Click here to share your favorite car, car story or any automotive trivia!
Join automotive enthusiasts Christian and Doug as they dive deep into the car culture journey of Matt from Top Coat Garage. From his first Honda Civic hatchback inspired by Gran Turismo's legendary Spoon Sports builds to running a high-end custom paint and restoration shop, Matt reveals the technical secrets behind show-quality automotive finishes.
Discover the fascinating world of automotive paint technology, from metallic flakes and prismatic color-changing coats to candy paint layering techniques. Matt shares his 20+ year collection philosophy, his ongoing hunt for the perfect Acura NSX dream car, and how he transformed collision repair skills into a thriving custom automotive business.
Whether you're a Honda enthusiast, restoration hobbyist, or simply love hearing passionate car stories, this episode delivers technical expertise, business insights, and pure automotive nostalgia. Learn about paint booth operations, spray gun selection, and why some paint jobs can "swim in depth" while others fall flat.
Don't miss Matt's favorite episode featuring another car guy who cares about protecting your paint, Tom Wolfe - CEO of Ziebart International https://buzzsprout.com/2316026/episodes/17498085-from-rust-proof-roots-to-global-vehicle-protection-tom-wolfe-s-ziebart-story
Perfect for car guys, automotive professionals, classic car collectors, and anyone fascinated by the intersection of automotive craftsmanship and Japanese car culture. Plus: behind-the-scenes shop tour invitation and exclusive paint technique revelations you won't find anywhere else.
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Listen on your favorite platform and visit https://carsloved.com for full episodes, our automotive blog, Guest Road Trip Playlist and our new CAR-ousel of Memories photo archive.
Don't Forget to Rate & Review to keep the engines of automotive storytelling—and personal restoration—running strong.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to All the Cars I've Loved Before, your
authoritative podcast onautomotive nostalgia, where
every car tells a story, everycar has a culture and, hey, it's
time to plug in, dust off andget a little grease under the
nails.
Oh, my favorite part, let's getto this real quick before we
toss it over to Doug.
Here we have some new listeners.
(00:21):
Welcome if you're in Paris,paris France.
No, not Paris Georgia or ParisMississippi, although there's
nothing wrong with those places.
The real deal.
Paris, paris, france.
Welcome Rome, italy.
Welcome San Diego.
That's.
Let's look at the numbers.
Yeah, that's a new one.
Welcome San Diego.
Rest in Virginia.
Who else?
(00:42):
Oh, and Stockholm, stockholm.
So again, internationally.
I love checking out the stats, Ilove seeing that.
Oh, and we wanted to.
Before we pivot to the merchmaster, doug, he's got magnets,
he's got a T-shirt, he had a hatuntil I stole it.
We're going to do something alittle different today, we're?
(01:03):
We continue to rack up thereviews on where, on apple
podcast, thank you for writing,and uh, so so let us know what
you think.
I'm just gonna read one becauseI think it's lovely and it
doesn't say that I talk too much, which is rare in these.
But how, how about this?
(01:24):
December 26, 2024, from VinceVroom love the name better than
a day of test driving cars?
So here's the review.
He says I like cars.
I am a car enthusiast, not justnew cars, not just old cars,
not just nice cars.
I like all cars.
Each has its own flavor.
The thing that makes thispodcast fantastic is the
(01:46):
scriptless format.
Some would say we could use one.
He continues Each guest bringstheir own car story and passion
to the table.
The hosts aren't interviewingor working from a script.
It's a conversation withsomeone about something they
love, the kind of excitementthat can't be scripted or
purchased.
The variety of guests, storiesand flavors is incredible.
(02:07):
You won't regret listening toit.
If you're lucky, you'll have achance to share your story and
passion too.
I can't wait to hear.
Well, thank you, vince, lovethat and appreciate that review.
Do we know who that is, doug,or is this person going to
remain anonymous?
What do you think?
Speaker 3 (02:26):
They are anonymous on Apple, so just one of our
listeners.
Wow, that took it.
Only takes a few minutes towrite it, but that means a lot,
right for our listeners.
So please, if you like whatyou're hearing, drop us a review
.
If you just want to say hi,feel free to do that.
Uh, you can send us a text viathe uh, uh, sorry, via via the
(02:54):
podcast platform of choice linkat the top.
Yep, um, go to our website,carslovecom.
It's going to be updated soon,um, and, of course, there's the
YouTube, instagram and Facebook.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah and share, tell a friend, download, review and
follow.
Check out our link tree,linktree, slash, carsloved and
you know.
Reach out and tell us if youlike what we're doing, If you
have suggestions, if you don'tlike, let us know.
If you need a hat and you can'tfind one and you just want to
(03:26):
steal one from Doug, it's fine,he has a never-ending supply.
Oh, real quick, though I likethat shirt.
Yeah, let's talk about theshirt.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Let's talk about the magnet.
So the shirt has yeah, he's a9-11 alum.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Why did you get rid of that car?
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Because it was a Tiptronic and it was my mistake
for buying it.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Okay, great shirt, that 911 that he bought from
Five Below for I think, $5.
Not necessarily below.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
I think, it was right at five.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
So what about the magnets?
Let's talk about the magnets,okay.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
So Wonderful.
Shutterfly was having a greatdeal, normally eight or nine
dollars each.
They 20 magnets a dollar each.
Can't go wrong with that.
So instead of 200 cost me 20bucks.
So we have this wonderfulmagnet, yep, which is also our
lead magnet.
So we're gonna be sitting ifyou want a magnet.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Shoot us a note, we'll have a newsletter.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
If you give us your name and email, we'll send you a
magnet.
Magnet is magnet, has aDeLorean with our logo on it.
Cars loved link, uh, link andand a QR code.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So just to make it super easy the first 10 people
to either email Doug at carslovecom or Christian at cars
lovecom Get a magnet.
So hey, reach out and let usknow what you think.
Is it?
Do we have anything else on themerch front or can we move on?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
uh, just um new website.
Uh, should be going live prettysoon.
Um, depending on when peoplehear this, it'll probably
already be up by that time, butit's gonna be new and improved.
You saw a preview of it,christian what did you think of
it?
Speaker 1 (05:21):
love it looks really good.
It's sharp.
It looks like a uh, a 14 yearold made it.
It no longer looks like a 12year old man.
Well, so that's, that'simprovement.
We're moving forward.
We're moving forward.
Speaking of moving forward,it's time to introduce today's
guest.
Really excited to uh introduceour pal matt of top coat garage.
(05:42):
How you?
How are you doing today, matt?
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Good man, how are you guys?
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Excellent and thank you so much for joining the show
.
You know there's nothing quitelike seeing a beautiful, unique
or really distinctive paint jobon an automobile, van, truck.
But I didn't really think aboutit a whole lot until I visited
the Hyundai plant in Montgomery,alabama and you can tour.
(06:09):
I used to be able to tour thiswas, I think, before COVID just
tour the whole plant.
And somebody said you know, ittakes 16 hours to make a car,
but nine of the hours are spentin paint.
And I thought, wow, I neverthought of it that way.
And everybody on the tour wasthinking, wow, that much time.
(06:29):
Yeah, it's really such aninvestment in the exterior of
the automobile and that's whatTop Coat Garage does.
So could you please tell us alittle bit about yourself and
your business?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well, yeah, I've been into cars forever, I mean as
long as I could think.
And then, um, eventually havingthe opportunity to work on them
at such a young age, um, youknow, working on my own cars and
then working, you know, just tomake money, you know.
And then, um, and then finally,you know, kind of like getting
(07:06):
the opportunity to just open upmy own shop.
And now this is what I comehere and do every day, and it's
different whenever you're inyour own place, you know you're
not really doing it for a boss,you're just kind of doing it for
yourself.
It almost doesn't feel like ajob anymore, if that makes sense
.
So now you just got thischallenge, doing it for yourself
, it almost doesn't feel like ajob anymore, if that makes sense
.
So now you just got thischallenge and then that's what
(07:29):
we're, you know, that's what Icome here and do every day.
Just, you know, kind of likeknock out this challenge.
So, yeah, and one of the biggestchallenges is, you know, like
you said, it takes nine hours to, you know, get these cars
painted.
Those cars are brand new.
You know what I mean.
Mean, you're talking aboutfresh metal, fresh substrates
and everything, and now we justhave to make it shiny.
How the heck does it?
You know, you know, take ninehours to do that, you know, and
(07:52):
it's just like I understand itall you know.
So, um, but yeah, and this isjust what I do every day, you
know, we pretty much just makestuff shiny, make it beautiful
yeah, you're.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
You're kind of picasso or rembrandt, with just
a little bit of a differentcanvas, a little bit different
paint.
So so what was the first thingcar you ever painted?
What was that like?
How did that work and what?
What bug bit you?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
well, I um, I mean, it goes back to like before I
could even drive.
You know, we used to take whatare now what we call vintage
mini bikes, you know, and we allwanted a different looking one
than you know, our friends.
So we would take them apart andbuy some cans of spray paint
(08:42):
from wherever you would get themand we would spray paint them
different colors and you'd havesome friends that would spray
paint them and half of the paintlanded on the ground, you know,
and so it was always who hadthe nicest paint job, who had
the best color scheme and allthat.
And then eventually, um had youknow, being able, getting old
enough to purchase your own carnow you want a different color
(09:04):
from your friends.
You know, being able, gettingold enough to purchase your own
car, now you want a differentcolor from your friends.
You know, and um, I was, uh, inin high school.
I ended up taking a vocationalprogram and, uh, I was actually
supposed to take a welding classbut the welding class was
filled up and they're like, well, try out this auto collision,
you know auto collision and autorefinishing class and see what
(09:26):
you think with that.
And I got in there.
I, I was real good with theteacher.
I mean, the teacher hit it offreal well.
And then I started realizing youknow, um, what it took to paint
a car.
You know how you could.
You know your coordination andknowing of the chemicals could
create the biggest difference inthese paint jobs, from a good
(09:48):
looking paint job to a bad paintjob and you know, in school I
was hooked.
I think I painted a.
It was a mitsubishi mirage um,the color, it was a dark color,
it was a black, it had a littlebit of flake in there and I
don't know.
I just listened.
I didn't listen much in school,but when it came to that
(10:09):
teacher talking about paintingcars, I'll tell you what the
first thing I did was.
You know everything that hesaid, every step that he said I
followed, and my paint job cameout so much nicer than everyone
else's.
And you know you get pumped offof that, you get hooked.
