When I was a little kid, I had this fantastic Armitron digital watch. I think it was my first watch? It was a Sun/Moon watch, and it had a little sun in the day that turned into crescent moon at night, and the eyes looked back and forth with the seconds. I really liked it, but mine had a little flaw in the screen, a little black dot, and it drove me nuts. Eventually, I convinced my dad to take me to the store, where an apathetic clerk swapped it out for a pristine one. I tell you this because it shows that, once, I was a bit of a perfectionist about details. And now, I realize I am very much not, and I submit by beloved little Nissan Pao as proof.
I am someone who appreciates details. A lot. I get absolutely obsessed with details, especially car-related details. But I do not need those details to be perfect. At all. In fact, the more I live with myself, the more I realize the opposite is true. For example, I finally got my Pao back after the second deer-smacking incident and all the drama and ass-pains associated with that. The body shop fixed the strange discoloration on the fender, and it looks great again!
The bodyshop, run by a fantastic man named Brother Peacemaker – a man who routinely refers to everyone he interacts with as “baby” – did a great job re-shaping the fiberglass hood and fender. He matched the paint quite well, though you may notice it doesn’t quite match the left fender:
Before you criticize, let’s be clear about what is going on here: I didn’t ask him to paint the whole car, and matching would be near-impossible, since, now that I look at the car, I’m not sure any of the panels matches the ones next to it. All over the car! Look!
The hood, fender, windshield surround, and cowl panel are all slightly different shades of blue.
The passenger door is yet another shade of aqua! This one has a bit more green in it!
And, of course, that door is a different shade than the rear quarter panel, which has less green and a bit less saturation.
Around back, we have a whole glorious patchwork of colors! I just replaced that hinge, which sports its own shade of blue, and the tailgate and panel behind the bumper and fender all proudly display their own slightly different shades of mint, aquamarine, azure, cerulean, sea foam, or whatever.
The color variance isn’t even just limited to individual panels! Look at the C-pillar here: there’s a sort of ombré effect happening where the middle of it is a greener sort of hue and then fades to a more blue hue in the upper and lower parts.
I show you all of these imperfections because I realized I have zero urge to paint the car to be one, uniform hue. I don’t care about these color variations at all! Well, maybe that’s not true, because I think I actually like them? They add to the character of the car, I think. The old kid me that would be bothered by a fleck of something in an LCD display is long gone, I think.
That kid seems to have grown into someone who has perhaps taken things too far, since, objectively, this car is a mess. But I can’t help it. I like imperfect things, flaws delight me, and a little wear and tear just makes things endearing to me. I’m not really sure exactly what this means, except perhaps as a warning to anyone expecting perfection from me.
I don’t want to push my poisoned worldview onto anyone, but I might go so far as to suggest that it’s nice to take a moment and appreciate the flawed things around you? What could it hurt?
Harlequin Pao. 🙂
It kinda feels like an old SNES or Dreamcast, where each of its plastic parts has acquired its own shade of yellow
For me, it depends on what it is. Some cars look like trash like this, others look better, more interesting. I think this is one of the latter and fun smaller cars in general tend to fit that, though not exclusively so. First time I realized I felt this way about some cars was when I came within hours of buying a pretty nice ’69 440 Charger for $6k (automotive welder was selling it for what the owner owed him, but the damn guy showed up with the money before I was able to get the cash). As testified by hints under the rocker panels, it was repainted several times from a cream color to a blue metallic (forget which was first, so it might have been the other way around) to the black it wore when I saw it. The black repaint was also older and had dulled to a semi-gloss, but not entirely consistent and there were plenty of minor blemishes. IMO, it was about the best looking one I’ve seen (and I think it’s a car that looks great in almost any color). Something about the kind of proof of an interesting life displayed by the paint, though not outright neglect or abuse, suited the car so perfectly to me and made it a driver that wouldn’t have to be fretted over constantly. That and the ’67 Cadillac MM hearse I looked at to buy were the most bad ass looking cars I think I’ve seen, far more than they would have looked had they perfect bodywork.
My Scout is 3 colors in the summer and 4 in the winter (with the hard top). It was painted a hideous shade of blurple by the PO which has oxidized to a dull, listless finish on the horizontal surfaces. Years ago I toyed with the idea of stripping all the paint off, smoothing the bodywork out, and having someone professional spray it a factory color. I priced it out and decided I’d rather have the new garage that money could buy, as well as a running, driving 3-color Scout I can enjoy on a daily basis. Embrace the imperfection!
That seemed to be the approach Andrew P. Collins took with his Scout when he wrote about it at the old place. IIRC, his multi-colored binder was due to some wacky PO’s paint job & subsequent efforts to ameliorate it. There may have been graffiti art involved.
