The Daytona chin spoiler thread

[hemigeno]

Lately, we've been discussing the color of Daytona chin spoilers on more than a few threads (I'm as guilty as anyone of this).  To keep those other threads a little more on-topic, I'll carve out some of the replies which are unrelated to the respective thread's subject and repost them here. 




(earlier message taken from another thread)
Yep, it had a red spoiler - but it also had a white stripe.  I'm really wondering if the stripe color had something to do with that whole deal.  It's an interesting thing to kick around if nothing else. 

[69_500]

The R4 red car that the Malcom's have has a body color chin spoiler, and so does their V2 orange car. Decide for yourself which one is the survivor car, or are both.  However both of them do have black tail stripes. What other untouched origional cars are there out there? The B5 blue on in the northeast, and the "unsold" Daytona. But I think that the "unsold" car from Dressler's had a body colored chin spoiler, but they admit that they have painted some of the car before. So did they paint he chin spoiler too?

[hemigeno]

I don't think there's an exact answer, and more than a few cars had body-color spoilers to be sure.  I'll also ask Dave H. to check his F6 car, since it originally had a black stripe.  There's probably several other factors that come into play as well that we aren't considering - such as when the car was converted by Creative Industries (and there's currently no way to say in what order the cars were converted unless an assumption is made that the Shipping Number also equates to the rough order that the cars were converted).

There could be a bunch of restored cars out there with body-color spoilers that were actually painted black originally.  That's part of the problem with cookie-cutter restorations where everyone follows the same recipie.  If the owner/restorer doesn't know that the spoiler COULD have been painted black originally, the conclusion is made that body color must be correct and that's the way it's done.

There is some possibility the 4 + cars I know of that seem to display this characteristic all had replacement spoilers - either installed by the original dealership prior to selling it or an early owner.  It could be just a coincidence, but I think that if the spoiler was hit hard enough to damage it beyond repair there would also be evidence of nosecone damage.  3 of the 4 cars do not have evidence of such nosecone damage, and I'm not sure of the 4th but don't think it does.

It might also be as simple as the connection to the rough-texture Organosol paint that I mentioned before.  If the vendor who was supplying these parts screwed up and painted them Organosol instead of the correct black primer, Creative Industries could have looked at those and decided NOT to sand them all the way down for refinishing.  They might have just saved that batch for use on black stripe cars - so it could have been a very isolated group of cars with this weird treatment.  We just don't know exactly why, but it can be proven what paint layers are on the original spoilers.  I personally think that should be enough evidence alone to consider black to be correct on those cars who can show such a connection.

[69_500]

You know this is going to drive me nuts don't you? Its like the rear bezels on 500's, or the additional hole in the inner fender. Now that someone points something out I'll be looking at every old photo that I have and searching for 1 more car that fits this category. So my wife better just pull up some  and enjoy me staring at photo's this weekend.

[hemigeno]

 

It's just one more thing we offer here at DC.com... 

I can't tell which color the spoiler is in this picture - could be either one:

[69_500]

To me the spoiler in that photo appears to be body color. Looks a little darker than the rest of the body, but not dark enough to be black in my opinion. Then again what is my opinion worth? About 

[moparstuart]

To me the spoiler in that photo appears to be body color. Looks a little darker than the rest of the body, but not dark enough to be black in my opinion. Then again what is my opinion worth? About 

looks body color to me also , but i'm half blind 

[hemigeno]

Last night I talked to another gentleman who owns a Daytona that originally had a black stripe.  He in turn called the original owner of that particular car to see if he remembered which color the spoiler was.  At first, the answer was definitely body color.  Then after thinking about it, he remembered that the dealership had damaged the nosecone and spoiler when they bumped into or ran over an ashtray in the showroom!  When the car was purchased by the original owner, it did not have a front spoiler on it at all - because the dealership was still waiting on the replacement from Chrysler.  Once the spoiler did come in though, the dealership automatically painted it body color, presumably because the original/damaged one was painted in that fashion.

There's no clear-cut answer, and I can understand why Vance was a little leery of painting the other cars' spoilers black with a relatively small number of examples having this treatment.

I still am leaning towards black...

[UFO]

Is there any documents that state the spoiler is to be painted body color?

