RV Sprayworks facility, the vehicle was carefully disassembled and prepped before the real work began:
Based on our experience, a substantive project like this for the most part requires a good 3 weeks or so from start to finish. The work behind the scenes is always laborious and time-intensive. Involving primarily human handwork and necessitating a high level of technical expertise, perfection nonetheless is oftentimes not the easiest to achieve at every first attempt.
The final stage of the workflow was to lock in the brand new paintwork for long-term shine and protection using a full range of specialist products by the official car care partner of the Ferrari Club of America — GYEON Quartz and their award-winning ceramic coating technology.
