Paint and Body - Full-Body Workout

We've done paint and body tech stories in the past. If you've seen one, then you've seen them all, right?

Well, not exactly. If you're planning on taking your own project car to a body shop to have the bodywork and paint done professionally, then this story may convince you to do it yourself. But if you're already the type of guy or gal that is down for tackling at least part of it yourself, then you've come to the right place.

Now don't take this the wrong way--the guy actually doing the work in this story is a professional, and we did the work at his shop. But everything you'll see is done with supplies that you can get from Summit Racing Equipment. And everything that we're showing you can be done in your own garage (if it's legal in your area, of course). We just wanted to show you the correct way to do everything.

The subject, our '85 Coyote coupe project car, was pretty straight and clean to start. We had originally planned on just having the car prepped and painted. But after our chosen painter Dean Santiago became involved, everything changed. Santiago, who owns and operates Spike's Performance in Ocala, Florida, is a bit of a perfectionist. He agreed to do our paint job, but we also had to allow him to do the bodywork too. "If I'm painting this car, then it's going to be done right," he said.

Granted, our coupe wasn't perfect (we knew it had a few dings and rock chips), but he found blemishes that we couldn't even see, and quite frankly, weren't even worried about. Nevertheless, we agreed to his request and hauled our roller to Ocala for its impending transformation.

On The Summit

Though known mostly for its performance parts, Summit Racing Equipment carries a huge selection of paint and supplies. It carries thousands of parts, ranging from sandpaper and abrasives to waxes and polishes, and everything in between. Fillers, primers, paints, and even painting equipment and tools are available on the same Summit Racing website and catalog that you're used to browsing.

Not only does it carry popular brands like 3M, House of Kolor, Meguiar's, and Lincoln Electric, but it also has a full line of its own professional products, which is what we chose. Whether you're just detailing your Mustang or planning an entire restoration, Summit Racing has everything you need to get the job done. And best of all, you can do it all yourself.

Instead of listing every little thing that we ordered from Summit, let's just say it was a two-page invoice--most of which was Summit Racing brand. We got an array of sandpaper, primers, reducers, hardeners, fillers, activators, sealers, basecoat, and clearcoat. The paint we chose is Blue Sky Metallic from Summit's 2-Stage Urethane Paint line. This basecoat/clearcoat color is similar to the color of our rendering, and closely resembles Ford's current F-150 (and Raptor) color, Blue Flame.

Once we received our order, Santiago dove right in. He started by stripping the areas that needed to be worked on, one panel at a time. After filling, sanding, and priming, he moved on to the next area. We also unboxed our new carbon fiber hood from Motor City Solutions. Now, the body is completely primed and ready for the blocking process before paint.

Check back next month to see our coupe in the paint booth.