You just did something reallygood, you know, and you want to
(10:31):
do it again and again and again,you know.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
And then here we are yeah, so going, uh, yeah, 20
plus years later, right?
Yeah and, um, you were tellingus before the show started that
before COVID you were workingfor somebody else and that's
what you'd been doing.
And then, because of COVID andbasically people weren't driving
(10:54):
their cars, they weren'tsmashing them up, right, people
were buying cars.
Car market was going kind ofcrazy, but including restoration
, but you, you made a big lifedecision.
Can you just tell us about thatand where you are today?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah, so pretty much it did really well in Votek and
I became an automobile painter,automotive painter in a
collision shop at a really youngage, at 19 years old and, um,
you know, usually when you startout you become a helper and I
was helping, but I was able topaint, I was able to spray and
every chance they gave me I wasspraying and the opportunity
(11:30):
came up, I became a painter at areally young age and I mean,
that's where the big money wasat.
So, 19 year olds, I'm I'm doinggreat like.
I love those those years, youknow, um, and uh, and that's
kind of like how I built my life.
You know, I was just paintingcars every single day and
eventually I became the headpainter.
I was even making more money,um, and I had a great life.
(11:54):
Um, I mean, I had a nice house,we had property, I had cars.
I even had my own hobby shop athome.
You know, I built a pole barnand I put a paint booth in it.
So I was, I was, you know,working during the day doing
collision jobs and I was cominghome and I was working on my own
personal cars in my own shop.
You know, um even started ayoutube out of it and everything
(12:17):
.
Um.
Well, eventually covet hit anduh, body shop, you know, life
came to like kind of zero.
No one was driving, you know um, no one's on the roads.
It was like the first time evergetting like a zero on my
paycheck.
You know, and I'll tell youwhat I wasn't good at.
I wasn't good at saving money.
So now I had to figure out howto make money and thank god that
(12:40):
hobby shop that I had that hada paint booth out of I was able
to do my own little you knowside gig, side gig out of.
You know um, of course,throughout the years, when
you're building cars and peoplelike your cars, you know people
want you to build their cars too, you know.
So I always had like kind oflike a little bit of um, you
know, clientele on the side thatwanted me to do personal stuff
(13:03):
for them.
And then during the whole COVIDsituation, you're kind of
panicking, like what am I goingto do for money?
Well, you just kind of answerthose calls and bring that work
in a little bit more, you know,and and then you get things
rolling.
You know, that's kind of how Imet, you know, our mutual friend
, jason Miller.
He needed a car done.
So we talked, you know, andeventually started painting cars
(13:25):
for him.
And then I started paintingcars for all of his friends and
so on.
And and then all of a sudden,you know, you got your little
hobby shop, you know, 1200square foot place with a, with a
paint booth, and now you have20 cars sitting outside of it,
you know.
And then you have these otherbusiness owners that need cars
done and they're looking at youand they're like what are you
doing, like, in your yard withall these cars?
(13:47):
And I'm like I don't know, I'mmaking a living, you know, and
it's kind of like, you know, gowhere the wind blows, you know,
and eventually expand, you know.
You kind of know what you, youknow what you can produce out of
a 1200 square foot shop.
I don't know, maybe, if themath is right, I can do a little
bit better if I had a, you know, seven thousand square foot
(14:08):
shop, you know, and it just grewfrom there, you know.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
So that's kind of how it went yeah, and, and really
you've grown from uh word ofmouth.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
You do some insurance work, but you also do custom
work, right, yes, yeah we dolike custom, we do um
restoration, um, we do like alot of like high-end repairs.
You know, um like we have abentley sitting outside right
now and had a little fenderbender so he just needed their
fender repainted, you know,repaired and painted and so on.
(14:41):
So a lot of people come to us.
You know, there's actually likea hunt valley area around here,
um, where a lot of high-end,expensive cars are at, you know,
and and we're surrounded bycorporate body shops.
We're surrounded by body shopsthat are just trying to get you
in, get you out.
You know, so it's kind of good,um, that we have like a
(15:03):
specialty shop like ours.
We spray a certain paint, likea more high end paint, and
everything.
No-transcript.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Yeah, well, that's, but.
But he does more than paint.
His shop does more than paintsfull body shop, so he can do all
kinds of things including,including our mutual friend
Jason.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
I mean, I think you turned his skinny 911 into a
wide body, right?
Oh yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
It's beautiful work.
Yeah, he had a narrow bodyPorsche and we ended up putting
a wide body on it.
That was actually one of thejobs I was doing out of my house
and you know he would bring methis bumper.
And, um, you know, he wouldbring me this bumper.
(16:09):
He's like man, I got this oldrace car bumper and I'm looking
at it and this bumper does notfit that car whatsoever and.
but luckily we got greatexperience with, like you know,
fiberglass work and you know thebumper was actually made out of
fiberglass and I'm cutting itapart, I'm widen the bumper, I'm
making it fit the fenders, youknow, and giving it extra mounts
to make it more sturdy, youknow.
And then and then he brings methese side skirts and this
(16:32):
rocker panel and I'm just like,where did you get this from?
You know, and here I am, youknow, pie cutting it in places
so it fits, the wide body andeverything.
So the wide, the body kit onhis car, the bumper and side
skirts, is a hundred percentone-off you know I made it out
of custom gave me.
yeah, you know, and, and I, andI tell you what man, my guys
(16:55):
here, you know, um, I'll bringin a job.
And they're scratching theirhead.
How are we going to make thiswork?
And I kind of like map it outfor them and show them.
And you know, they, they followmy steps and they're they're
even more skilled than me.
They just don't know it.
You know, I just have to likeguide them that way.
That's what's really good aboutmy team here is like I have a
(17:16):
hundred percent confidence inthem and you know we, or how
we're going to make somethingfit, and they follow the steps
and you know, they're standingback like wow, I can't believe
we did that, you know.
And it's all based off ofexperience from you know, giving
me something and I'm just kindof like I guess I'll figure it
(17:36):
out.
You know, I'll let you know inthe end, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
And that's what makes you a great team.
There's vision, there'screativity, there's and that's
what makes you a great teamthere's vision, there's
creativity, there's the skill,there's the know-how and it all
comes together.
That's why you're a great team.
And before we go any furtherhere, I do want to tell if you
want to put a smile on your face, go check out Top Coat Garage
(18:00):
or the Instagram page here.
I know there's a little bit ofrework on the website happened.
It should be done by the timethis is reaching your ears for
top coat garagecom.
But we'll go look at Instagram,top coat garage and it's just
really, it kind of kind oftranscends automobiles and it
just it just looks like art whatyou've done with a lot of these
(18:21):
cars, so creative and just justand just really beautiful here.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
We definitely don't discriminate against cars.
We do them all, from the oldercars to the newer cars, to the
exotics.
We just like them all yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
But personally, right , and I know where Christian's
going with this, I'm jumping inyou like japanese cars, right oh
yeah yeah, so.
So, uh, christian, where are wegoing?
Speaker 1 (18:51):
in the way back machine.
Let's hop into the uh the timemachine and go back.
Let's talk about your first car.
Where'd you get it, how did itdrive and what did it mean to
you?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
well, my first car was a 2000 honda civic hatchback
and, uh, I remember playinggran turismo on playstation and
uh, there was just spoon.
There's a, an automobileperformance company in japan
that specialized in honda's,called spoon, and uh, they had
(19:25):
this spoon civic hatchback.
I mean, it had a carbon fiberhood, a carbon fiber wing.
It looked plain, but for somereason, the way they built that
motor in the game it had it wasa high revvy motor.
It had the lowest horsepower,but I tell you what it performed
so well against these cars andand I fell in love, I was like I
can't believe you can do thiswith a Honda Civic hatchback.
(19:47):
I mean my neighborhood, if wewant to talk about the influence
of cars beforehand, I mean, Ihad nothing but guys with muscle
cars, big motors, big blowers.
You know that's literally whatI grew up working on.
But when it came time for me topurchase my own car, I wanted a
honda, I wanted a civic.
I was so impressed with the waythose cars were balanced, the
(20:11):
performance aspect you could getout of it such a low horsepower
number car and such alightweight car and what people
were doing with it.
So, yeah, I was all about, youknow the honda civic and, um, my
father knew that and, uh, he,it's crazy.
Back in the day we'd be in thepaper.
You know, you're literallylooking at these little tiny
(20:33):
paper ads.
And there was, um, a familythat had the car I think the
brother owned.
The brother had possession ofthe car.
The owner of the car actuallyended up passing away and they
were selling this car likeweirdly cheap like nowadays we
would call it a scam, you know,it would be a facebook scam but
(20:54):
we were like there's somethingweird about the price of this
car.
My father called and, um, theywanted that.
They were, they were for real.
They were like, yeah, we'rejust trying to get rid of it.
We don't really know what it'sworth.
Um, I think they wanted $4,000for it, which was a lot of money
back in the day.
And, um, when I was, you know,15, 16 years old, um, but my,
(21:16):
but, I had a job.
I was in a body shop.
Um, actually ended up workingat that body shop for 20 years.
Oh, yeah, I was there for awhile and since my dad knew I
had a job and I had to give mypaychecks to him to put in the
bank, he could charge me aweekly payment on that car, and
that's what I did.
(21:36):
You know he he purchased a carfor me and I had to pay him back
.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Yeah, yeah, kept you responsible, smart dad.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Yeah, what a great lesson.
Wow, I don't know that we'veever heard that before, but but
what a great sense of of kind ofresponsibility.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Yeah, my dad was really good at a budget.
Um, I'll never forget that hehad 25 cents of his name at the
end of every month.
I mean he had giant books ofbudgets.
He would write it out.
You would think I would havelearned from that.
I definitely didn't, but hedefinitely tried to teach me
that.
I don't know I do okay in thebusiness now, but I'll tell you
(22:14):
what.
Up to COVID, when I was makingdoing really well at 19 years
old and up, I did not save adime.
I will tell you that.
It was pretty much.
I just purchased cars, carparts.
That was pretty much my lifeyou know well fun.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Fun isn't cheap, fun isn't, I know that.
But but great, dad, yeah, it'sfunny.
Funny, you mention that becausejust last week I bought my.
I got three sons, my middle son.
I bought him his first kind ofreal car.
He had a beatup corolla thatjust died.
He didn't have it very long.
But we, uh, we're going downthe road right near where we
(22:47):
live here in in florida andthere was a cool 40th
anniversary convertible mustangand with, just you know, the for
sale little sign in the windowand I said, oh, we got to make
that happen.
