I’m getting ready to paint an A-Body (white with a vinyl top). Looking for input on how the vehicle should be painted… single stage DCC paint or base coat clear coat? Difference in the shine? Attempt would be to replicate paint shine quality from back in the day (understand that paint materials not the same). Which one is easier to touch up down the road.

Additional notes: Vehicle was media blasted/primed and e-coated on the underside.

On a solid color, single stage is hard to beat, if I could post a picture of my black car you could see that you can read the print on the florescent light bulbs above the car and it's single stage.

Basecoat Clearcoat looks better , single stage is closer to original , white is forgiving , if it were metallic you must use Basecoat Clearcoat so you can sand and polish the paint , if the car will live in the garage I would use single stage if it lives outside us clearcot.

Metallic paints must use base/clear. If you do some searching online, it takes a real pro to pull off metallic in single stage without getting tiger stripes, cloudy spots and inconsistent metallic flake distribution. Also, like fury said, you can't wet sand or cut and buff a single stage metallic as it'll come out looking cloudy and splotchy.

However since you're doing a regular white, you have your choices. Base/clear will have more gloss, however IMO single stage, especially in lighter colors, tends to significantly narrow that difference. I find single stage urethane is easier to spray on smooth and have a nicer finish than base/clear. Take a look at modern base/clear cars from the factory. I was at the GM dealer a few months ago and took a look at the new camaro and vette they had in the show room. To me, the orange peel in the clear looked horrible. Appalling in fact considering the sticker on those cars. The single stage urethane I sprayed on the bottom of my trunk lid looks better than those cars. To make the clear look good, you have to expect to lay down enough coats to have room to wet sand it smooth and buff.

Older cars had a deep shine when polished , a richer looking paint. New cars just have a shine that doesn't look right on a older car.

Keep in mind base clear always seems to have swirl marks that single stage doesn`t. Of coarse white might not matter as much as a dark color.

Look at www.eastwood.com, they discuss the pros and cons of each.

I do not agree that old paint jobs had a deeper look. Unless you count the "14 coats of lacquer and five coats of clear" show cars.

The results from a 1K single coat are much closer to the original paint. The 2K base coat clear coat system has a deeper look. I have read about people mixing half clear into the last layer of the single coat to get some depth.

As was said, plain white is more forgiving. I love the Ford Arctic White or Polar White but it'll make your car look enough different that people will wonder why it looks different. Then they won't be able to figure it out.

R.

PPG Delstar acrylic enamel is the closest you'll get to the original paint.

I have a relative with an early Chevy II that was painted white with Delstar in the early 90's and it still shines great today.

White with no metallic and base clear seams unnecessary to me.

Base coat clear coat solid color on a restored car usually looks so wrong to me it makes me cringe.
On the other hand, on a restored car with a metallic color, it usually looks pretty good to me.
Maybe it's a matter of taste. Your results will vary.
My FE5 red Challenger is single stage and every time I look at it I am thankful for that and that it's not base coat clear coat!

Talk to your jobber, you can use DCC fist two coats and blend your clear with the color or go strait to clear coat. This works very well I've done it for years. It gives you the durability of single stage with the repairability of a two stage. And the gloss

Given where you are located many of the single stage paints such as acrylic enamel take a considerable length of time to set up and harden. Most of that type of product on the market seem to have that problem. Also, hard to repair a scratch like base/clear.

This is a brand X pickup cab I did a few years ago in Omni single stage. Last coat had 50% clear and it really does add depth. The pic is pre-cut&buff.