Lets have a debate about "originality"

[LBC28730]

Have the beautiful 88 325is.
Nearly perfect.
Everything works, don't even have the brake warning light up top. ;)

I have some finer points I'd like to debate about the paint work and it's originality.
I think that there is no decisive determination but wondered what the forum would think

Vehicle has 98k miles
Lived most of it's life north of VA, USA.
Exquisitely maintained as per records.

PO said the hood and valence were repainted (no reason).
Wing mirrors are a different color (pink) from the rest of the car.

Paint splay (cracking) on drivers front wing, rest of the paint is nearly perfect (almost too perfect for German 1988?).

I'm noticing now that the passenger side pinstripe is failing in a few points, and when I went to test it to see if I could "fill in" the gaps, it scrapes off with the most minimal effort.

Drivers side pinstripe is complete and intact.

Now, I know this was factory single stage. My 87is, I recently removed the pinstripes and it was a very surgical ordeal as it was very well stuck to the paint and I had to be very careful to not dig in.
This one, the passenger side stripe I can scrape off with my finger and it leaves to residual marks on the remaining finish. This tells me that it was applied after the paint, and maybe not so well....OR....its original, but the paint had been buffed so many times that the stripe was down to nothing?

I may be missing some details here but I would like to submit this for the groups diagnosis/hypothesis.

[ocde30]

Some pictures of the whole car would be good and helpful to get this discussion started.

[flybynite]

Could be lots of things, for me highest on the list is always parked outside with same side pointing at the sun. It will make the vynyl brittle and that side is likely to have needed polishing more being the original single stage red paint which always faded really badly.

Have you done a paint thickness test on the panel? Compared the sides. If it is less on the brittle side it is likely down to fade and polish. If it is more it is likely to be a repair and respray.