I had thought in the beginning that this Holiday had been painted by the owner as the 53 was bare aluminum like Airstreams generally are. As I began disassembling it though, it was obvious that it had been painted at the factory. The bright red, however, was I'm guessing a last minute touch to spruce it up for the photographs on eBay. It was a spray can job over the already pealing first coat. The original color was also red but a much deeper red leaning slightly toward magenta. My plan will be to go back with the original color.
The first thing I did was to work on stripping the paint, emphasis on work.