Paint or pay

[Fehorse]

First, I am new to this forum. Current bikes are a 2015 HD Ultra and a 2018 MG V7iii. I am a rider since age 17 (now 74) and do minor wrenching on my bikes.
I have been, like many, lusting after an orange R90s. The problem is the price of the orange bikes seems to be at least $5k higher than the smoke grey putting it a little out of my budget.
I am buying the bike to ride, not as an investment or for show.
Does it make sense to buy a cheaper smoke grey and have it painted (do I hear laughter?) ?

[schrader7032]

Welcome to the forum! As they say, it is (or will be) your bike. Do whatever you like. Have you figured out the price of a Daytona Orange paint job? Eventually, that $5K price difference becomes smaller. Of course, you could get a grey bike and be riding sooner rather than later.

[Fehorse]

I don't know the cost of a good quality paint job from greyblack to orange. I estimated about a grand. Some here, I'm sure, will correct me.

[srankin]

I am with you on buying a bike to ride and not show. Like it was written, it will be your bike, do what you want and DON'T let the hard core R90S guys get at you for choosing to do what you want. That said, the cost of a decent paint job is going to be more than a grand. Particularly getting the smoke part of the paint scheme to look right with the proper shade of paints.

Also, I have found bikes to cost a lot more to paint than cars because of the extra handling of painted parts or I should say real handling of painted parts to prep, spray, finish and pinstripe. In my area the locals airhead shop has gone with six painters in the last five years. All six did one job, figured they didn't make enough money on it, it was too much fiddling compared to cars and dropped out of any further jobs. I got lucky the last guy who painted my RT was a bike guy and specializes in Harleys. He did a VERY good job but, even he said he would charge more for a faired BMW bike next time.
Of course, an RT has more fairing bits than an S still..

LOL, to be honest, you might just be better off buying an orange bike right off. Problem is, they are becoming popular and the recent auctions have driven the asking prices sky high. Personally I would love an orange R90S but am not going to pay the price. The silver ones run just as good.

Being new to the BMW airhead series bikes, I would suggest finding a fairly decent silver R90S, buy it, ride it and see if you really like it or not. If you don't like it, and decide to resell it, you most likely will get about what you paid for it. Of course same could be true of an orange R90S and who knows, in an auction setting someone might just pay stupid money for it if you resell.
Frankly, they are not a wonder bike they are one of the better BMW airhead bikes but average for handling. Yeah, a lot of diehards will kick me about my attitude but I don't care. I had two at one time I rebuilt and frankly my little R80RT is a better bike. My 78RS was prettier. They are a lot different from a Harley or MG. St.

[jberzins]

Getting a good authentic orange paint job is not only going to be expensive, but difficult to find someone who can do it. Holt designs were pretty much the best BMW bike painters and they are long gone. I just recently acquired an R75/5 and was thinking about having it painted. I started looking into and found a really good pin stripe guy, but the stripes alone were going to be 500. Ended up finding a whole set of body parts and side covers for 1.5 k and went with that.

[jberzins]

Oh and I second the R90S is not the end all be all. I had a 74, which was a great bike. Also had an R90/6, pretty similar except for braking and the carbs. Drove the R90s all over the place, up and down the cost and even to Nova Scotia. However, other bikes out there handle and perform better in my opinion. I don't blame you for wanting one and if the right one came my way I might buy it. It just isn't that amazing compared to some other models.

[johnlacko]

For decades Kent Holt paint jobs were the gold standard when it came to smoke paint work. Even BMW North America used him to paint one of their 1976 R90S Butler & Smith race bikes when it was being restored. Just before he retired, the last price I heard for a Holt paint job (Daytona or Silver Smoke) was $6,000 US. And it took about a year. He also sold just the paint materials in kit form, and that was about $900. And there was enough to do the 7 parts properly, with not much left over.

The complication with any thoughts of respraying a Silver Smoke bike into Daytona is that it absolutely must have the proper colors, and the spray pattern must be done in a certain way. I’d say that about 75% of the resprays out there are not done correctly - either colors, spray pattern, or both. If you can’t tell the difference - or don’t care, then no problem. But if you can tell a proper paint job from a poor one, then buy an original paint bike and pay the difference. Right now I only know of two people who are doing Kent Holt-level R90S paintwork in the United States, and with any type of gas tank ding repairs included, they are close to $5,000. I had one done on my own R90S Butler & Smith (#24, ex-Gary Fisher, and the only one of the three original bikes still in private hands) racer last year. When Udo Gietl (the person who built those bikes for Butler & Smith) saw my bike, one of his first questions was “Where did you find the NOS tank?” I just smiled and said “That tank was spray-can black 6 months ago.”