ROLLS-ROYCE SILVER DAWN SNF95
NIP 'TUCK, or........ Beauty is NOT Just Skin Deep!

It was in 2006 that I started to realize that a Rolls-Royce is really a living thing. Or at least I can assure you that MINE is. She eats (my money), she drinks (petrol) and though she does not smoke (glad for that!) she DOES like living the 'high-life' knowing that I will always cater to her every desire..

It was in 2006 and after many sorely needed mechanical renovations; motor, gearbox, and 89722346 other all important and 'must-attend-to-and-right-away' details that it became increasingly evident to me that there was (dare I utter the word?) RUST and this would have to be the next and all important thing in her agenda to attend to.

As many Owners will admit, many of us spend hours with creams, polishes, and wax treatments and of all sorts to make our chariots glow with an almost 'divine' radiance on every surface. So far so good, but what about in all those dark and hidden-away places 'where the sun don't shine'..?

Since SNF95 has owned me, and at EVERY outing, rally, or event of all sorts, there has been the kind but rather DIM admirer who, while looking would suddenly exclaim 'LOOK! Isn't that a DENT on the bootlid??' And although only about two inches in length and 1mm deep and almost invisible, this was indeed the most dreadful and unsightly disfiguration and horror of all imaginable horrors on a Rolls-Royce. AND just what WAS I going to do about the leaky windscreen? I had driven as 'chauffeur' for a friends wedding and we all ended up with brollys open inside the car to deep the elements OUT. SOMETHING indeed HAD to be done! Being the 'respectable and engaged' owner that I am I realized that action had to be taken.

Of course it was all going to be so childishly simple. After all a simple re-spray couldn't cost more than a few thousand quid at the most and would be completed in a month (or two) by any anybody's estimate no matter how HOW exaggerated so how could I possibly go wrong??

For the first time in my life I decided to do the most reasonable thing. SAVE MONEY. And I threw myself into this obligation as I always do with anything that I deem of importance; ALL the way to save as much as possible and as QUICKLY as possible. A certain Australian friend, Richard Treacy  THEN told me that whatever I THOUGHT would be a reasonable sum for work to multiply it by 3! WOW -things were starting to get out of hand. Could he possibly have been correct with his calculations??

Over the 'money-saving' year I followed his advice and brought Miss RRSD SNF95 to a number of body-paint shops (8 or 9 I think) with the firm belief that anyone would PAY to be allowed to work on such a magical auto. Wrong again!

DECISIONS, Decisions...........Some estimations were FAR too cheap (£3000.-) others too dear (£250000.-!) and there was every sort of estimation in between as well. I was beginning to realize that there was much more to this than a simple spray-it-all-with-paint-isn't-everything-pretty job.

SNF95 would have to be stripped to metal, but HOW? Sand blasting, bead blasting, liquid remover, or????  What sort of paint could POSSIBLY be used to cover and give the added quality to those faultlessly drawn lines? Other issues imposed themselves. WHO would be able to achieve paint-perfection on such on such an auto? Monet, Renoir and Chagall were no longer available to undertake this project. And what sort of paint would be required? Water colour ? Oil paint ? Ground diamonds and gold ?

Then what about chrome? Would new glass be necessary? And what about the rubber for the joints, everything had perished over time of course. In the deep and dark recesses I realized that the old body mounts would have perished as well and would need renewal. What good would a new paint job be worth if it were allowed to sit on an unstable foundation?

When these cars were new I had heard rumours that these splendid beauties had been blessed with at least 45345234634 coats of paint, one every full moon with even-song and prayers in between as well as the usual incantations and spells in proper Rolls-Royce-speak. Things WERE starting to look bleak.

I was starting to wonder just how I could be victorious when I was given a 'spread-sheet' made by Richard Treacy, with his rough estimations of just what the time considerations would be for each step of each part of the work process from beginning to end; Removal and Dismantling, Stripping of old paint, Repair/rust welding out, Main body shell preparation, Body Panel matching, Etch Primer, Primer, Cut and Finish, Basecoats, Clear Coats, Final Cut/Polish, Re-assemble.. I was beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel.

