"Really? I had heard that they were supposed to be superior. Also with a $18,000 paint option on the new Saleen Extreme's, I assumed that they were good at their job. Worse or the same as the Viper overall?"
Two simple words: Ah.........NO.
I have two special paint cars from Saleen. I had a factory 97' S-281 Extreme Rainbow Cobra Speedster and the paint ($11,500 at the time) was NOT perfect. This car Saleen painted themselves. The other is a 95' S351 "Mystic Edition" Speedster, which was owned and the giveaway car for BASF. I still own this car and it was painted ($20,000) by BASF, (for Saleen prior to car delivery) is all factory documented as original, etc. This car's paint is perfect.
The later Saleen colors of Lizstick Red, Beryillium, etc. they had LOTS of problems with. No orange peel, so they looked very good that way, but very poor paint quality as they would chip extremely easily, flake, etc. They just could not stand up to driving outside. If you had a problem, then they literally had to paint the whole car again because they could not get the shading correct. It was a nightmare.
Of course, this was for made cars in Cali. I can not comment on the cars out of MI.