Jason, can you take us through how you went from the car being declared totaled, to be able to get it fixed? Did I miss a chapter somewhere? Does insurance let you take the money and keep the car? If so, I never knew that was a thing.
I did just that with a Toyota truck that they totaled. I don’t know if all insurers allow it, but I was thankful mine did.
Yeah, there’s usually a buy back price they deduct from what they were going to give you for the car as a totaled vehicle. Say, they were going to give you $8k for a totaled car, they might have a buy back price of $1500, so you can keep the car and get $6500. This can be particularly useful if the car still has a lot of parts value if you want to break it up yourself. For getting it back on the road, I think the car is listed as totaled on the title, but I believe you have to get the repaired car re-inspected for road worthiness, though the history stays with the title as “repaired” or something to that effect. I had a friend who did this ages ago, so I can’t remember the details. Things may have also changed somewhat since then and it also likely varies by state, but that’s the approximate version.
I’m a believer that dents can have memories associated with them and can be worth keeping – but a crummy paint job does not usually have any memory associated with it.
Crummy from the factory – I agree. Part of the history.
Bad body guy – not acceptable.
the most subtle harlequin in the world.
Goddammit, you beat me by 13 minutes. Practically word for word.
Fuck! me too. lol
At least it’s fifty shades of something other than grey.
It’d look amazing with a military camouflage wrap. It’d have a nice Soviet Lada vibe.
There is a white/ivory/beige/light gray Chrysler 300 like this in my neighborhood – it doesn’t look anywhere near as charming, though.
This is one of those moments in life where color blindness is actually a good thing. All looks pretty much the same to me.
Agree, it’s fine for now. At some point the car will need a respray and then it will look even better. As long as you don’t paint it red.
As someone who also survived a “Heart Event”, your philosophy is spot on and is a consequence of surviving a near death event. ( It was for me anyway)
So, take the the time to stop and smell the flowers every now and then. We don’t know how long we will live, Your Life can be over in a second. Embrace life!~( ˘▾˘~)
That color (well, some of them anyway) reminds me of my ’71 Fiat 128 which sported the color named “Arctic Grey”.
It’s like a monochrome version of the VW Harlequin Golfs!
I discovered the answer to annoying panel cooler mismatch back in the 80s
https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/.a/6a00df351e888f8834013488f55511970c-400wi
Hell yeah! Let’s hear it for the recovering perfectionist’s!
If a car was perfect, it wouldn’t be.
Maybe you can get some of those deer whistles. I am sure they work at least as well as a FuelShark does for gas mileage.
A wonderful perspective Torch
I had a good friend like that. When he shopped for clothes he would lay the garment out on a counter in the store and inspect every panel and every seam, practically with magnifier and a micrometer. If the garment wasn’t perfect he would put it back on the rack and pull another one until he found the most perfect one he could find. He was hard to buy for.
it is called “wabi sabi” and the whole aesthetic is to perfection here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi
Also, I saw a similar Pao on the lot at LA 12 Motors on Hwy 70 east Durham a few months back.
My Pao has nearly flawless paint and it too has multi-hued panels. At first it bothered me but when I couldn’t get a perfect match for the powder coated rims I decided to not give AF. Literally nobody cares so why should I?
https://imgur.com/gallery/vQeOJGB
Yeah, I’ve seen this on almost every Pao, must be something with the painting process at the factory – maybe they did all doors together as one batch, all right fenders as another, etc, instead of painting compete cars? Or, maybe it’s the paint itself, I think Nissan used a different sort of fluroplastic polymer paint on the Pao, Figaro, and S-Cargo (not sure about the Be-1) – maybe it ages differently?
It’s the same on my Figaro, must be something with those lovely Pike car colors 🙂
Alternate theory: Pao’s have sloth and octopus DNA. They will very slowly camouflage themselves when threatened. In about 30 more years it will match whatever colors were in the environment the last time it hit a deer.
The Pao needs to make itself MORE visible to deer, not less! It should evolve a black and yellow scheme with a snarling wolf face on the grill.
Of course, the fabled sloctopaos.
https://www.bing.com/images/create/sloth-octopus-cross-breed/1-65eb479e83a046cc8c56a9d2e19d6a6b?id=51nCB19k2BTt1nZXurvJ8A%3d%3d&view=detailv2&idpp=genimg&thId=OIG3.vcjkAenBWWzo4cIBz0RC&FORM=GCRIDP&mode=overlay
Welcome to the patina club. She’s earned those stripes, let her wear them proudly.