So two days later, later, andit was in really good shape, my
son is over the moon.
I haven't seen him in a week.
(23:08):
I assume he's having fundriving around with his friends.
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Well, at least he's going to get snow experience.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
I better not see him come and drive down my street in
that thing with the ice.
He's having real fun with thesnow.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
No but, don't remind me, don't remind me Steer with
the rear buddy.
Steer with the rear.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
I can't wait to get my hands on it.
But yeah, I've not seen it.
But sorry, doug, I didn't meanto interrupt.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
No, no, that's okay.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
You know, what I thought was pretty cool is Matt
is um, matt, you still have thiscar.
Right, I still have this car.
No way, I ended up I've listen.
This car is transformed likecrazy.
Um, I ended up making it likeyou know, my spoon dream car,
almost.
You know um we made it into aroad race car we put a cage in
it.
The suspension was done, youknow, inside and out.
I mean we stiffened it up withevery bar we possibly could.
The motor was completely built.
(24:07):
We ended up putting acompletely different motor in it
, a little bit more displacement, but we wanted a high revving
motor, just like them spoonmotors.
It had individual throttlebodies, four, nine final drive.
I mean this thing was like adirt bike.
You literally I mean to go like40 mile an hour.
You, you're probably in, like,you know, third gear, like if I
(24:27):
was on the highway, just try totrying to travel at, you know,
60, 70 mile an hour.
Keep up with traffic.
I mean I'm at, like you know,six and a half 7,000 RPMs
because it's a road race car.
You want to stay at high RPMthrough turns, you know.
So we really built it out.
You want to stay at high RPMthrough turns, you know, so we
really built it out.
(24:51):
And I ended up, you know, notmaking as much money one year
and, believe it or not, themoney that I was making would be
a ton of money for some people,but for me, and the way I saved
money, I was like man, I got toget rid of a car here and I
ended up selling that carbecause I had a friend that
wanted to purchase it and it wasthe biggest regret ever.
I hated it.
I wanted that car back so badand I was actually fortunate
(25:16):
enough for him to run into alittle situation.
I think he was going to likethrow a divorce or something and
he was like dude, if you wantthis car back I never even
titled it in my name Just giveme what we paid.
And I said, absolutely.
I was like bring it over.
I got the money for you, let'sgo.
And I ended up purchasing thecar back and from then on I
(25:39):
vowed to myself any cars that Itruly liked.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
I was never, ever selling again.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Cause there are a few other cars that I purchased
down the road that I ended upselling, and I'm like man, why
did I even sell the car I didn'teven need to?
You know, should have just keptit.
So yeah, now I'm like 15 carsin the hole now.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
I can't wait to see the collection.
What?
What was the time period?
Speaker 2 (26:05):
between the time you sold it and you bought it back,
um, I want to say maybe like twoyears went by.
Okay, I want to say about twoyears.
When the purchase, the personthat purchased it he was a
friend of mine and he kind ofhad like a mini car collection,
you know.
So he would just kind of takehis um, he had like a dealer tag
and if he wanted to take it outhe just put his dealer tag on
and he'd go run around with it,you know and you know, and he
(26:29):
would just kind of like had allthese cars kind of like in limbo
, um, but he would just swap atag on them, you know, back and
forth.
So he never titled it, you knowso.
But anyways, yeah, I was sohappy to get that car back.
It's in my garage right now.
I definitely have future plansfor it.
I do purchase parts for itevery now and again.
The parts pile is collecting.
But eventually, when I get ahold of this shop and we get it
(26:53):
running smooth and I can getsome free time, I definitely
want it to.
That's one of the cars I wantto give some attention to later
down the road.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Gotcha.
So you've owned that car over20 years, right?
Yes, yep, awesome yeah and thenyour second car, because you
like japanese cars.
So much was a it was anothercivic.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yeah, it was a another two-door coupe.
Um, that was back in the dayswhen I was working at the body
shop.
A car would get totaled, and itwas before they would um force
your car to have a salvage title.
You had the choice if youwanted to pay for it out of your
pocket, you wouldn't have asalvage title oh, you'd have a
clear title, got it yeahinsurance could total it.
(27:39):
So, like we would have thesecivics, they would have like a
busted headlight and a and abent radiator support and um and
like, and it would need like ahood.
And I mean we would have theseparts floating around, you know
50 bucks here and there orwhatever.
But of course when it's goingthrough insurance company they
want to purchase everything new.
You're talking about like a newhood from honda.
You could total a car easily.
(28:00):
So what I would do is I wouldout, I'd see the customer taking
their tags off and I would walkout to the customer and say,
hey, you know I really like thiscar.
And of course they would tellme this was the best car ever.
Barely any mileage on it.
Can't believe a total.
Now I have to find a new oneand replace it.
And I would offer them I said,look, I could fix this car for
you.
You know, on the side your way,or um, I would offer you a
(28:24):
couple hundred bucks more and um, whatever, you can buy that car
back from the insurance company, I'll give you a couple hundred
bucks more than that.
And of course, you know I tellthem like I really liked the car
when you keep the car going andyou know they see the
opportunity to make more moneyoff of, you know, just handing
their title over to me, and umand and bam, I would get this
car.
I their title over to me.
(28:45):
And um and and bam, I would getthis car.
I'd put a couple hundred bucksinto it and I'd have a low
mileage civic, which is what Ihad at the time, and that became
my daily driver because myfirst car ended up getting a
little crazy with themodification right drive, you
know, and and all that just forlike daily driving, you know so
then I had my like littlecomfortable two-door.
You know coupe um civic at thetime.
(29:06):
But then I ended up putting amotor in that and I started to
get a little radical too for it.
But but I ended up selling itgotcha, but till this day I wish
I would have kept that one tooyeah, I bet.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
I bet you're probably looking up the see if you can
find it somewhere.
There are no secrets on theinternet.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
No, there isn't.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
So I wanted to.
I did want to ask you againJapanese car and one of the cars
you put down as your dream caris one of my favorite cars Acura
NSX, I assume the original Gen1.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Can you?
Speaker 3 (29:45):
tell us why.
That's your dream car, have you?
Speaker 2 (29:47):
you've probably painted one or two over time, I
bet I have two in my shop I'mstaring at right now oh god,
love those cars yeah, um whoa sohe's coming from his shop, by
the way, for anybody uh ifyou're listening to it.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Check out our YouTube channel.
We'll have some clips on there,maybe the whole.
Maybe the whole video with Matt.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah, so, yeah, I mean, you know, like I said,
growing up with Hondas, justwanting every Honda out there,
and I've had like Integra TypeR's, I've had S2000s, you know.
So I've had some like prettyawesome Hondas, but the NSX is
just, I mean, that is the topHonda, you know.
(30:31):
You know, um, it's just, it was, it was ahead of the game with
the technology back in the day.
I mean full aluminum body, Imean, I think they based that
chassis off of like the indycar,you know, um, and even in the
game cran turismo, it was such agood handling car, um.
But you know, there was a timewhen, um, you know, I mean the
(30:55):
prices on them, even on thebrand new NSXs, is pretty out
there and their technology iscrazy.
They've kind of like got hybridelectric motors in the front,
you know, and they're stillrunning that V6, you know, in
the back turbo.
Now it's just crazy just wherethat car is at compared to other
cars now.
But yeah, back in the day, theolder nsxs with the flip up
(31:18):
lights, you know, or even whenyou get to like the newer
version, like the o5s with the,you know, projector headlights
and all like, I mean that isjust a car I still dream to have
.
I haven't owned one yet.
I'm very close.
I'm actually in negotiationswith one now.
Um, maybe during spring.
I'm he, we're talking, and it'sgood talk that we're having.
(31:41):
It's a fingers crossed reallyreally rare one, um so rare, and
I had actually had theopportunity to purchase one too
before I decided to um go withthe shop.
Um, it was, and I'm, and I'mstill in touch with this car too
.
I can talk about this one.
It was an 05 NSX with 47,000miles on it.
(32:06):
It was painted Laguna Blue.
I mean, it came Laguna Blueoriginal color.
That's one of 900.
But this one also had a Comtechum exhaust header package on it.
It wasn't a supercharged one,but it was still a really rare
one.
That made it like one of 300,of a super rare.
Wow.
(32:26):
Um, it was in Florida and itwas completely sun faded.
Um, the the son was selling it.
The father, I think, ended uppassing away or not able to
drive the car anymore, and itwas, uh, it was a hell of a deal
.
Um, I could probably a friendof mine purchased it and I think
(32:48):
I was getting a little bitbetter deal than him just
because I knew the guy that wasin charge of selling it, um, but
it was.
It's probably worth now, youknow, probably in the $140,000
range and I think I was.
I think it was like 80, 90,000,which we were kind of like
talking about.
But you know, um, that wasright about when I needed to
(33:11):
like do something with thisopportunity of, you know,
opening a opening a shop.
You know, I just had so muchclientele, so many cars coming
in I needed to do something with.
I needed employees.
I was, you know, I was workingmy butt to death just trying to
keep up and uh, so I had to say,all this money I made, where do
I want to put it?
I want to put it into an nsx,you know.
(33:32):
Or do I want to put it into ashop to make, you know, an even
bigger career move?
And you know, obviously I took,you know, or do I want to put it
into a shop to make, you know,an even bigger career move?
And you know, obviously I took,you know, the shop move and
ended up buying a paint booth.
You know, that would help meout with a couple months worth
of rent while we built the shopand so on, or whatever.
And, um, what's really good isthat a friend of mine ended up
purchasing the car too, and heactually purchased it for his,
(33:54):
his mother.
It was a car that she alwayswanted and it's at a.
It's at a shop now getting allthe mechanical work done and
then, paint it, I do yeah yeah,still get to live like through
this car a little bit.
You know, I get to do the paintjob on it.
Everything I wanted to do to it, I still get to do to it.
So I'm really happy about that.
(34:14):
But then, like I said, I'm in abetter position now and this
other nsx opportunity popped upand, um, it's even more rare
that one we were talking aboutlower mileage, um, fingers
crossed, you know my fingers arecrossed on that note um can I?
Speaker 3 (34:32):
can I come to your shop sometime in video?
Absolutely Okay, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
You come hang out see what we do for you.
I'll show you around.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
It's pretty impressive.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
The lineup of cars that we have here.
