Rouge Massena Archives « Classic Jalopy

Paint starts on the Citroen DS

admin — Sat, 29 Jul 2017 06:48:49 +0000

The painting is starting on the Citroen and its looking great! I’m really happy with the colour, Rouge Massena. It looks much nicer than the Rio Red that it was painted previously. Its a lovely deep shade of red that really suits the DS.

So far, the roof is painted as is the underside of the bonnet and valence. They will be flipped over and the top painted, and then on to the rear wings. After almost a year off the road its heartening to see the car starting to look so good.

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My DS will be painted Rouge Massena

admin — Sat, 08 Jul 2017 12:01:33 +0000

I have landed on a colour. My DS will be Rouge Massena. I prefer this colour to the Rouge Carmin for such a big car. It is less ‘pink’ in the sun and the darker red will look rather classy. Generally I prefer to keep cars original, but in this case it wasn’t really a good option. My DS was originally white and I don’t like white cars. The car has been red nearly all its life. It was already red when purchased by a previous owner in the mid 80’s. This car had far more history as a red car than it ever did a white one. Secondly, Citroen never offered a red colour in 1970. The closest is Bordeaux which is a red/brown colour.

I wanted to stay with a proper DS colour, but I had already ruled out the original colour and I wanted to keep the car red, which ruled out a year correct colour. The car had been painted Rouge De Rio, a 1971 colour. I found it too orange. Rouge Massena is a 1972-1973 colour. I have also decided to paint the roof Rouge Massena too. Generally late D’s (in the 70s) had the same colour roof as the body, with the D Special sporting a white roof. Earlier cars generally had a different colour roof to the body. My car being a 1970 model was on the cusp of these changes, so I could have gone either way. I think a black roof would have looked great, but is impractical in the Australian sun. The other option would have been metallic silver, but I am not sold on that option. The car will therefore be Rouge Massena all over.

Painting will start soon. The doors are almost ready for paint as are the rear wings. It is just the front wings that need preparation and the process can start.

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Citroen DS crash repair, pt 4

admin — Sat, 01 Jul 2017 06:41:19 +0000

The DS is almost ready for paint. Most of the work has been on the doors and rear wings. Both rear wings are pretty much ready and the doors are not far behind.

There are a few areas of the car that are still having minor repairs done, such as this corner of the roof.

Of the red colours available for the DS, the two we can find on the computer are 411 Rouge Carmin and 423 Rouge Massena. I need to make a final decision and I am leaning towards Massena (left). Carmin is more striking, but a bit pink in the sun. Carmin was normally sold with a different colour roof, but Massena was normally single colour.

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Citroen DS crash repair, pt 3

admin — Sat, 24 Jun 2017 07:49:43 +0000

The doors have now been removed from the DS to prepare them for paint. The DS makes this easier than most other cars as the panels are all unstressed and fairly easy to remove. It also makes a colour change easier as the underlying chassis is black and its only the removable panels that have colour.

The doors were in pretty good shape. They had much better paint than the wings and the boot/bonnet. There were a few older dents and so on and a bit of filler, but no real damage. At some point in its life, the car had some rust removed from the bottom of the doors. This repair is noticeable but not as obvious as others.

As well as the previous rust repair, I know the car has previous collision damage on the front right. This can be seen with the front wing now it has been rubbed down.

The main consideration is to choose the final colour. The car is currently painted AC424 Rio Red. I find this colour too orange for the DS. It was only offered in 1971 and more popular on the GS.

The other colours under consideration are:

So far we have tested AC411 Rouge Carmin and it looks nicer than AC424 Rio Red, but perhaps is a bit pink in the sunlight. We couldn’t find the formula for 419, and the other one I will probably test is AC423 Rouge Massena. I think 421 Bordeaux is too brown and AC403 Corsaire is too bright.

The early 3rd nose models had a unique cross member that was changed for 1971 and on. Luckily I was able to find a good used unit. As can be seen, mine did not fare well in the crash.

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