Opinions on paint color
 

I have a 94 Lhd clean title with 86k miles. Going to strip the car down and get a full paint job including the engine bay and full interior. Probably not the undercarriage. I have the full 99 kit.

Original color is Montego. Really want to paint the car Competition Yellow. Do you guys think I will negatively impact my cars resale value? I know CYM only came in 93 but I love it lol.

Consider wrapping it instead? Best of both worlds.

Does the engine bay and interior actually need painting?

Hell yea this paint is clapped out. Was painted yellow and then spray painted white in its past life lol. Had the veilside kit from the original fast and furious when I bought it. All around terrible. Got a new set of fenders, hood, 99 bumper and wing for it. Definitely needs paint.

In that case.... go for it.
I am a fan of Montego, personally..

I hated Montego until I saw it on a 99 car. Now it’s growing on me. My E36 M3 is Boston Green so ever so slightly similar.

A deep purple is the way to go.

I like CYM too, but I’d stay with the MB. If it’s done well and you do the whole car, jams, hatch AND engine bay it’ll look awesome. Take care with and factory stickers

if its been that many colors, anything you do that makes it one color will be better!

in theory painting it the original color is best for resale, but
A. but that kind of applies to totally original cars.
and B, it has no resale until you sell it.

Of course it's your car, you can do whatever color you like.

That said doing a full color change like that is a BIG job. Some colors like black or white you can somewhat get away with having a non-body color engine bay for example. MB door jambs and engine bay with yellow body would be....a bit much.

It really comes down to budget.

- Cheapest: Plastidip the car yellow. I did it on my car, ran it like that for 6 years or so. Looked good, held up well, was a lot of fun. $500 all in for tools and dip and you can do it in a Saturday afternoon in your driveway.
- Next cheapest: Paint the car yourself. Takes a LOT of time, possible you can screw it up but if you do just sand and re-paint it. You can do it in your garage. But, being in California, there may be some obstacles, don't know if it's hard for you to buy paint or get proper supplies. Probably $1000-1500 all in paint, supplies, and tools.
- Basic paint job: Find a good shop, have them do any body work and repaint MB. That is a pretty straight forward paint job. REALLY hard to guess costs, probably $5k easy.
- Full on quality paint job: If you want to go CYM this is the way. Pull engine, have the body shop paint the bay, pull the doors, paint the doors fully and jambs, everything. Probably $10-15k EASILY.

Also a tough thing is finding a body shop that a) can do your car in a timely fashion, b) can do a good job without short cuts, c) won't charge an insane amount.

Just see what makes sense for you, what your budget is, what your timeline is, etc. Also is this a car you are keeping forever or will you be thinking about selling a few years down the road? If you sink $15k into a paint job you will probably not get that money back.

I would also HIGHLY recommend not doing some goofy custom paint color. Stick with OEM colors. I've seen guys get some weird custom pearl/candy blend paint and guess what happens if you have a small fender bender or just need to fix a scuff or paint chip? No way in hell you can match it. It doesn't have to be a stock FD color, it can be ANY OEM paint color.

Dale

For me the options really only boil down to Cym or Mb. Car is a roller that’s waiting on my new engine from mazdatrix. Who knows when that’s coming in lol. Car will be fully stripped in the engine bay and interior.

I have a body shop I use that does great work. Known the guy for a long time. I’m hesitant to do Cym because it didn’t come on the 94’s and it’s not the original color. I don’t want to go through this much effort to hurt my resale value. But damn do I love me some Cym.

Do people love Cym that much in general or only if it’s original paint?

Factory stickers are long gone. Have a buddy that sent me a link to a guy that does reproduction stickers though. Gonna try him out.

its a great color! when i had mine, it felt like i was the apex predator of the freeways, everyone saw it and knew what it was.

MB and Black are totally opposite, its discreet

Hell yea that colors hot. Been my favorite for a long time.

I've been just starting the search for a paint shop so this is limited data (~4 shops) but I'm getting quoted 8k-12k+ for basic and ~20k+ for full-on.
That's not crazy paint either - no pearl, an OEM color (Chaste white to an OEM brighter white), basic door ding level bodywork, etc.

Not sure I'm getting the car painted...yeesh.

Yes, this is the going rate these days. With painting, you ABSOLUTELY get what you pay for. You go cheap, you get a cheap job. There is no way around this. So really figure out what you're comfortable with as far as quality and set your budget accordingly. I just went through this last year if you check my build thread.

Are you stripping the car down yourself or having them remove everything?

I have shops close by that will charge the same. Have a family friend/buddy that will do it for 5k. Does great work. His brother actually works at a high end shop across town that charges 12-20k for paint jobs.

I say fuck it, paint it CYM, there is something about a CYM FD. Just try to get the metallic flake size right - most repaints don't get it quite right.

from the body shop manual, 3 stage!