Yeah, if the weather is goodand I have my car back from the
shop, I'll bring my DeLorean upthere.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yeah, oh man, that would be awesome.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Yeah, not much paintwork we can do on that but
yeah, I know it's nice to seethe shop, yeah, yeah, well, yeah
, but the bumper might need somepainting.
So I'm keeping oh yeah, hey,you, you got the right guy right
there.
The big thing and we're seeingI'm seeing more and more cyber
trucks down here speaking ofstainless steel and they're all
wrapped.
Yeah, I see more wrapped nowthan I see, than I see with that
(35:13):
.
But I have the dumbest questionin the world that I have to ask
you, matt.
I've wanted this my whole lifeand it's led me right to you.
So when we're talking aboutflake in a paint and flake is
that little it's what is it thatallows the paint to almost
shimmer or glitter?
Is that metal?
(35:34):
Is it ceramic?
What is that little flake piece?
Is it different material?
What is that?
Is it gold?
Speaker 2 (35:41):
So now, nowadays, your average flake and your
average metallic paint job, it's, it's actually an aluminum, so
that's what they use littlealuminum shavings.
You know they have coarsershavings, they have finer
shavings.
You know they have coarsershavings, they have finer
shavings.
It all depends on the effectthat you're looking for.
But paint is changing more andmore.
(36:03):
Nowadays the technology isgetting crazier.
You have your pearl paint jobs,um, and they use like a, um,
kind of like a certain type ofmetallic also, but they cut it a
certain way.
It's dyed a certain way to giveyou this look of a pearl paint
job, kind of like a smoother,like color change.
Look and it's.
It's getting crazier.
(36:23):
Now you'll start to see it onthe internet.
Um, now they got some colorsthat are not.
You know, we've always had likechameleon style paint jobs
where they'll take like a prismalmost, and it's a different
color on each side.
I mean, now these colors arechanging drastically to where
it's almost like at one anglethe car is just one complete
(36:44):
different color.
Um, at another angle it is onecompletely different color,
instead of how the um prisonpaint jobs were, like the
chameleon paint jobs, where itwas kind of like, as you start
turning, certain panels arestarting to change.
I mean, it's all about how toget the angle of that prism to
immediately change.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
So so is that flake that's, or there's got to be,
some sort of tiny piece in therethat's reflecting the light
from different angles.
I wonder if it's triangular ora little piece that's well,
that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
You'll see, like you know, you'll have like some
chameleon colors that willchange three colors.
You'll have some of thesechameleon or color change color
that would change like fivedifferent colors.
I mean, you got to thinkthere's five different sides of
different colors there, littletiny, microscopic piece of flake
, you know.
So as you're walking by ityou're seeing different sides
(37:38):
that somehow lay all at the sameway.
You know what I mean.
So it's pretty amazing whatpaint does.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Do you have to have so your equipment?
I assume you have veryhigh-tech sprayers.
Do different paints withdifferent size flakes or type
flakes?
Can they all go through thatnozzle?
Do you have different nozzles?
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Do you have?
Speaker 1 (38:00):
different equipment for the different liquids that
must be aerosolized throughthere.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Yeah, so we definitely have different size
tip guns.
Typically all of your OEM paintjobs that you see on the cars
that you see around, they'resprayed with a, you know, 1.2 to
1.3 millimeter tip, but thenthey get a lot bigger.
So, and it all depends on whatkind of application of paint
(38:30):
you're trying to do, like,sometimes we have to put on
these heavy build primers.
You know we call them polyesterprimers.
We're using a giant, you know2.0 tip, which is, I mean, we
call them super soakers, youknow, and we're laying out as
much material as we cansometimes and they get bigger
than that.
But, yeah, some of these biggerflakes, like you know you'll
(38:52):
see your bass boat flake or your, your big giant flake, you'll
see on some of these like lowrider paint jobs, you know, um,
yeah, we're taking that primertip gun you know technically our
primer gun, and we're runningbig flake through there.
You know just, so we can getthat to spray out evenly, you
know.
So, yeah, you definitely haveto use um different guns,
(39:14):
different guns, I mean yourtypical painter, um, he probably
needs a good like threedifferent types of guns, you
know, to spray but, me.
I mean I have six differentguns.
Most of the painters that Ispray with and painters that I
know have like six to eightdifferent spray guns what
they're spraying.
Yeah, um, and these guns aren'tcheap.
(39:36):
I mean, they're like six, seven, eight hundred dollars, you
know.
So I bet, and I bet, um, they,they definitely get up there,
you know, um.
But the good news is is thatthese guns, the quality of these
guns, are amazing.
I mean, I have guns that I'vehad for 20 years.
You know, some of my first gunsyou know I still use to this
day.
If you take care of them, theylast, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
I like that.
So when you're doing theseprismatic paint jobs about how
many coats does it take?
Is it primer?
Obviously maybe a couple, andthen is there sort of a base
coat, and then is there flake,and then is there kind of
another clear coat on top ofthat and then a final sort of
(40:17):
top coat on top of that.
Do you just build?
Speaker 2 (40:20):
it up that way or no.
It can get tricky.
Typically, when you have apaint job, you want to start out
with the smoothest surfacepossible, right.
So you have this completelyprepped panel.
You're in the booth, you'regoing to want to spray a sealer
coat down first.
You, you know sealer is going togive you kind of like your base
color.
(40:40):
You know if you're spraying adark color, you want to have a
dark sealer on there.
If you're spraying a lightsilver, you know you want to
have a light sealer on there.
But that's a sprayed surface.
It's going to lay flat, it'sgoing to give you an awesome
smooth substrate and Now you canlay any type of paint on there
and it's going to look great onthere.
(41:00):
Then you get your metallics.
Now that you've got this supersmooth surface, you can spray
your metallics on there.
Your metallics have no problemlaying a certain way, laying
right, laying, even layingtogether, having that sealer
surface down there.
You're not going to have anystripes, you're not going to
have any.
You know weird, you knowdifferences in the surface.
(41:21):
It's all even the same.
But then it gets tricky after.
You know metallics.
You know typically your normalsilver paint job, yeah, you're
putting a clear coat on after it.
But then let's talk about likeyour candy coats, right, you,
this metallic silver surfacedown, um, and then you're gonna
have, you know, you could have,like um, a candy coat sprayed on
(41:42):
top of which you have like atransparent red, you know, and
you're spraying it over top ofthis silver.
So now your silver flake isgoing to poke through your
transparent red, and now you'regoing to have, like this candy
looking coat.
You know where the metallicsthat you just sprayed are
actually turning red.
You know, or they're turningyellow or they're turning, you
(42:02):
know, blue.
You got candy blues, candygreens, candy yellows, candy
reds, any of those and it givesit this depth to it because you
yeah, yeah you have your silvercoat, then you know your next
layer is your candy coat, yourred, and then you're going to
put your clear coat down on topof that and it just makes this
paint job look so deep like youcan just walk in it.
(42:24):
You know what I mean.
Oh absolutely Like you can stickyour finger in it.
So then you're talking aboutlayering up different things and
that's how you get it.
And then it's like how manycoats of clarity you want to put
on it.
You know, typically our umhigher end paint jobs, you know,
like I have a um 365 ferrari,you know 69 ferrari 365 2x2
(42:48):
sitting over there.
We had to put on this um.
He's got like this dark blue.
Look to it.
He wanted, wanted it as deep aspossible.
So we did four to five coats ofclear coat on there.
You know we're trying to eachlevel of coat.
We just want to have some depthin there, you know, so you can
look like you can actually likeswim in it, you know so anyway.
So yeah, whenever you talkabout that stuff I get pumped
(43:10):
because that's like I'm pumped,I'm excited about.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Yeah, great questions .
Well, thank you.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
And it's always interesting to go past a car
that's got a paint job likeyou're describing and you use
the word depth and that is sucha great word, texture, like this
third dimension, like you canreach into it.
It's so interesting the way yousaid it, because I feel the
same and it's just very, it's avery distinctive look.
(43:39):
Thank you for taking some timeto explain all this to us.
I tell you what, if anybody isanywhere near okay I got to say
it right Hampstead, maryland,you've got to check out
topcoatgaragecom for all yourbody needs, paint needs,
automotive needs.
Matt was saying earlier I can'tremember if we got this on tape
(44:04):
or not, but he will takeeverything.
It's all kind of stuff.
It's for the collector withsomething exotic, it's for
somebody that just had a fenderbender.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
And he's annie knows the trades, so if it's something
he can't do, he's got the rightpeople.
Let's say it's engine work.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Right, you can be that central guy, right, right,
matt yeah, yeah, I mean, ithappens to us all the time.
Interior, you know some guyswill want like you know, an
exhaust put on their car, I haveno problem putting exhaust on
their car.
But then whenever they want tolike really crack inside that
motor and they want to do some,like you know, internal stuff
for more performance, you knowwe have shops for that.
(44:41):
You know a really good friendof mine.
He opened up his own shop tooearlier than I did and he's
doing great with performancework, you know, and we have
interior guys.
Um, I eventually want to haveinterior in-house, um, but right
now we're just trying to.
You know, perfect the flow ofthe shop at the moment.
I want to have interiorin-house, um, but right now
we're just trying to.
You know, perfect the flow ofthe shop at the moment.
I want to add another step toit, but you know I got interior
guys next door.
(45:01):
You know you guys want custominterior or whatever man they'll
take.
They'll take your seat coveroff, they'll mimic it, they'll
change up the colors, whatever.
So you back together a new oneand they'll fit it right over
Like it was done at the factory.
You like it was done at thefactory, you know.
So, um, we've done that before,um, if you look on the
Instagram there there's a Bronco, that we did.
Um, we had, you know, we had anentire interior shop.
(45:23):
Pretty much just remake useverything, refit everything,
and then we put it all togetherfor them.
You know so.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
But yeah, love that.
Well, thank you for educatingus and spending a little time
with us.
This was just wonderful.
Thank you, Good, all right, sotopcoatgaragecom, instagram,
topcoatgarage.
Lots of fun stuff there.
So any other announcements aswe slide the podcast to the
(45:50):
off-ramp there.
Partner, or did we get it all?
Speaker 3 (45:56):
ramp their partner, or did we?
Did we get it all?
I think we.
I think uh.
Only thing you didn't mentionis uh, folks, if you, um, if you
know somebody who would begreat for the show as a guest,
please let us know.
If you want to be on the get,be a guest, let us know.
And we're always looking forduos.
We've had, um, we've had fatherson, we've got some
father-daughter coming up.
