Automotive Paints

By KiKi

I worked as an automotive painter for 40 years, give or take a few, owned my own body & paint shop for some years. I started as a painter’s helper in 1955 and I saw lots of changes in the types of paints used in those 50 years.

When I started in ‘55 there were two types of base paints used, lacquer and enamel. General Motors and Chrysler cars came from the factory with lacquer paint, which if you didn’t polish it at least once a month would start getting dull. In ’57 I believe it was; GM started using acrylic lacquer and that made it easier on the elbows because you didn’t need to polish it as often. Chrysler switched to enamel (vitreous) around the same time. At the time, Ford Co. cars were painted in enamel (vitreous).

In my early years as a painter’s help, the paint bases that were used for repair work was lacquer for spot repair and enamel (synthetic) for complete paint jobs…The lacquer had to be color sanded and rubbed with rubbing compound and polished once it dried. The synthetic enamel gave you a beautiful finish, but it didn’t last if you left your car out in the elements you were lucky if the paint job lasted three years. Good enamel painters were hard to come by. You could get a hand-rubbed lacquer paint job, but it was very pricey. Lacquer clear was not much used as it would in time crack.

In the mid-‘60’s paint manufacturers came out with an acrylic enamel base paint for spot repairs. In the early years after its debut, the acrylic enamel base paints created many headaches for the painters; as it had many kinks that took till the mid-‘70’s to be worked. By the late ’70s, the acrylic enamel was great for spot repair and complete paint jobs, it could also be rubbed like the old lacquer.

Just as the painters had the acrylic enamel down pat a new base paint was introduced by the car manufacturers in the late ’70s. The urethane, or polyurethane, was a two-stage finish (late a three-stage came out) a base color coat with a clear coat. Again, in the beginning, it was nothing but headaches for the painters. By the early ’80s, the problems with this base were worked out and the painters that mastered the system were making big bucks as they were in high demand.

As I was getting ready to retire in the early ’90s a new base paint, waterborne, came out, I never had a chance to use it. My understanding is that it is still used at the present time. I retired in ’93 and I never looked back.