Paint colour

I am sure that thinking about paint colours at this stage of this project is a bit like trying to choose the name of your rock-band before you have your first rehearsal (How many times have I done that in my youth?! :-)

However, while I've been working on the chassis I have become curious about the paint colour.
According to documentation, the Manurhin Scooter was technologically advanced for its time, and not least for its production paint.
According (I know this is a tenuous link of accordings) to wikipedia; "According to Bonhams the MR 75 “was constructed to a high standard and must have been one of the first motorcycles to be painted electrostatically, a process commonly known as ‘powder coating’.


I've used powder-coating many times,  most recently on my Vespa PX, and in my experience its very hard wearing and provides a nice thick even coat without need for priming and undercoating (as is necessary in conventional wet cellulose spraying)  And its for this reason that I've started to become suspicious of what paint is on my scooter and therefore what the original colour might have been


Up until now I have unquestionably believed that the colour of my bike was "Maroon" - I understood this to be a standard production colour.  A 'Motor Cycling with Scooter Weekly" magazine review of the "Manurhin 'Hobby de Luxe'"in December 1959 states;
"Colours available; Choice of red or Blue for de Luxe model;  Green only for standard model"


I had assumed that my 'Maroon' was the same thing as their 'Red', but I have certainly seen more pillar-box red examples of Manurhins, so I may be mistaken in my assumption.
I think I would be right in saying that in general, pale blue and pale green are certainly original colours, but there are a good number of examples of red, maroon and pale yellow Manurhins out there.  This is not the first example of model confusion that I've talked about in the Manurhin/DKW scooters, I'm starting to get used to the ambiguity now.

flaking paint on mudguard suggest a respray

But back to my scooter;  the paint on the chassis (and body) is maroon, but is has an undercoat of what I was seeing as pale yellow.  Maybe early powder-coating techniques required a 'primer' of sorts?  Or has my bike been repainted at some stage?  The external body has certainly had some respray work - this is evident in flakey paint in places - but never the less, this respray has tried to be faithful to a colour underneath.
The thing that troubles me is that if my chassis has been repainted then whoever did it, did a bloody good job because the maroon paint over the yellow has got into every nook and cranny of every component (would you really be bothered to paint the underside of the rubber suspension cups?) - its as if the maroon colour has been put on by dipping, or electrostatically painting.  Has it been repainted or is the maroon-over-yellow a production process?

what is this colour under the maroon?
what is the colour? and what is it doing here?

So, I investigated further by literally scratching away at the surface.  When I expose a large patch of the yellow under-colour and compare this to a pure white, I cant help but ask myself - is this yellow actually a pale green?  Was my bike originally the beautiful pale green of the 'standard model' - check out the pictures of these two bikes in what I am assuming to be true reproductions of original colours 


I'm rather confused about the whole thing.  However, I have decided that I am certainly going to have the chassis and associated under-body components powder-coated in gloss black (in my opinion, chassis' should always be black.  And black is cheaper to have powder coated than colour)
As for the body colour..... I have plenty of time to think this through :-)