Love to have some mother-son,mother-daughter, but
(46:20):
grandparents you name it.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
Yeah, we even had a twist.
The last interview that droppedbefore we put this down was us
interviewing my son about hisfirst car and driving around
Humvees in the Army.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
So good stuff, and that's how we got.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Matt was a friend of a friend, so please keep the
referrals coming.
And you have just heard thehigh revving, low mileage, late
model heard around the world.
Authoritative podcast onautomotive nostalgia.
He's Doug.
Reach him at Doug at carslovecom.
I'm Christian.
Reach me at Christian at carslovecom.
He was Matt and you know whereto find him.
(46:57):
So please follow, tell a friend, check out our link tree.
I'm sure we'll see you at thenext local car show, showroom,
race strip or concourse.
So keep the rubber side down,keep listening.
We will see you next week.
Welcome back to All the Cars I've Loved Before, your
authoritative podcast onautomotive nostalgia, where
every car tells a story, everycar has a culture and, hey, it's
time to plug in, dust off andget a little grease under the
nails.
Oh, my favorite part, let's getto this real quick before we
toss it over to Doug.
Here we have some new listeners.
(00:21):
Welcome if you're in Paris,paris France.
No, not Paris Georgia or ParisMississippi, although there's
nothing wrong with those places.
The real deal.
Paris, paris, france.
Welcome Rome, italy.
Welcome San Diego.
That's.
Let's look at the numbers.
Yeah, that's a new one.
Welcome San Diego.
Rest in Virginia.
Who else?
(00:42):
Oh, and Stockholm, stockholm.
So again, internationally.
I love checking out the stats, Ilove seeing that.
Oh, and we wanted to.
Before we pivot to the merchmaster, doug, he's got magnets,
he's got a T-shirt, he had a hatuntil I stole it.
We're going to do something alittle different today, we're?
(01:03):
We continue to rack up thereviews on where, on apple
podcast, thank you for writing,and uh, so so let us know what
you think.
I'm just gonna read one becauseI think it's lovely and it
doesn't say that I talk too much, which is rare in these.
But how, how about this?
(01:24):
December 26, 2024, from VinceVroom love the name better than
a day of test driving cars?
So here's the review.
He says I like cars.
I am a car enthusiast, not justnew cars, not just old cars,
not just nice cars.
I like all cars.
Each has its own flavor.
The thing that makes thispodcast fantastic is the
(01:46):
scriptless format.
Some would say we could use one.
He continues Each guest bringstheir own car story and passion
to the table.
The hosts aren't interviewingor working from a script.
It's a conversation withsomeone about something they
love, the kind of excitementthat can't be scripted or
purchased.
The variety of guests, storiesand flavors is incredible.
(02:07):
You won't regret listening toit.
If you're lucky, you'll have achance to share your story and
passion too.
I can't wait to hear.
Well, thank you, vince, lovethat and appreciate that review.
Do we know who that is, doug,or is this person going to
remain anonymous?
What do you think?
Speaker 3 (02:26):
They are anonymous on Apple, so just one of our
listeners.
Wow, that took it.
Only takes a few minutes towrite it, but that means a lot,
right for our listeners.
So please, if you like whatyou're hearing, drop us a review
.
If you just want to say hi,feel free to do that.
Uh, you can send us a text viathe uh, uh, sorry, via via the
(02:54):
podcast platform of choice linkat the top.
Yep, um, go to our website,carslovecom.
It's going to be updated soon,um, and, of course, there's the
YouTube, instagram and Facebook.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah and share, tell a friend, download, review and
follow.
Check out our link tree,linktree, slash, carsloved and
you know.
Reach out and tell us if youlike what we're doing, If you
have suggestions, if you don'tlike, let us know.
If you need a hat and you can'tfind one and you just want to
(03:26):
steal one from Doug, it's fine,he has a never-ending supply.
Oh, real quick, though I likethat shirt.
Yeah, let's talk about theshirt.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Let's talk about the magnet.
So the shirt has yeah, he's a9-11 alum.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Why did you get rid of that car?
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Because it was a Tiptronic and it was my mistake
for buying it.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Okay, great shirt, that 911 that he bought from
Five Below for I think, $5.
Not necessarily below.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
I think, it was right at five.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
So what about the magnets?
Let's talk about the magnets,okay.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
So Wonderful.
Shutterfly was having a greatdeal, normally eight or nine
dollars each.
They 20 magnets a dollar each.
Can't go wrong with that.
So instead of 200 cost me 20bucks.
So we have this wonderfulmagnet, yep, which is also our
lead magnet.
So we're gonna be sitting ifyou want a magnet.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Shoot us a note, we'll have a newsletter.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
If you give us your name and email, we'll send you a
magnet.
Magnet is magnet, has aDeLorean with our logo on it.
Cars loved link, uh, link andand a QR code.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
So just to make it super easy the first 10 people
to either email Doug at carslovecom or Christian at cars
lovecom Get a magnet.
So hey, reach out and let usknow what you think.
Is it?
Do we have anything else on themerch front or can we move on?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
uh, just um new website.
Uh, should be going live prettysoon.
Um, depending on when peoplehear this, it'll probably
already be up by that time, butit's gonna be new and improved.
You saw a preview of it,christian what did you think of
it?
Speaker 1 (05:21):
love it looks really good.
It's sharp.
It looks like a uh, a 14 yearold made it.
It no longer looks like a 12year old man.
Well, so that's, that'simprovement.
We're moving forward.
We're moving forward.
Speaking of moving forward,it's time to introduce today's
guest.
Really excited to uh introduceour pal matt of top coat garage.
(05:42):
How you?
How are you doing today, matt?
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Good man, how are you guys?
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Excellent and thank you so much for joining the show
.
You know there's nothing quitelike seeing a beautiful, unique
or really distinctive paint jobon an automobile, van, truck.
But I didn't really think aboutit a whole lot until I visited
the Hyundai plant in Montgomery,alabama and you can tour.
(06:09):
I used to be able to tour thiswas, I think, before COVID just
tour the whole plant.
And somebody said you know, ittakes 16 hours to make a car,
but nine of the hours are spentin paint.
And I thought, wow, I neverthought of it that way.
And everybody on the tour wasthinking, wow, that much time.
(06:29):
Yeah, it's really such aninvestment in the exterior of
the automobile and that's whatTop Coat Garage does.
So could you please tell us alittle bit about yourself and
your business?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well, yeah, I've been into cars forever, I mean as
long as I could think.
And then, um, eventually havingthe opportunity to work on them
at such a young age, um, youknow, working on my own cars and
then working, you know, just tomake money, you know.
And then, um, and then finally,you know, kind of like getting
(07:06):
the opportunity to just open upmy own shop.
And now this is what I comehere and do every day, and it's
different whenever you're inyour own place, you know you're
not really doing it for a boss,you're just kind of doing it for
yourself.
It almost doesn't feel like ajob anymore, if that makes sense
.
So now you just got thischallenge, doing it for yourself
, it almost doesn't feel like ajob anymore, if that makes sense
.
So now you just got thischallenge and then that's what
(07:29):
we're, you know, that's what Icome here and do every day.
Just, you know, kind of likeknock out this challenge.
So, yeah, and one of the biggestchallenges is, you know, like
you said, it takes nine hours to, you know, get these cars
painted.
Those cars are brand new.
You know what I mean.
Mean, you're talking aboutfresh metal, fresh substrates
and everything, and now we justhave to make it shiny.
How the heck does it?
You know, you know, take ninehours to do that, you know, and
(07:52):
it's just like I understand itall you know.
So, um, but yeah, and this isjust what I do every day, you
know, we pretty much just makestuff shiny, make it beautiful
yeah, you're.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
You're kind of picasso or rembrandt, with just
a little bit of a differentcanvas, a little bit different
paint.
So so what was the first thingcar you ever painted?
What was that like?
How did that work and what?
What bug bit you?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
well, I um, I mean, it goes back to like before I
could even drive.
You know, we used to take whatare now what we call vintage
mini bikes, you know, and we allwanted a different looking one
than you know, our friends.
So we would take them apart andbuy some cans of spray paint
(08:42):
from wherever you would get themand we would spray paint them
different colors and you'd havesome friends that would spray
paint them and half of the paintlanded on the ground, you know,
and so it was always who hadthe nicest paint job, who had
the best color scheme and allthat.
And then eventually, um had youknow, being able, getting old
enough to purchase your own carnow you want a different color
(09:04):
from your friends.
You know, being able, gettingold enough to purchase your own
car, now you want a differentcolor from your friends.
You know, and um, I was, uh, inin high school.
I ended up taking a vocationalprogram and, uh, I was actually
supposed to take a welding classbut the welding class was
filled up and they're like, well, try out this auto collision,
you know auto collision and autorefinishing class and see what
(09:26):
you think with that.
And I got in there.
I, I was real good with theteacher.
I mean, the teacher hit it offreal well.
And then I started realizing youknow, um, what it took to paint
a car.
You know how you could.
You know your coordination andknowing of the chemicals could
create the biggest difference inthese paint jobs, from a good
(09:48):
looking paint job to a bad paintjob and you know, in school I
was hooked.
I think I painted a.
It was a mitsubishi mirage um,the color, it was a dark color,
it was a black, it had a littlebit of flake in there and I
don't know.
I just listened.
I didn't listen much in school,but when it came to that
(10:09):
teacher talking about paintingcars, I'll tell you what the
first thing I did was.
You know everything that hesaid, every step that he said I
followed, and my paint job cameout so much nicer than everyone
else's.
And you know you get pumped offof that, you get hooked.
You just did something reallygood, you know, and you want to
(10:31):
do it again and again and again,you know.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
And then here we are yeah, so going, uh, yeah, 20
plus years later, right?
Yeah and, um, you were tellingus before the show started that
before COVID you were workingfor somebody else and that's
what you'd been doing.
And then, because of COVID andbasically people weren't driving
(10:54):
their cars, they weren'tsmashing them up, right, people
were buying cars.
Car market was going kind ofcrazy, but including restoration
, but you, you made a big lifedecision.
Can you just tell us about thatand where you are today?
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Yeah, so pretty much it did really well in Votek and
I became an automobile painter,automotive painter in a
collision shop at a really youngage, at 19 years old and, um,
you know, usually when you startout you become a helper and I
was helping, but I was able topaint, I was able to spray and
every chance they gave me I wasspraying and the opportunity
(11:30):
came up, I became a painter at areally young age and I mean,
that's where the big money wasat.
