Maybe it's the sun, but what can be done to make my ornaments more vivid? The red is fading, but there's plastic in the way; what can I do?

This is what's happened to mine, the hood ornament, especially:
http://www.ripnship.com/images/emblems2/cadillac.jpg

That's pretty normal over time. I'm not sure there's anything to fix that. Maybe order or find a whole emblem set for your car?

It's a shame but that does happen.

Anyone else?

Not much you can do about it, both of my coupes have gotten new N.O.S hood ornaments because of this problem. I've heard that in some cases you can pop the plastic off and repaint the wreath, but no matter how careful you are, it usually doesn't turn out authentic looking. Fortunately, it isn't too hard to find new emblems on eBay for great prices.

Now, I know that the older wheel center caps can be repainted and look original, because they don't have plastic, but beyond that, replacement is your best bet :)

Same thing happened to the same emblems on the roof pillars of our '93 Fleetwood, as well as on all of the Buick emblems on our Roadmaster--weird how it's always the red to disappear, and nothing else. So far my '95s emblems are still doing well, having been garaged for life, but now it's an outdoor car so the fade is inevitable...or at least I can hope it won't be.

you can take the plastic part off and paint it. actually when i sent my ornament off the 93 to get gold plated (the original was gold plated and it was stolen) the guy said they took the plastic peices off and all the colored peices and paint them separately while the ornament itself is getting gold dipped. so yeah you can do it... or have someone do it if you arent a DIY kind of person.

Does that crear plastic just pop off? Because, I stuck a knife in a hood ornament (thankfully a donor) and the plastic cracked and broke into pieces. But it looks like just one piece, maybe epoxy. I had always thought it was pastic covering up something, two pieces - now I realize that the design is in the back of the plastic. But what paint should I use in the future? How should I re-attach the crest?

that i dont know cause i didnt pop them off. he said you could (and he did) and it looked great. actually i wanted to get new plastic peices to cover it cause after everything was painted and dipped the plastic on it looked horrible, all scratched up and everything. two days later i wrecked it :crybaby: ... good thing i didnt i guess...