SNF95 would need a basic 473.5 hours of work from beginning to end. The BAD news was that this was not going to be a £3000.- paint job!

A good restaurant is never cheap but I've always found that for a bit more in a 'better' restaurant that the quality is often much higher. Given this logic I could only opt to give Miss RRSD the 'caviar' of paint jobs!

None of the metal-paint shops that I had visited had really convinced and then it occurred to me to try Auto Dunki in Neftenbach, near Zurich, where a RREC Swiss owner friend had his Silver Dawn painted some two years ago.

I remember that it was a splendid job and still looking of 100% beauty. I also thought that since Guido Dunki at Auto Dunki had had this recent experience with an RRSD that it could all be a very beneficial thing for SNF95 and me!

I brought the car to him on the 7th of  December 2006 with fear and trepidation. After a few days the estimate was pronounced -exactly 3 times more than what I had planned on!! After a few days of financial planning I gave the green light to start on the 16th  of December 2006.

I had chosen Herr Dunki to do this job for three basic reasons;

1) He works just three hours from where I live in Geneva  and his work place is just down the road from the home of Richard Treacy who is a huge expert on these cars; it would be easy to follow work in progress and to give my opinion when required

2) He had done a stunning job on a friends RRSD and all this experience could only benefit my car greatly AND

3) He works with a clear and evident love for these marvellous autos and gave me every indication that he would be do his level best to get to quality and beauty with SNF95 and so armed with his detailed estimate and time schedule for progress I felt that this was the place for SNF95 to be.

26 January 2007; I was called in to see progress. RRSD had now been taken apart, parts sorted, labelled and paint stripped (via chemical stripper) down to her naked BODY which brought me to the MOMENT OF TRUTH;

It is when a car is in this rather embarrassing state of being that one can clearly see just where the work will take itself. SNF95 had all the usual skin problems, ie; rust under front wings, rear wings, and the sills would have to be completely renewed. There were small(ish) areas of rust to be delt with on the doors, door sills, sunshine roof as well as outside bottom of the boot. I had had the excellent idea to ask that many, many digital photos would be taken at every step of the work along with a schedule of progress reports, starting and finishing times along with the necessary guarantee of all work in progress. It was at this point that I found quite a wealth of information written by Norman Geeson on www.kda132.com concerning the dreaded rust, body mounts and so much more. Things were really starting to get organised......

I had thought that I would not like music in my car, but since the original radio was present I had been having second thoughts about this. I spoke with Alan Marchant of  Vintage Wireless to see what he thought about changing the original LV-MV radio to AM-FM and he said that in his opinion the best thing would be to put modern electronics in the original RADIOMOBILE box (complete with the turn-on 'delay' like the period radio). This way nobody would know that it had been modified and that after all the original mono speaker of the RRSD/R/type autos were of excellent quality and in doing so I would be able to keep the period-sound. So it was ordained! The cigar lighter was also connected to use with the small GPS system to get me to strange and new places without stress...........

I had sourced all new rubber and chrome parts and was especially happy to be able to buy from Eric Healey the all important body-mounts that the body sits on. I even found while scrounging on the internet a factory-new set of vanes for the grill 54 years old and still in the original carton ready to give SNF95 a new smile (now how's that for being VANE?!) What could be more original and fitting than her original colour, Shell Grey & Tudor Grey.. Although some have said that it is too 'déjà vu' I think that the Silver Dawn asks for this colour and with that to-die-for red leather interior and wood it suits her down to the ground! To be practical (for once in my life) I opted for water-based acrylic paint with the essential clear-coat finish. To have asked for 8723849396362 endless and hand-rubbed coats and made containing fish scales (!) for the Pebble Beach result would have been too much even for me! This water-based BASF-GLASURIT acrylic would be a good and practical choice enabling me access to an easy-to-use solution (and repair when necessary) because after all, SNF95 is not and will never be a 'trailor-queen'  but  rather a chariot to be driven and enjoyed as much as possible.

