My 72 Swinger is a 35K origional paint/metal car. There is surface only rust on the rockers, the inside flange on two wheel wells, and a couple door dings on the drivers door. The body shop I talked with says they would paint the entire car with base clear because the origional paint (acrylic/enamel) cannot be blended in well enough and would show. I know nothing about bodywork or paint. My paint is really good and I would like to preserve the origionality of the car. Are they giving me the runaround? Is there a way to do this with origional paint?

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"that's a nice car....are you gonna fix it up some day?"

It's extremely difficult to color match paint that old and the results you desire are up to you. A good body man can do a decent match, but the mass production places won't take the time. The body shop much prefers to use base-clear coat, because of the ease of application and the longevity of the paint. Those finishes are also far easier to maintain.

I recently painted my '73 Dodge truck with arylic enamel and it came out looking like the original paint...not as shiny and with minor defects. The paint shop tried their best to get me to use b/c, but I'm stubborn and I'm also not a fan of clear coats that bake and flake in our Texas sun. When I paint the canopy, I'm going to use b/c, so I can compare the longevity with the truck finish.

Thanks 64. I am not too concerned with that modern car smooth finish look, as for longevity this paint looks great after 32 years, that's good enough for me. I got a couple rattle cans made up using the origional PPG paint code to match my rims to the body colour and they turned out very well. Anyone else out there with paint experience?

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"that's a nice car....are you gonna fix it up some day?"

There is a great forum to get information about auto body repairs and paint. They helped me a lot when I painted my truck.

www.autobodystore.com