[Healeys] paints

[warthodson at aol.com]

So far most of the comments have been in favor of single stage because it
looks more like the original paint or is cheaper. At Conclave for instance, I
am not sure I can distinguish between cars painted with a single stage paint &
ones painted with a base coat/clear coat system. I can identify cars with
excellent paint jobs from ones with lower quality paint jobs, but that is
something completely different. An anecdotal or is it an empirical example: A
friend in our local Healey club has been telling us for years that his car was
painted with a single stage paint. It is a high quality paint job. We all
thought the paint looked "original". After a recent accident, the body shop
told him that his car had a base coat/clear coat paint job. The owner was as
surprised as the rest of us. The shop was able to match the paint
(non-metallic) exactly & we cannot tell which panels have been repainted &
which have not.

Not much about hardness/chip resistance. Recently, I saw a frame being painted
black with Dupont Imron which I read is a polyester enamel, what ever that is.
It looked beautiful. I was told it was chosen because it is very hard/chip
resistant. Comments?
Thanks,
Gary