So, 19 year olds, I'm I'm doinggreat like.
I love those those years, youknow, um, and uh, and that's
kind of like how I built my life.
You know, I was just paintingcars every single day and
eventually I became the headpainter.
I was even making more money,um, and I had a great life.
(11:54):
Um, I mean, I had a nice house,we had property, I had cars.
I even had my own hobby shop athome.
You know, I built a pole barnand I put a paint booth in it.
So I was, I was, you know,working during the day doing
collision jobs and I was cominghome and I was working on my own
personal cars in my own shop.
You know, um even started ayoutube out of it and everything
(12:17):
.
Um.
Well, eventually covet hit anduh, body shop, you know, life
came to like kind of zero.
No one was driving, you know um, no one's on the roads.
It was like the first time evergetting like a zero on my
paycheck.
You know, and I'll tell youwhat I wasn't good at.
I wasn't good at saving money.
So now I had to figure out howto make money and thank god that
(12:40):
hobby shop that I had that hada paint booth out of I was able
to do my own little you knowside gig, side gig out of.
You know um, of course,throughout the years, when
you're building cars and peoplelike your cars, you know people
want you to build their cars too, you know.
So I always had like kind oflike a little bit of um, you
know, clientele on the side thatwanted me to do personal stuff
(13:03):
for them.
And then during the whole COVIDsituation, you're kind of
panicking, like what am I goingto do for money?
Well, you just kind of answerthose calls and bring that work
in a little bit more, you know,and and then you get things
rolling.
You know, that's kind of how Imet, you know, our mutual friend
, jason Miller.
He needed a car done.
So we talked, you know, andeventually started painting cars
(13:25):
for him.
And then I started paintingcars for all of his friends and
so on.
And and then all of a sudden,you know, you got your little
hobby shop, you know, 1200square foot place with a, with a
paint booth, and now you have20 cars sitting outside of it,
you know.
And then you have these otherbusiness owners that need cars
done and they're looking at youand they're like what are you
doing, like, in your yard withall these cars?
(13:47):
And I'm like I don't know, I'mmaking a living, you know, and
it's kind of like, you know, gowhere the wind blows, you know,
and eventually expand, you know.
You kind of know what you, youknow what you can produce out of
a 1200 square foot shop.
I don't know, maybe, if themath is right, I can do a little
bit better if I had a, you know, seven thousand square foot
(14:08):
shop, you know, and it just grewfrom there, you know.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
So that's kind of how it went yeah, and, and really
you've grown from uh word ofmouth.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
You do some insurance work, but you also do custom
work, right, yes, yeah we dolike custom, we do um
restoration, um, we do like alot of like high-end repairs.
You know, um like we have abentley sitting outside right
now and had a little fenderbender so he just needed their
fender repainted, you know,repaired and painted and so on.
(14:41):
So a lot of people come to us.
You know, there's actually likea hunt valley area around here,
um, where a lot of high-end,expensive cars are at, you know,
and and we're surrounded bycorporate body shops.
We're surrounded by body shopsthat are just trying to get you
in, get you out.
You know, so it's kind of good,um, that we have like a
(15:03):
specialty shop like ours.
We spray a certain paint, likea more high end paint, and
everything.
No-transcript.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Yeah, well, that's, but.
But he does more than paint.
His shop does more than paintsfull body shop, so he can do all
kinds of things including,including our mutual friend
Jason.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
I mean, I think you turned his skinny 911 into a
wide body, right?
Oh yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
It's beautiful work.
Yeah, he had a narrow bodyPorsche and we ended up putting
a wide body on it.
That was actually one of thejobs I was doing out of my house
and you know he would bring methis bumper.
And, um, you know, he wouldbring me this bumper.
(16:09):
He's like man, I got this oldrace car bumper and I'm looking
at it and this bumper does notfit that car whatsoever and.
but luckily we got greatexperience with, like you know,
fiberglass work and you know thebumper was actually made out of
fiberglass and I'm cutting itapart, I'm widen the bumper, I'm
making it fit the fenders, youknow, and giving it extra mounts
to make it more sturdy, youknow.
And then and then he brings methese side skirts and this
(16:32):
rocker panel and I'm just like,where did you get this from?
You know, and here I am, youknow, pie cutting it in places
so it fits, the wide body andeverything.
So the wide, the body kit onhis car, the bumper and side
skirts, is a hundred percentone-off you know I made it out
of custom gave me.
yeah, you know, and, and I, andI tell you what man, my guys
(16:55):
here, you know, um, I'll bringin a job.
And they're scratching theirhead.
How are we going to make thiswork?
And I kind of like map it outfor them and show them.
And you know, they, they followmy steps and they're they're
even more skilled than me.
They just don't know it.
You know, I just have to likeguide them that way.
That's what's really good aboutmy team here is like I have a
(17:16):
hundred percent confidence inthem and you know we, or how
we're going to make somethingfit, and they follow the steps
and you know, they're standingback like wow, I can't believe
we did that, you know.
And it's all based off ofexperience from you know, giving
me something and I'm just kindof like I guess I'll figure it
(17:36):
out.
You know, I'll let you know inthe end, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
And that's what makes you a great team.
There's vision, there'screativity, there's and that's
what makes you a great teamthere's vision, there's
creativity, there's the skill,there's the know-how and it all
comes together.
That's why you're a great team.
And before we go any furtherhere, I do want to tell if you
want to put a smile on your face, go check out Top Coat Garage
(18:00):
or the Instagram page here.
I know there's a little bit ofrework on the website happened.
It should be done by the timethis is reaching your ears for
top coat garagecom.
But we'll go look at Instagram,top coat garage and it's just
really, it kind of kind oftranscends automobiles and it
just it just looks like art whatyou've done with a lot of these
(18:21):
cars, so creative and just justand just really beautiful here.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
We definitely don't discriminate against cars.
We do them all, from the oldercars to the newer cars, to the
exotics.
We just like them all yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
But personally, right , and I know where Christian's
going with this, I'm jumping inyou like japanese cars, right oh
yeah yeah, so.
So, uh, christian, where are wegoing?
Speaker 1 (18:51):
in the way back machine.
Let's hop into the uh the timemachine and go back.
Let's talk about your first car.
Where'd you get it, how did itdrive and what did it mean to
you?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
well, my first car was a 2000 honda civic hatchback
and, uh, I remember playinggran turismo on playstation and
uh, there was just spoon.
There's a, an automobileperformance company in japan
that specialized in honda's,called spoon, and uh, they had
(19:25):
this spoon civic hatchback.
I mean, it had a carbon fiberhood, a carbon fiber wing.
It looked plain, but for somereason, the way they built that
motor in the game it had it wasa high revvy motor.
It had the lowest horsepower,but I tell you what it performed
so well against these cars andand I fell in love, I was like I
can't believe you can do thiswith a Honda Civic hatchback.
(19:47):
I mean my neighborhood, if wewant to talk about the influence
of cars beforehand, I mean, Ihad nothing but guys with muscle
cars, big motors, big blowers.
You know that's literally whatI grew up working on.
But when it came time for me topurchase my own car, I wanted a
honda, I wanted a civic.
I was so impressed with the waythose cars were balanced, the
(20:11):
performance aspect you could getout of it such a low horsepower
number car and such alightweight car and what people
were doing with it.
So, yeah, I was all about, youknow the honda civic and, um, my
father knew that and, uh, he,it's crazy.
Back in the day we'd be in thepaper.
You know, you're literallylooking at these little tiny
(20:33):
paper ads.
And there was, um, a familythat had the car I think the
brother owned.
The brother had possession ofthe car.
The owner of the car actuallyended up passing away and they
were selling this car likeweirdly cheap like nowadays we
would call it a scam, you know,it would be a facebook scam but
(20:54):
we were like there's somethingweird about the price of this
car.
My father called and, um, theywanted that.
They were, they were for real.
They were like, yeah, we'rejust trying to get rid of it.
We don't really know what it'sworth.
Um, I think they wanted $4,000for it, which was a lot of money
back in the day.
And, um, when I was, you know,15, 16 years old, um, but my,
(21:16):
but, I had a job.
I was in a body shop.
Um, actually ended up workingat that body shop for 20 years.
Oh, yeah, I was there for awhile and since my dad knew I
had a job and I had to give mypaychecks to him to put in the
bank, he could charge me aweekly payment on that car, and
that's what I did.
(21:36):
You know he he purchased a carfor me and I had to pay him back
.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Yeah, yeah, kept you responsible, smart dad.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Yeah, what a great lesson.
Wow, I don't know that we'veever heard that before, but but
what a great sense of of kind ofresponsibility.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Yeah, my dad was really good at a budget.
Um, I'll never forget that hehad 25 cents of his name at the
end of every month.
I mean he had giant books ofbudgets.
He would write it out.
You would think I would havelearned from that.
I definitely didn't, but hedefinitely tried to teach me
that.
I don't know I do okay in thebusiness now, but I'll tell you
(22:14):
what.
Up to COVID, when I was makingdoing really well at 19 years
old and up, I did not save adime.
I will tell you that.
It was pretty much.
I just purchased cars, carparts.
That was pretty much my lifeyou know well fun.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Fun isn't cheap, fun isn't, I know that.
But but great, dad, yeah, it'sfunny.
Funny, you mention that becausejust last week I bought my.
I got three sons, my middle son.
I bought him his first kind ofreal car.
He had a beatup corolla thatjust died.
He didn't have it very long.
But we, uh, we're going downthe road right near where we
(22:47):
live here in in florida andthere was a cool 40th
anniversary convertible mustangand with, just you know, the for
sale little sign in the windowand I said, oh, we got to make
that happen.
So two days later, later, andit was in really good shape, my
son is over the moon.
I haven't seen him in a week.
(23:08):
I assume he's having fundriving around with his friends.
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Well, at least he's going to get snow experience.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
I better not see him come and drive down my street in
that thing with the ice.
He's having real fun with thesnow.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
No but, don't remind me, don't remind me Steer with
the rear buddy.
Steer with the rear.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
I can't wait to get my hands on it.
But yeah, I've not seen it.
But sorry, doug, I didn't meanto interrupt.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
No, no, that's okay.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
You know, what I thought was pretty cool is Matt
is um, matt, you still have thiscar.
Right, I still have this car.
No way, I ended up I've listen.
This car is transformed likecrazy.
Um, I ended up making it likeyou know, my spoon dream car,
almost.
