Update by Tim Suddard to the
Austin Mini Cooper S project car
Sep 24, 2014
To paint the underside of the car, it needs to be up in the air. here, Tom Prescott carefully masks our little Cooper S.
Ramon Quiles starts by painting the underneath and trunk areas of the Mini.
The final step is to bag the entire car, except for the roof, which we decided to paint white.
Painting an entire car needs to be done in stages. First, the top of the car was carefully masked and bagged, and Ramon painted the underside, the trunk and the engine compartment.
From there, the underside, trunk and engine compartment were masked and bagged and Ramon painted the inside of the car.
Next, the inside, underside, trunk area and engine compartment were masked off and the outside of the car was painted.
And finally, the entire car is bagged except for the roof, which got painted white.
This is the correct way to paint an entire car body. If you try to paint everything at once, you will get dry overspray everywhere and you will find poor results.
Generally, we use PPG’s base coat/clear coat system. While this quality paint makes for the best show car, it doesn’t look correct or authentic on an early, simple car like the Mini.
To get the correct look, we used PPG single stage this time. And yes, it came out perfectly, with the right amount of shine to hopefully win a concours. That said, the car definitely does not look over-restored.
When the paint was complete, we dry sanded imperfections and then buffed the entire car with Norton’s Liquid Ice compound system.
We will be covering the paint and bodywork in great detail in the next issue of Classic Motorsports. Subscribe today and read all about it.
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