Featured Art & Inspiration Earned Patina - How Did Your Vehicle Get It ? - Tell The Story Here …

Earned Patina - it tells a story about
the Journey of how a vehicle lived
over the miles and the years …

At any gathering - folks gravitate to
the the interesting examples and
the stories told are unique and fascinating

What story does your earned patina
tell of the Journey your vehicle took ?

Thursday I paid another visit to
a friend in the Los Angeles area
to drop off this …



YouTube video of the journey …

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Jim
Transporting To Travel
Traveling To Share
Stories From The Road

 

It’s rust or old polished paint so you can see the primer..
Patina is found on old brass lamps.

 

Jim
Transporting To Travel
Traveling To Share
Stories From The Road

 

I flew my car behind a spaceship close to the Sun to get maximum UV rays then flew it to the moon and landed and parked it on the moon( not the dark side) for 50 years to let the patina develop then flew it back from the moon and put it in a car show

 

Then it's fake. Shame on you.

 

Don't sugar coat it, just call it what you want, but above anything else..............
DON'T CLEAR COAT IT!

 

Miguel and Carlos in the
San Jose, California area …




Jim
Transporting To Travel
Traveling To Share
Stories From The Road

 

From 2015 …

1922 Model T Touring








Jim
Transporting To Travel
Traveling To Share
Stories From The Road

 

My old beater has been driven a lot under my ownership, it was never a show queen but a driver and driven in any kind of weather, most of the paint is original but the fenders have been covered with primer after making them straight again almost 40 years ago, the top is still original as are the running boards.

All steel Henry Ford. HRP

 

I was told by the previous owner it had been in a shed in Montana from 1962 to 2013.

 

We bought the car and had to drive it through the snow and salted roads (or we would have had to walk), and it sat out in the weather the first 10-12 years we owned it.
Now 20+ years later, the rust and faded paint are as natural as it gets. The problem is, its not a cool car and it looks pretty bad. Kind of embarrassing to drive actually, but it is what it is, until it, or us die.

 

^^^ Post some pictures ^^^

Stanley out of the storage container
and into the light of day …









Jim
Transporting To Travel
Traveling To Share
Stories From The Road

 

Patina is common on a survivor car or truck. It’s a badge of honor on some especially race cars. I don’t think a patina or survivor car is always neglected one but one put away to attend to it in the future.
I have always been drawn to old original not restored hotrods . I have been lucky to find a few over the years and I didn’t restore them and not change them . It’s great to see an old car survive with original paint or old repaint 50 60 or 70 years old. My examples are 60 plus years of old patina paint each .
That 1922 touring is a cool old survivor and well preserved. I would get her running and enjoy the summer swapmeets with her.
Truly one of my favorites are survivors or aka patina cars that tell a story especially

 

My daily driver 55 Ford 2 dr post—-original 69 year old paint,never in an accident,original factory tinted glass—-engine,trans,frt clip Mark 8 DOHC all aluminum v8—gr8 driver,gr8 handling car. Ford calls paint Buckskin Brown but looks pinkish due to 69 year patina.

 

My Cadillac was customized sometime I'm guessing in the early 50's, the back half of the car is lacquer covering lead work to shave the trunk lid but the doors forward seems to be original paint, and I think the top is original too, but the stitches have come undone from it, so it'll be a big sewing project to retain it. I'll try though.

Unfortunately the driver's door and front fender have a couple of pretty large missing paint areas that are going to need to be fixed. But I'm going to try to just fill in the bad spots on this car and spot repair as little as possible.

 

Never wrecked or painted....

 

Painted in 1956 by Dean Jeffries. Sat in a storage facility since in San Diego since 1969? until i got it in 2007 and finally running in 2021.

 

Rusty. Just as I got him 10 years ago. No fake patina and a Studebaker bed.

 

It sat in the bush left for dead for an unknown number of years and was used as a parts truck, but luckily all the sheet metal other than the headlights were there.

The old guy that owned it (and a bunch of other stuff) passed away before he did anything with it, and I bought it from his estate sale. Unfortunately I don't know anything else about it's story.

I preserve the thing so it doesn't waste away, but the story the patina and farmer welds tell about the life of this truck is too good for me to want to cover it up with new paint.

 

This is why we do it …

Jim
Transporting To Travel
Traveling To Share
Stories From The Road

 

My Uncle bought my car of Missouri back in 1979. Here it is in 1979 / 1980.




Around 1997 he parked it out side, under a car cover, in Michigan. In 2020 I rescued it from his drive way, got it running and to the point you see it below.

I will say - there is a line between patina and destroyed paint. This is certainly the latter. But, at least it has history and it's not faked.

 

Have you done the CLR or Comet wash? I bet it cleans off a lot of surface rust and makes it look way better. Different patina but mine cleaned off a lot of oxidation and surface rust.

 

I have not, I will have to look into that. Just scrub it down with CLR or do I have to soak it? A lot of the paint has checked and shrank. Its in pretty rough shape.

 

I mix a heavy concentration of CLR in a bucket of warm water and use either sponges with a scrubber or a scotchbrite on them. You can use something less abrasive if you want. I am always amazed at how much oxidation and surface rust it takes off. It won't undo the damage, but will likely change the look a bit.

 

My A got its patina from years of hard use in the Chilcotin Range of BC. It was bought by the ranch owner of Teepee Heart Ranch and ran around on the dirt roads and fields. You can still see the ranch brand still on the door, along with the owners name. At some point it was sold to Alexis Creek Ranch where it was eventually disassembled to be used in various iterations until it ended up apart in fields and barns. A good friend of my grandfather bought it in pieces in the mid 90’s and spent 30 years slowly putting it back together on the slow winter days of ranching the Bell Ranch. Now in his late 80’s he and I made a deal and I finished it up and got it back on the road.

Interestingly, I think I am the first person to drive the car on a paved road. There are still no paved roads within an hour of the area it came out of.

 

These stories are good to read …

Thank You for all the posts !


Jim
Transporting To Travel
Traveling To Share
Stories From The Road

 

From sitting in the barn for a loooooooonnnnng tiiiiiimmmmmmeeeee

 

My 52 GMC is more of a missing paint surface rust, but from sitting out in NM high desert sun that just baked the paint right off. No perforation rust, just well earned surface rust from a dry climate. The high UV just destroys any paint or plastic/rubber. Some may not call it patina, I don't use the term patina. I call it 25 years of high desert exposure. You can see little bits of the orig paint where it was protected from the sun. I also straightened some crunched fenders and front grille, leaving them as-pounded out. I do not have any plans to paint the truck, and especially no clear over the rust.

The other pic is my (no longer own) 59 El Camino. I did do some rust repair and therefore the primer spotted in. But the rest is original red paint. Looked more like tomato soup with milk color. From sitting outside for many years near my old home in northern CA.

 

I'm drooling all over my keyboard. That's sweet.

 

My brothers 39, drive it home for a buddy in the late 70’s or early 80’sfor a friend who wasn’t mechanically inclined but never got rid of anything. The car was gorgeous!! Trans went and the car sat for a couple decades outside. The friends father thought he would do his son a favor and cover the car with a poly tarp and we all knew what happened next!!! My brother offered to buy the car every year for 25 years to no avail but was finally successful. Of coarse all the mechanicals were gone through but the exterior and what is now a pinkish and white sun faded red interior.