You know um we made it into aroad race car we put a cage in
it.
The suspension was done, youknow, inside and out.
I mean we stiffened it up withevery bar we possibly could.
The motor was completely built.
(24:07):
We ended up putting acompletely different motor in it
, a little bit more displacement, but we wanted a high revving
motor, just like them spoonmotors.
It had individual throttlebodies, four, nine final drive.
I mean this thing was like adirt bike.
You literally I mean to go like40 mile an hour.
You, you're probably in, like,you know, third gear, like if I
(24:27):
was on the highway, just try totrying to travel at, you know,
60, 70 mile an hour.
Keep up with traffic.
I mean I'm at, like you know,six and a half 7,000 RPMs
because it's a road race car.
You want to stay at high RPMthrough turns, you know.
So we really built it out.
You want to stay at high RPMthrough turns, you know, so we
really built it out.
(24:51):
And I ended up, you know, notmaking as much money one year
and, believe it or not, themoney that I was making would be
a ton of money for some people,but for me, and the way I saved
money, I was like man, I got toget rid of a car here and I
ended up selling that carbecause I had a friend that
wanted to purchase it and it wasthe biggest regret ever.
I hated it.
I wanted that car back so badand I was actually fortunate
(25:16):
enough for him to run into alittle situation.
I think he was going to likethrow a divorce or something and
he was like dude, if you wantthis car back I never even
titled it in my name Just giveme what we paid.
And I said, absolutely.
I was like bring it over.
I got the money for you, let'sgo.
And I ended up purchasing thecar back and from then on I
(25:39):
vowed to myself any cars that Itruly liked.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
I was never, ever selling again.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Cause there are a few other cars that I purchased
down the road that I ended upselling, and I'm like man, why
did I even sell the car I didn'teven need to?
You know, should have just keptit.
So yeah, now I'm like 15 carsin the hole now.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
I can't wait to see the collection.
What?
What was the time period?
Speaker 2 (26:05):
between the time you sold it and you bought it back,
um, I want to say maybe like twoyears went by.
Okay, I want to say about twoyears.
When the purchase, the personthat purchased it he was a
friend of mine and he kind ofhad like a mini car collection,
you know.
So he would just kind of takehis um, he had like a dealer tag
and if he wanted to take it outhe just put his dealer tag on
and he'd go run around with it,you know and you know, and he
(26:29):
would just kind of like had allthese cars kind of like in limbo
, um, but he would just swap atag on them, you know, back and
forth.
So he never titled it, you knowso.
But anyways, yeah, I was sohappy to get that car back.
It's in my garage right now.
I definitely have future plansfor it.
I do purchase parts for itevery now and again.
The parts pile is collecting.
But eventually, when I get ahold of this shop and we get it
(26:53):
running smooth and I can getsome free time, I definitely
want it to.
That's one of the cars I wantto give some attention to later
down the road.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Gotcha.
So you've owned that car over20 years, right?
Yes, yep, awesome yeah and thenyour second car, because you
like japanese cars.
So much was a it was anothercivic.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yeah, it was a another two-door coupe.
Um, that was back in the dayswhen I was working at the body
shop.
A car would get totaled, and itwas before they would um force
your car to have a salvage title.
You had the choice if youwanted to pay for it out of your
pocket, you wouldn't have asalvage title oh, you'd have a
clear title, got it yeahinsurance could total it.
(27:39):
So, like we would have thesecivics, they would have like a
busted headlight and a and abent radiator support and um and
like, and it would need like ahood.
And I mean we would have theseparts floating around, you know
50 bucks here and there orwhatever.
But of course when it's goingthrough insurance company they
want to purchase everything new.
You're talking about like a newhood from honda.
You could total a car easily.
(28:00):
So what I would do is I wouldout, I'd see the customer taking
their tags off and I would walkout to the customer and say,
hey, you know I really like thiscar.
And of course they would tellme this was the best car ever.
Barely any mileage on it.
Can't believe a total.
Now I have to find a new oneand replace it.
And I would offer them I said,look, I could fix this car for
you.
You know, on the side your way,or um, I would offer you a
(28:24):
couple hundred bucks more and um, whatever, you can buy that car
back from the insurance company, I'll give you a couple hundred
bucks more than that.
And of course, you know I tellthem like I really liked the car
when you keep the car going andyou know they see the
opportunity to make more moneyoff of, you know, just handing
their title over to me, and umand and bam, I would get this
car.
I their title over to me.
(28:45):
And um and and bam, I would getthis car.
I'd put a couple hundred bucksinto it and I'd have a low
mileage civic, which is what Ihad at the time, and that became
my daily driver because myfirst car ended up getting a
little crazy with themodification right drive, you
know, and and all that just forlike daily driving, you know so
then I had my like littlecomfortable two-door.
You know coupe um civic at thetime.
(29:06):
But then I ended up putting amotor in that and I started to
get a little radical too for it.
But but I ended up selling itgotcha, but till this day I wish
I would have kept that one tooyeah, I bet.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
I bet you're probably looking up the see if you can
find it somewhere.
There are no secrets on theinternet.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
No, there isn't.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
So I wanted to.
I did want to ask you againJapanese car and one of the cars
you put down as your dream caris one of my favorite cars Acura
NSX, I assume the original Gen1.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Can you?
Speaker 3 (29:45):
tell us why.
That's your dream car, have you?
Speaker 2 (29:47):
you've probably painted one or two over time, I
bet I have two in my shop I'mstaring at right now oh god,
love those cars yeah, um whoa sohe's coming from his shop, by
the way, for anybody uh ifyou're listening to it.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Check out our YouTube channel.
We'll have some clips on there,maybe the whole.
Maybe the whole video with Matt.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah, so, yeah, I mean, you know, like I said,
growing up with Hondas, justwanting every Honda out there,
and I've had like Integra TypeR's, I've had S2000s, you know.
So I've had some like prettyawesome Hondas, but the NSX is
just, I mean, that is the topHonda, you know.
(30:31):
You know, um, it's just, it was, it was ahead of the game with
the technology back in the day.
I mean full aluminum body, Imean, I think they based that
chassis off of like the indycar,you know, um, and even in the
game cran turismo, it was such agood handling car, um.
But you know, there was a timewhen, um, you know, I mean the
(30:55):
prices on them, even on thebrand new NSXs, is pretty out
there and their technology iscrazy.
They've kind of like got hybridelectric motors in the front,
you know, and they're stillrunning that V6, you know, in
the back turbo.
Now it's just crazy just wherethat car is at compared to other
cars now.
But yeah, back in the day, theolder nsxs with the flip up
(31:18):
lights, you know, or even whenyou get to like the newer
version, like the o5s with the,you know, projector headlights
and all like, I mean that isjust a car I still dream to have
.
I haven't owned one yet.
I'm very close.
I'm actually in negotiationswith one now.
Um, maybe during spring.
I'm he, we're talking, and it'sgood talk that we're having.
(31:41):
It's a fingers crossed reallyreally rare one, um so rare, and
I had actually had theopportunity to purchase one too
before I decided to um go withthe shop.
Um, it was, and I'm, and I'mstill in touch with this car too
.
I can talk about this one.
It was an 05 NSX with 47,000miles on it.
(32:06):
It was painted Laguna Blue.
I mean, it came Laguna Blueoriginal color.
That's one of 900.
But this one also had a Comtechum exhaust header package on it.
It wasn't a supercharged one,but it was still a really rare
one.
That made it like one of 300,of a super rare.
Wow.
(32:26):
Um, it was in Florida and itwas completely sun faded.
Um, the the son was selling it.
The father, I think, ended uppassing away or not able to
drive the car anymore, and itwas, uh, it was a hell of a deal
.
Um, I could probably a friendof mine purchased it and I think
(32:48):
I was getting a little bitbetter deal than him just
because I knew the guy that wasin charge of selling it, um, but
it was.
It's probably worth now, youknow, probably in the $140,000
range and I think I was.
I think it was like 80, 90,000,which we were kind of like
talking about.
But you know, um, that wasright about when I needed to
(33:11):
like do something with thisopportunity of, you know,
opening a opening a shop.
You know, I just had so muchclientele, so many cars coming
in I needed to do something with.
I needed employees.
I was, you know, I was workingmy butt to death just trying to
keep up and uh, so I had to say,all this money I made, where do
I want to put it?
I want to put it into an nsx,you know.
(33:32):
Or do I want to put it into ashop to make, you know, an even
bigger career move?
And you know, obviously I took,you know, or do I want to put it
into a shop to make, you know,an even bigger career move?
And you know, obviously I took,you know, the shop move and
ended up buying a paint booth.
You know, that would help meout with a couple months worth
of rent while we built the shopand so on, or whatever.
And, um, what's really good isthat a friend of mine ended up
purchasing the car too, and heactually purchased it for his,
(33:54):
his mother.
It was a car that she alwayswanted and it's at a.
It's at a shop now getting allthe mechanical work done and
then, paint it, I do yeah yeah,still get to live like through
this car a little bit.
You know, I get to do the paintjob on it.
Everything I wanted to do to it, I still get to do to it.
So I'm really happy about that.
(34:14):
But then, like I said, I'm in abetter position now and this
other nsx opportunity popped upand, um, it's even more rare
that one we were talking aboutlower mileage, um, fingers
crossed, you know my fingers arecrossed on that note um can I?
Speaker 3 (34:32):
can I come to your shop sometime in video?
Absolutely Okay, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
You come hang out see what we do for you.
I'll show you around.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
It's pretty impressive.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
The lineup of cars that we have here.
Yeah, if the weather is goodand I have my car back from the
shop, I'll bring my DeLorean upthere.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yeah, oh man, that would be awesome.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
Yeah, not much paintwork we can do on that but
yeah, I know it's nice to seethe shop, yeah, yeah, well, yeah
, but the bumper might need somepainting.
So I'm keeping oh yeah, hey,you, you got the right guy right
there.
The big thing and we're seeingI'm seeing more and more cyber
trucks down here speaking ofstainless steel and they're all
wrapped.
Yeah, I see more wrapped nowthan I see, than I see with that
(35:13):
.
But I have the dumbest questionin the world that I have to ask
you, matt.
I've wanted this my whole lifeand it's led me right to you.
So when we're talking aboutflake in a paint and flake is
that little it's what is it thatallows the paint to almost
shimmer or glitter?
Is that metal?
(35:34):
Is it ceramic?
What is that little flake piece?