30 March 2007- Second visit to see Herr Dunki and to see SNF95's progress. It was at this stage in the renovation that I began to realize just how important it was to have had taken every precaution BEFORE work had started concerning the estimate, dates and the intermediate work progress schedule. Thanks to this careful preparation and planning things were going beautifully and bang on target for the finishing date set for July 2007. At this stage all metal work was now complete and body panels were coming on the car to ensure the best and faultless fit possible. As always this process was done several times to insure that once the paint process had begun that success would be certain. The biggest chapter of the body work process was, as it usually is, THE SILLS! They were in dire state and so had to be completely replaced. This work along with the B-Pillar lead removal and rebuild counted for a good third of the overall effort in body-metal preparation and was essential for the excellent end results. Guido Dunki was living up to my high expectations and hopes concerning excellence and had proved to be (and with his co-workers of course) a craftsman of excellence with every concern for quality AND within the planned time framework.

1 September 2007 Getting there too QUICKLY !!

It was in July that I came to the realization that all was coming together well, in fact too well and a change of target was needed. Guido Dunki (by some magical click of his fingers) summoned the newly painted car, newly cut glass, chrome, etc. and all was ready for the final assembly. Not the best time for me though; musician that I am for I had agreed to play 12 concert dates for the month of  August with my pianist (including one for the RROC-NOR-CAL USA) and I wanted to follow the final and fascinating steps of SNF95s renovation process closely SO. I asked for a month to be taken to allow the paint to 'cure' and to give me the necessary time to attend to 'life' as well as the pleasure of following the renovation at hand upon my return.When I DID get back to see progress it was coming along beautifully. First off, the paint was better that I dreaded that could be and in fact far better than I could have hoped! And after looking around at dozens of Silver Dawns and R/types I realized that there were many, many sorts of tones of Tudor Grey and Shell Grey and that the two exact tones that I had picked were really a cracking combination! The Tudor Grey was light enough so as not to give the car that 'heavy' look to it and the Silver Chalice Grey had a certain 'pearl' quality to it rather than just 'silver' and so I felt that this essential step was a good one. The chosen BASF-GLASURIT paint was a quality choice and so NOW it was 'dress-up' time as glass, chrome and rubber was to come on the car.

This step took longer than I thought that it might but Guido had said to me that great care must be taken at this stage to beautifully install every bit and bob that now had to come on to the car. Another possible disaster was being knowingly side-stepped and the result was already showing itself...

HEIDI, COWS, SWISS CHOCOLATE AND SWISS GERMAN CRAFTSMEN...

Every country in the world has reputations that it prides itself on and Switzerland is no exception. Im not sure that Heidi ever existed, or at least in Switzerland, but there are cows here, scrummy chocolate as well but I really was not prepared to witness such quality as the Swiss-German craftsmanship!!

When I returned to see Guido in January 2008 I thought that there would be pages of things to attend to, many wrongly mounted pieces and many forgotten details making for stress and sleepless nights to get to the final end. WRONG! SNF95 was waiting under a blue dust-cover and when this was taken away I could only gasp in disbelief; all work had been achieved in the most blindly perfect way possible. I spent a few hours trying to find the slightest possible fault but found none. All doors closed with that deeply satisfying 'clunch' like the Vaults at Lloyds of London. Even chromed screw heads had been lined up, the new MOT and small but necessary mechanical faults corrected. In the end I gave up, went back home and asked that fab Richard Treacy to come along to give his observations. HE, of all people would not let a faulty detail pass.....

There was ONE detail that had to be sorted and it was the question of pinstripes....

They had not yet been painted on the car for I had asked for this to wait: I wanted Richard Treacy to give precise guidelines for THESE lines!!After study the decision was given to act on. The only other detail that Richard had seen (of course) that I had not seen (of COURSE!) was the adjustment of the rear farside passenger door by....................................3mms ! ! ! !

Champagne, Caviar anyone????