What Paint for a $450 Car?

theastronaut

Promoted Users
I just bought a really dumb car to drive while I have my daily/autocross car down for an engine swap. It's lower mileage and in good mechanical shape but has been a victim of a really terrible purple respray. It might be worth all of $2,500 in mint condition even if I did a $20k paint job on it so it's not worth spending much time or money on. What cheap single stage would you recommend to use on it? I'm looking at TCP Global's Restoration Shop single stage urethane in Wimbledon White but I know nothing about it other than a friend who's not into body/paint that said it worked great and has been really durable on a set of wheels he painted. It's $150 shipped for a gallon and hardener. I was planning on sanding off the respray, using some leftover urethane high build I have kicking around over the spots that need bodywork, and hopefully shooting paint all within a weekend with a couple friends helping. Again, its a worthless car that just needs to be not as ugly as it is now... is TCP's paint good enough for that?

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Man those pics take me back.....love of my life (at that time....around '93) had one of those. She ended it with me. I've hated them ever since...;)

+1 for SS SPI. Car would look good black, or white. Really if it's like you say though use whatever you want. Might be a chance to experiment with durability of lesser known stuff like Urekem or Alsa. Urekem in particular looks interesting to me.
I have heard that TCP Global was re-badged Omni (original Omni not Omni+) but I don't know if that's true or not.
 
The amount of work will be the same with a cheapo brand like Omni as it would with a quality paint like SPI. And with SPI the color selection is not a big issue either!
I'd say there's a good possibility that the amount of work would be more using paint of unknown quality. SPI red: It's a no-brainer.
 
I would use Kirker over Restoration shop. Ultra glo is their single stage, its about 75-80 for 3/4 full gallon, then 30 for the hardener, 4:1 so you end up with a gallon. You wont get cheaper with a single stage and its not terrible. Kirker sells to eastwood, eastwood just calls them fancier names. Only time I used Restoration shop it was really watery, like there was already reducer in it.

If you want a quick paint job I would find something closer to that color so you don't have to mess with the jams. Thats where you will lose all of your time and have most of your problems, but a white car always looks clean and will show the least problems until the rust fights its way back thru.

It sure is ugly, it reminds me of Daves pink mercedes on Kindigit show, kinda matte, with whatever that white around the base of the pickinic table on the back is. You sure its not wrapped or plastic dip that you can peel off? If it was faded clear I would expect more peeling, unless that is what is happening at the spoiler.
 
#4200-1 Pure Clean White Single Stage Gallon 4:1 Uses 2100 series activators 218.75
#2100 Series Activator - Quart 36.91

Just grabbed those off the price sheet, so $100.00 difference (maybe less I just chose the largest activator). Hmmmm for me that'd be a no brainer and I am *not* a painter :)
 
The $100 difference betwen SPI and TCP isn't a big deal, and I'd much rather use SPI but I was really wanting Wimbledon White instead of a bright white. It was originally white so the jambs will already match if I go back with white, they didn't redo the jambs in the current color. It currently has single stage over the original paint so I don't have to deal with peeling clearcoat. I've been wanting to try Euro clear so I might use a cheaper base I can pick up locally to get the color I want and get to try Euro as well.

It's definitely ugly as-is but they can look decent with nicer wheels and lowered a bit. Only reason I bought this was because I'm into Festivas and we use these as engine donors. It's the sixth Capri I've bought this year and just happens to be rust free and in really good mechanical condition so I thought I'd fix the ugly and drive it. I pulled a set of Tokico struts with H&R springs off a parts car to lower it, and I have a set of wheels and tires for it. If it turns out decent I may leave it together and sell it once the Festiva is back together, or I might keep it as a backup car.

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This is was what I was thinking for color scheme since it already has the grey/red side molding and the wheels I have are gold/polished.

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You'll easily get 1k more done half-ass right. Same time tape & masking either way.
You'll kick yourself when done if not.
 
ultra glo wimbledon white is 54.99. Check around autobodytoolmart is the most popular place in Chicagoland, but TP tools keeps more in stock and is more responsive.
 
John, maybe even a black metallic? I'm thinking stay close to the same color so you can avoid jambs. Taping errors will look bad if you go light over dark. It's not as bad as I was making out in my last post ...but close :) I would have trouble half assing even that car, do like Eddie says and do it well. Hell, I would have to do SPI single stage black, use retarder and make it slick and buff it, anything looks good in a deep shiny SPI black.
 
You'll easily get 1k more done half-ass right. Same time tape & masking either way.
You'll kick yourself when done if not.
Most Capri enthusiast don’t even seem to want these cars... many of the new replacement parts are priced so high that no one fixes these cars up. Between the few things I bought and the parts I took off my parts cars, I would’ve spent $3,800ish from the main Capri parts specialist within the first week of owning it. In reality I only spent about $375 by shopping around and using parts I had from other cars. There was a black rust free XR2 (turbo) 5 speed with a new top and only 43k miles for $1300 obo for sale last week. Any other car in the same condition would have people fighting over it, but not a Capri. I bought a final year ‘94 XR2 (one of 366) for only $1000 over the summer and it came with a hardtop and an extra engine, those are really the only “desireable” Capris out there. Like my original post said, a 20k paint job on one of these won’t increase the value.


ultra glo wimbledon white is 54.99. Check around autobodytoolmart is the most popular place in Chicagoland, but TP tools keeps more in stock and is more responsive.
Good to know!


John, maybe even a black metallic? I'm thinking stay close to the same color so you can avoid jambs. Taping errors will look bad if you go light over dark. It's not as bad as I was making out in my last post ...but close :) I would have trouble half assing even that car, do like Eddie says and do it well. Hell, I would have to do SPI single stage black, use retarder and make it slick and buff it, anything looks good in a deep shiny SPI black.
The car was originally white and they didn’t spray the jambs so they’re still white... with a little overspray. It needs too much bodywork for black, but black was my first thought since it’s a rare factory color on these and they look good in black. White hides a lot though and it’s the original color. It’ll still end up fairly nice, I’m not going to take too many shortcuts on prep.


I've used SPI white and tinted it. Really takes very little to tone it down (or make it pink :)) A few grams of red shade yellow and a little black would make it close to wimbledon white.
I wondered about tinting SPI white. At this point I’ll see what the local paint supply shop has for base when they open back up next week and use Euro clear. I’m planning on spraying some flattened clear on a different project and from reading it seems like most people are getting less orange peel with Euro than with Universal, so I’ve been wanting to try it on something less important first.
 
For all overs too, but i cut my teeth on ss. But white spi ss, all over, yep
 
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I'm surprised no one has brought up the idea of using left overs from other paint jobs. After forty-five years in business the amount of left over paint is overwhelming and hard to get rid of. I have painted a few worthless cars by carefully mixing left overs to come up with some pretty nice colors. Just don't go too crazy mixing or you'll mix the color of mud. ~BOB
 
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