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The clear coat concept is not a proven winner at this point. Frankly you don't gain as much with it than without it. Once you put a clear coat on... you can't do simple or quick repairs to scratches. There are concerns about adhesion and whether you really gain anything by attempting to clear coat a Tremclad/Rustoleum or Brightside paint job. Suffice to say with the Brightside it is a polyurathane... and so it already has a built in high level of gloss. And even the Tremclad/Rustoleum can be polished and waxed up to the same level of shine and glossiness.

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I'm curious what the Rustoleum clear in a gallon can actually is... Most of the cans of clear you see on the shelf are lacquers (well, Testors makes an enamel model paint clear). The Rustoleum enamel spray clear looks like an acrylic enamel by the MSDS sheet. Lacquer clear probably isn't the best choice for a car anyway...it yellows over time, and is a lot more brittle than enamel paint. Unfortunately, if you want a "real" clear coat, you'll have to use catalyzed automotive clear. The reason you can't find a spray can of "real" clear is that once you add the activator, it has a shelf life measured in hours...not months or years like a spray can would need. Marq mentioned adhesion as a problem...talking to people who've sprayed a clear coat on alkyd enamels I've heard "sometimes it works, sometimes not".

I've got a steering wheel I restored for my '60 Oldsmobile, and I'm doing a 2 tone paint job on it with metallic synthetic paint (light grey/shadow grey), and I'm going to give a couple coats of acrylic urethane clear to protect it. I'll let you guys know what happens If it all goes haywire, I'll just be sanding it down for the 50th time and have to get some "real" base coat paint. The steering wheel gets handled enough I want a good hard clear on the metallic paint. I painted the rest of the interior with metallic alkyd synthetic paint, and I'm not worried about the durability...I won't be handling my dash board very often.

I agree with Marq though...I'm not sure it's worth the trouble. These enamel paint jobs are going to look different than a bc/cc job...that's just the nature of the paint. One looks "wet" the other looks "shiny". With everyone going to bc/cc paint, it's actually kind of neat to see car that isn't