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...28b4774702.jpg

Perfect. I’ll show this to my painter.

I love CYM. It is such an awesome color. I say do it!

Had a conversation with a forum member when I picked up a dash a couple weeks ago about repainted MB cars. His car use to be MB and is now black. He seems to think repainted MB is very hard to get like OEM and looks more green on repaints. Something about how Mazda painted MB at the factory is hard to replicate. I have never seen a repainted MB so I can't say.

Can you send me the link? My car was painted years ago before I bought it and mine are gone as well.

Screw what anybody tells you on the color. Do what you want and you'll be happy.

I love CYM, but if your car has a sunroof it makes the whole car look fake to me (like a fake R1).

For general Yellow FDs I like Sunburst Yellow off the later FDs.

I have a glass sunroof

Here’s a pic
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...80cfd2cd9c.png

Yellow is a VERY polarizing color. I've found you are either a yellow person or you aren't. I personally love yellow and think CYM is just a fantastic awesome bright yellow. I seriously considered getting a CYM when I first bought my FD. My wife HATES yellow cars and I've known other people that just wouldn't ever want a yellow car.

All that said, you do have to consider the end goal. If the car is a nice mint car and you want to preserve value, go stock color. If it's for you, do what YOU want. My FD isn't getting sold any time soon and it's built for ME, not for resale.

I will say that having my car dipped CYM got that out of my system. I enjoyed it while it was yellow but I"m ready to go back to black. That's the fun thing with dip, you can change the color of a car you've had a long time and have something new and fun then just peel it off when done.

That's awesome you got some good hookups on getting paint work done, that's 100% the way to go if you can find a good deal. I would also try and help out if possible and do some of the work yourself, it's pretty rewarding.

Dale

Yea for sure. I have a shop in Long Beach so plan on getting the car as close to ready as I can for the painter. It helps the fenders, bumper, wing etc etc are all new. Maybe get a PDR guy to come out and take some dings out.

My general recommendation is to do whatever the heck you want and what you think will make you happy. If it entails painting it yellow, then go for it. None of us are getting any younger nor do we know when our final day on this floating rock will be.

With that having been said, if you think you'll be selling it with the intention of netting the greatest profit, you would be best served with the original color of the vehicle. MB is a very pretty color when done properly. CYM is okay imo, but as BLUE TII made reference to, I also believe that Sunburst Yellow is a better color. At the risk of sounding rather hyperbolic in my delivery, I do not understand all the hype associated with CYMs and CWs other than there being so few of them. If yellow or white paint made them perform better, then I may have a different opinion ;)

^^
Its been repainted twice already?

Its gotta have 20Lbs of Bondo in it, FDs get repainted when wrecked.

Dont worry about its resale value.

No bondo. Dude was just spray painting it for his YouTube channel. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to buy these cars lol.

​​​​​​IMO three things to take into account that pertain to your car:

1. It has already been repainted different colors in the past. So the ship had sailed on the loss of value due to repaint.
2. Per your own description - The car is clapped. So if you are going to spend the money to fix it up might as well do it to your liking.
3. You only live once. Have the car you want to have.

If you love it, then go for it

As an FYI: I repainted my decent condition 1994 PEP (sunroof equipped) FD from Montego Blue to Corvette Velocity Yellow. I did that for two reasons, I've never really been a fan of the actual CYM yellow and I didn't want to be a wanna be CYM. But that's me and my own hang up. So like I said, if you love it then go for it.

I think at some point I am going to need to strip and repaint my whole car just to make sure it doesn’t turn into a pile of rust in 10 years. Maybe I will spot weld it and do a nice gusseted cage while I am at it… hehehe

Why not chrome?

https://i0.wp.com/www.customvehiclew...artin-wrap.jpg

this is a thing, but we have to take a breath and remember that CYM was just a regular color in the rest of the world, so well, Mazda Canada's CYM is a base model

If I were to buy another FD, it would be a CYM. It’s the only stock color FD RX-7 I wouldn’t ever touch.

What about a repainted Cym?

Sticking with the original color is probably going to net the best resale value, if resale is the primary concern.

But if CYM is what you want, than go for it. I can't see it really impacting the value in a significant way considering the vehicle has been repainted more than once.

If I was in the market for an FD and I wanted CYM I would definitely consider a PROPERLY repainted car, with the engine bay/jambs/etc. all done.

I think it would actually be cool to have a non-sunroof '94 with the nicer interior but in CYM. That's what eventually swayed me away from buying a CYM was the crap '93 plastics.

Oh, back in 2004 when I bought my car and I had like 10 cars I was looking at online, all in a reasonable drive distance, and around $14k. Boy those days are gone!

Dale