[69_500]

I don't think I've seen any documents on the chin spoiler at all, as far as what color it should be painted. Or who installed them, Creative or the dealerships.

[FJMG]

     Black or body color,  hmmmm, how about leave it aluminum to match the A-pillars? That would have saved creative a pile of pennies!

[69_500]

Gene, is there any thoughts that yours might have been painted black by the dealership when they painted the scoops black as well?

[hemigeno]

Gene, is there any thoughts that yours might have been painted black by the dealership when they painted the scoops black as well?

That was my original assumption until a few weeks ago, until we sanded down the spoiler and found no traces of R4 underneath the black.  If they did paint it black, they took it all the way down to the aluminum and primed/painted it fresh.  How many dealerships do you think would have taken that step?  I'm betting none would have...

I need to take some closeups of the spoiler edges and other details for David Patik next chance I get.  That might answer some questions, but maybe not.  David is looking for certain characteristics he has observed on original spoilers.  However, there were at least two and maybe three different latch tray stampings used throughout the run of Daytonas - who is to say that there were not different runs of front spoilers too?

It may not be possible to say with absolute certainty what was or was not original.  I still think it may have had something to do with the textured paint, since Creative could not have sprayed body color over that without taking it all the way down to the aluminum also.  All it would have taken was someone to say "Throw them rough-as-a-cob S.O.B. spoilers in the next black stripe cars that go through here", and voila - a mystery is created years later.

[/hijack]

[3--Daytona]

From the "for what it's worth dept," For everything I"ve got.  Front spoiler was body color, with a rough, saw tooth bottom edge.                     3-daytona

[hemigeno]

I also cropped & marked up a photo I took earlier of my car's chin spoiler, which I'll post afterwhile.  Hopefully it can shed a little more light on what an original spoiler looks like too, which might help answer the question of body color for us.

Stand by...

[FJMG]

    Hard to tell the chin spoiler color of this black rump car, a little to much "shine" to be black though?

[hemigeno]

David Patik had asked me to look at the edge of my spoiler to check for the serrated edge that 3--Daytona mentioned above on his car.  Since I don't have the spoiler around here to photograph, I cropped one of the other photos I took earlier.  This photo shows a serrated edge on the top/bent edge of the spoiler.

I'm curious to know if Jim or some of you other guys with known original Daytona spoilers could look to see if the rough/serrated edge is on the top AND bottom edges.

[SPi]

My two cents 

[hemigeno]

    Hard to tell the chin spoiler color of this black rump car, a little to much "shine" to be black though?

Yep, that was probably a body-color spoiler.  Wasn't there a video of that cool magazine test car somewhere?  Did it ever show the front nose of the car clear enough to see if it was black?

It appears that the vast majority of cars did have a body-color spoiler, just like several other details that "most" cars have.  However, I am still leaning towards a few exceptions to the rule.

Here's another picture of my car from 1980, still wearing the black spoiler.

[hemigeno]

My two cents 

Certainly couldn't argue with DayOne photos like those.  Like I said, I do believe that most cars came with body-colored spoilers.

SPi, could you check the front spoiler on that car for the serrated edges on the top/bent leg edge?  Dave's old car is a bonanza of little details like that...

[moparstuart]

 are daytona and superbird air deflectors the same ?  or similar?  here is a hard to see picture of mine 11 years ago before restoration it had a rough edge also . That one was rough but original so we cleaned it up pretty good and it's on the car now  .

[SPi]

The spoiler has the serrated edges pretty much all around. 

[hemigeno]

The spoiler has the serrated edges pretty much all around. 

Thanks for looking at that for me!

[moparstuart]

    Hard to tell the chin spoiler color of this black rump car, a little to much "shine" to be black though?

Yep, that was probably a body-color spoiler.  Wasn't there a video of that cool magazine test car somewhere?  Did it ever show the front nose of the car clear enough to see if it was black?

It appears that the vast majority of cars did have a body-color spoiler, just like several other details that "most" cars have.  However, I am still leaning towards a few exceptions to the rule.

Here's another picture of my car from 1980, still wearing the black spoiler.

they did a great job saving your mesh grille work .  My superbird nose had daytona material in it's grille frame, replaced somewhere along the line. I have it hanging on my garage wall .
)

[johntpr]

My orange car had a black one too.