Originality or Taste?

I think I have decided that I am going to veer away from originality on my Huntmaster paintwork.

These are the options:

Late FH in original, domestic-market maroon

The maroon bike shown above is how my bike would have appeared when new. The frame has been refinished in this colour, as have the oil tank and tool box; the shrouds, nacelle, fork legs, tank and mudguards are black, though very poorly painted. this picture comes from Classicandracebike.co.uk, so thanks to them for the picture.

This is the option, the glamorous red and black export market paintwork available in the US market - quite why Ariel's marketing group, if they had one, thought the domestic market would want the rather dour yet traditional maroon rather than this racy red is beyond me. This bike isn't a Cyclone, so its performance is just the same as the maroon one, but it looks like it's a lot faster to me.

Late model FH in original export-market red and black

This picture comes from the US Ariel Club, at www.arielnorthamerica.org our sister club. Here's a nice looking VH in that paint, from Andy Tiernan's shop:

The troubling thing? My bike's original buff log book states 'maroon'; it's a matching numbers bike and it seems a shame to change any of those details - but it's my bike and there are a lot of maroon Huntmasters out there.

Contrary to my usual all-original approach, my current thinking is that I am going for the export paintwork for this bike.