Is it different material?
What is that?
Is it gold?
Speaker 2 (35:41):
So now, nowadays, your average flake and your
average metallic paint job, it's, it's actually an aluminum, so
that's what they use littlealuminum shavings.
You know they have coarsershavings, they have finer
shavings.
You know they have coarsershavings, they have finer
shavings.
It all depends on the effectthat you're looking for.
But paint is changing more andmore.
(36:03):
Nowadays the technology isgetting crazier.
You have your pearl paint jobs,um, and they use like a, um,
kind of like a certain type ofmetallic also, but they cut it a
certain way.
It's dyed a certain way to giveyou this look of a pearl paint
job, kind of like a smoother,like color change.
Look and it's.
It's getting crazier.
(36:23):
Now you'll start to see it onthe internet.
Um, now they got some colorsthat are not.
You know, we've always had likechameleon style paint jobs
where they'll take like a prismalmost, and it's a different
color on each side.
I mean, now these colors arechanging drastically to where
it's almost like at one anglethe car is just one complete
(36:44):
different color.
Um, at another angle it is onecompletely different color,
instead of how the um prisonpaint jobs were, like the
chameleon paint jobs, where itwas kind of like, as you start
turning, certain panels arestarting to change.
I mean, it's all about how toget the angle of that prism to
immediately change.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
So so is that flake that's, or there's got to be,
some sort of tiny piece in therethat's reflecting the light
from different angles.
I wonder if it's triangular ora little piece that's well,
that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
You'll see, like you know, you'll have like some
chameleon colors that willchange three colors.
You'll have some of thesechameleon or color change color
that would change like fivedifferent colors.
I mean, you got to thinkthere's five different sides of
different colors there, littletiny, microscopic piece of flake
, you know.
So as you're walking by ityou're seeing different sides
(37:38):
that somehow lay all at the sameway.
You know what I mean.
So it's pretty amazing whatpaint does.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Do you have to have so your equipment?
I assume you have veryhigh-tech sprayers.
Do different paints withdifferent size flakes or type
flakes?
Can they all go through thatnozzle?
Do you have different nozzles?
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Do you have?
Speaker 1 (38:00):
different equipment for the different liquids that
must be aerosolized throughthere.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Yeah, so we definitely have different size
tip guns.
Typically all of your OEM paintjobs that you see on the cars
that you see around, they'resprayed with a, you know, 1.2 to
1.3 millimeter tip, but thenthey get a lot bigger.
So, and it all depends on whatkind of application of paint
(38:30):
you're trying to do, like,sometimes we have to put on
these heavy build primers.
You know we call them polyesterprimers.
We're using a giant, you know2.0 tip, which is, I mean, we
call them super soakers, youknow, and we're laying out as
much material as we cansometimes and they get bigger
than that.
But, yeah, some of these biggerflakes, like you know you'll
(38:52):
see your bass boat flake or your, your big giant flake, you'll
see on some of these like lowrider paint jobs, you know, um,
yeah, we're taking that primertip gun you know technically our
primer gun, and we're runningbig flake through there.
You know just, so we can getthat to spray out evenly, you
know.
So, yeah, you definitely haveto use um different guns,
(39:14):
different guns, I mean yourtypical painter, um, he probably
needs a good like threedifferent types of guns, you
know, to spray but, me.
I mean I have six differentguns.
Most of the painters that Ispray with and painters that I
know have like six to eightdifferent spray guns what
they're spraying.
Yeah, um, and these guns aren'tcheap.
(39:36):
I mean, they're like six, seven, eight hundred dollars, you
know.
So I bet, and I bet, um, they,they definitely get up there,
you know, um.
But the good news is is thatthese guns, the quality of these
guns, are amazing.
I mean, I have guns that I'vehad for 20 years.
You know, some of my first gunsyou know I still use to this
day.
If you take care of them, theylast, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
I like that.
So when you're doing theseprismatic paint jobs about how
many coats does it take?
Is it primer?
Obviously maybe a couple, andthen is there sort of a base
coat, and then is there flake,and then is there kind of
another clear coat on top ofthat and then a final sort of
(40:17):
top coat on top of that.
Do you just build?
Speaker 2 (40:20):
it up that way or no.
It can get tricky.
Typically, when you have apaint job, you want to start out
with the smoothest surfacepossible, right.
So you have this completelyprepped panel.
You're in the booth, you'regoing to want to spray a sealer
coat down first.
You, you know sealer is going togive you kind of like your base
color.
(40:40):
You know if you're spraying adark color, you want to have a
dark sealer on there.
If you're spraying a lightsilver, you know you want to
have a light sealer on there.
But that's a sprayed surface.
It's going to lay flat, it'sgoing to give you an awesome
smooth substrate and Now you canlay any type of paint on there
and it's going to look great onthere.
(41:00):
Then you get your metallics.
Now that you've got this supersmooth surface, you can spray
your metallics on there.
Your metallics have no problemlaying a certain way, laying
right, laying, even layingtogether, having that sealer
surface down there.
You're not going to have anystripes, you're not going to
have any.
You know weird, you knowdifferences in the surface.
(41:21):
It's all even the same.
But then it gets tricky after.
You know metallics.
You know typically your normalsilver paint job, yeah, you're
putting a clear coat on after it.
But then let's talk about likeyour candy coats, right, you,
this metallic silver surfacedown, um, and then you're gonna
have, you know, you could have,like um, a candy coat sprayed on
(41:42):
top of which you have like atransparent red, you know, and
you're spraying it over top ofthis silver.
So now your silver flake isgoing to poke through your
transparent red, and now you'regoing to have, like this candy
looking coat.
You know where the metallicsthat you just sprayed are
actually turning red.
You know, or they're turningyellow or they're turning, you
(42:02):
know, blue.
You got candy blues, candygreens, candy yellows, candy
reds, any of those and it givesit this depth to it because you
yeah, yeah you have your silvercoat, then you know your next
layer is your candy coat, yourred, and then you're going to
put your clear coat down on topof that and it just makes this
paint job look so deep like youcan just walk in it.
(42:24):
You know what I mean.
Oh absolutely Like you can stickyour finger in it.
So then you're talking aboutlayering up different things and
that's how you get it.
And then it's like how manycoats of clarity you want to put
on it.
You know, typically our umhigher end paint jobs, you know,
like I have a um 365 ferrari,you know 69 ferrari 365 2x2
(42:48):
sitting over there.
We had to put on this um.
He's got like this dark blue.
Look to it.
He wanted, wanted it as deep aspossible.
So we did four to five coats ofclear coat on there.
You know we're trying to eachlevel of coat.
We just want to have some depthin there, you know, so you can
look like you can actually likeswim in it, you know so anyway.
So yeah, whenever you talkabout that stuff I get pumped
(43:10):
because that's like I'm pumped,I'm excited about.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
Yeah, great questions .
Well, thank you.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
And it's always interesting to go past a car
that's got a paint job likeyou're describing and you use
the word depth and that is sucha great word, texture, like this
third dimension, like you canreach into it.
It's so interesting the way yousaid it, because I feel the
same and it's just very, it's avery distinctive look.
(43:39):
Thank you for taking some timeto explain all this to us.
I tell you what, if anybody isanywhere near okay I got to say
it right Hampstead, maryland,you've got to check out
topcoatgaragecom for all yourbody needs, paint needs,
automotive needs.
Matt was saying earlier I can'tremember if we got this on tape
(44:04):
or not, but he will takeeverything.
It's all kind of stuff.
It's for the collector withsomething exotic, it's for
somebody that just had a fenderbender.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
And he's annie knows the trades, so if it's something
he can't do, he's got the rightpeople.
Let's say it's engine work.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
Right, you can be that central guy, right, right,
matt yeah, yeah, I mean, ithappens to us all the time.
Interior, you know some guyswill want like you know, an
exhaust put on their car, I haveno problem putting exhaust on
their car.
But then whenever they want tolike really crack inside that
motor and they want to do some,like you know, internal stuff
for more performance, you knowwe have shops for that.
(44:41):
You know a really good friendof mine.
He opened up his own shop tooearlier than I did and he's
doing great with performancework, you know, and we have
interior guys.
Um, I eventually want to haveinterior in-house, um, but right
now we're just trying to.
You know, perfect the flow ofthe shop at the moment.
I want to have interiorin-house, um, but right now
we're just trying to.
You know, perfect the flow ofthe shop at the moment.
I want to add another step toit, but you know I got interior
guys next door.
(45:01):
You know you guys want custominterior or whatever man they'll
take.
They'll take your seat coveroff, they'll mimic it, they'll
change up the colors, whatever.
So you back together a new oneand they'll fit it right over
Like it was done at the factory.
You like it was done at thefactory, you know.
So, um, we've done that before,um, if you look on the
Instagram there there's a Bronco, that we did.
Um, we had, you know, we had anentire interior shop.
(45:23):
Pretty much just remake useverything, refit everything,
and then we put it all togetherfor them.
You know so.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
But yeah, love that.
Well, thank you for educatingus and spending a little time
with us.
This was just wonderful.
Thank you, Good, all right, sotopcoatgaragecom, instagram,
topcoatgarage.
Lots of fun stuff there.
So any other announcements aswe slide the podcast to the
(45:50):
off-ramp there.
Partner, or did we get it all?
Speaker 3 (45:56):
ramp their partner, or did we?
Did we get it all?
I think we.
I think uh.
Only thing you didn't mentionis uh, folks, if you, um, if you
know somebody who would begreat for the show as a guest,
please let us know.
If you want to be on the get,be a guest, let us know.
And we're always looking forduos.
We've had, um, we've had fatherson, we've got some
father-daughter coming up.
Love to have some mother-son,mother-daughter, but
(46:20):
grandparents you name it.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
Yeah, we even had a twist.
The last interview that droppedbefore we put this down was us
interviewing my son about hisfirst car and driving around
Humvees in the Army.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
So good stuff, and that's how we got.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
Matt was a friend of a friend, so please keep the
referrals coming.
And you have just heard thehigh revving, low mileage, late
model heard around the world.
Authoritative podcast onautomotive nostalgia.
He's Doug.
Reach him at Doug at carslovecom.
I'm Christian.
Reach me at Christian at carslovecom.
He was Matt and you know whereto find him.
(46:57):
So please follow, tell a friend, check out our link tree.
I'm sure we'll see you at thenext local car show, showroom,
race strip or concourse.
So keep the rubber side down,keep listening.
We will see you next week.
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