It’s no secret even to the most unobservant motorist that cars have changed a great deal during the past 10 years. Advances in performance and construction are immediately obvious when comparing a new car to anything built before 1980. What most people wouldn’t notice, even though it’s the first thing they see, is how far paint technology has come.
Put a 1985 Citation next to a 2005 Saturn and as far as the paint goes, the only difference that may be detected is that one is shinier than the other. Scratch the surface a little bit—literally—and things are quite different. A technological revolution has gone on right before our eyes and very few people realize it.
When I first started selling paint, body and equipment (PBE) supplies, acrylic lacquer and enamels were king. A knowledgeable DIYer with a minimal amount of equipment could turn out an acceptable refinish job, even outdoors, if timed right. At one time we did a fair amount of paint sales to DIY customers. We also had quite a few more small body shops and combination repair/body shops than what we have now, and they performed as much rust repair work as they did collision repair work. Advances in corrosion prevention and the need for more sophisticated equipment have pared that number down.
Isocyanates and the need to properly dispose of used paints and solvents seem to be responsible for some of the decline in paint sales as well. Acrylic enamel with isocyanate hardeners, and polyurethane basecoat/ clearcoat paint with isocyanate activators, produce a more durable finish, but are much more hazardous to the user. Without a proper air respirator and paint suit, even the occasional painter is asking for trouble. The paint gun itself has also had a major redesign that some customers still have a hard time accepting.
I don’t recall there were many shops around here that had a real spray booth either. Curtain off a bay with an exhaust fan, wet the floor down so the Bondo dust didn’t fly and put on a charcoal mask, and you were in business. Even now, a downdraft spray booth and a top quality high-volume, low-pressure (HVLP) spray gun are not required, but they certainly make a difference. A typical HVLP gun greatly reduces paint usage and overspray, and with the cost of a pint of basecoat/clearcoat premium paint around $60 to $70, it’s worth the investment. Some people may be more comfortable spraying with a siphon feed gun with the efficiency of a garden hose and spending half a day buffing the imperfections out, but they’re not very profitable.
Compared to mechanical work, where the changes came at a steady pace, bodywork remained fairly constant for a long time. The art of straightening and painting a vehicle from the ’50s or ’60s was really no different than one from the late ’70s or ’80s. Panel bonding and plastic repair, solvent recycling and estimating your job costs down to the last sheet of sandpaper have all taken their toll on the smaller collision repair shops.
We are now down to two large dealership shops and one small well-equipped independent where I live, here in Hillsboro, N.H. There is still one combination repair/body shop that operates pretty much the same as it did 20 years ago, but it’s not the owner’s only source of revenue, so he can get away with it. I can think of about a dozen others within our delivery area that are gone now because they let the winds of change hit them like a hurricane rather than ride the breeze.
