Underside color

[jhh]

Hi,
I'm restoring a 1979 Spider and can't really figure out how the underside of the car was originally painted on factory. There was thick rubber like coating which seemed like it had been painted white (original color). Of course it was really oily and dirty so I couldn't decide was it really painted or not. Was that rubber coating orignally painted to same color as the rest of the body or should it black? And what about the wheel wells?
Also I'm assuming that the section behind the front grill should be black, am I right?
Thanks, JH

[DaveMarcotte]

Hi,
I'm restoring a 1979 Spider and can't really figure out how the underside of the car was originally painted on factory. There was thick rubber like coating which seemed like it had been painted white (original color). Of course it was really oily and dirty so I couldn't decide was it really painted or not. Was that rubber coating orignally painted to same color as the rest of the body or should it black? And what about the wheel wells?
Also I'm assuming that the section behind the front grill should be black, am I right?
Thanks, JH

My car is white and under the coating in the wheel wells it's white as well. Even the floor panes. I'm sure the body would have been all sprayed the original colour before any components would have been installed.

[spidernut]

In 1979 and 1980, the undercarriage of the car was painted black regardless of the color of the car. I've scraped off the original PVC undercoating on two 79 Spiders and on one 80 Spider and found black paint all three times. The body of two cars were white, and the body of another was silver. There were a few peeled areas on my blue Spider and the undercarriage was black underneath as well.

The PVC undercoating was a gray color and was added to help rust-proof the cars. Over time, the undercoating tends to peel off in areas where it is subjected to oil or other fluids. Usually, it can be pretty easily peeled off around the transmission. The rest of it must be scraped off which is messy and tedious. Many owners over-coat it with body undercoating. That's probably the case with your car.

The area behind the grill was painted the same as the body. I'm like many others who have painted that area satin black because it looks better.

[jhh]

Ok, so the undercarriage was first painted black, pvc coating added on top of it but the coating was not painted to body color? Because it seemed that on my car it was atleast partially white, for example wheel wells. I'm propably painting the new coating to body color anyway, but i'm interested to know how it was originally made.