Renault Alpine A110 respray

The Renault Alpine A110 was a popular choice of rally car in the late 60’s to early 70’s this particular car was used by the Gendarmerie and Renault as a test bed for development concepts.

Our client has owned his Alpine A110 for 20 years and across this time has been restoring and rebuilding every part of the car and done a fantastic job of it. Although he has experience in paint classic cars he took the decision to entrust his hard work to us for painting.

The Alpines single piece fibreglass body had been extensively reinforced and remoulded by the owner and just needed some minor finishing touches by us before it was ready for the surface preparation to begin.

A110 after minor reshaping panel flatting and pin hole filling.

The next stage was to apply a fresh coat of tough epoxy primer over the fibreglass.

Once the epoxy primer had dried the shell needed to be re-flated and keyed to provide a smooth surface for a shallow coating of 2K primer, Which was the guide coated and rubbed down again in preparation for the first paint cycle.

As the Alpine was in for our ‘Show Car’ finish paint work standard it would be painted twice. With fresh shiny paint, distortions in the reflective surface highlight imperfections around the body that may have been to subtle for the flat block sanding. The body was checked in natural light and small infections where marked and rectified.

The paint work was then colour sanded and left with a lightly keyed surface. Fresh masking was applied before the body was degreased.

With smooth, clean bodywork a final fine layer of paint was applied to minimise orange peel effects in the gun finish. Once baked and left for a few days the body was flat and polished to a high smooth shine finish.

The paint process was repeated for the doors and other ancillary body parts.

The dash board and door top trims had to be painted in an OE wrinkle/crackle finish. This rare product took some experimentation to achieve the desired finish.