To All The Cars I’ve Loved Before | First Cars
Christian and Doug explore automotive nostalgia & personal car memories on our podcast— featuring true automotive stories and childhood car memories from everyday enthusiasts.
To All the Cars I’ve Loved Before shines a light on everyday enthusiasts, from father‑daughter/father-son duos and automotive brand launch managers to the restoration students and expert-level instructors at McPherson and Weber State Colleges. Real stories, real people, real passion—thats why our car podcast stands out from others.
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To All The Cars I’ve Loved Before | First Cars
Honda Civic Dreams to Custom Paint Master | Top Coat Garage Owner's Car Journey, NSX Hunt & Paint Secrets
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.
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Welcome back to All the Cars I've Loved Before, your authoritative podcast on automotive nostalgia, where every car tells a story, every car has a culture and, hey, it's time to plug in, dust off and get a little grease under the nails. Oh, my favorite part, let's get to this real quick before we toss it over to Doug. Here we have some new listeners. Welcome if you're in Paris, paris France. No, not Paris Georgia or Paris Mississippi, although there's nothing wrong with those places. The real deal. Paris, paris, france. Welcome Rome, italy. Welcome San Diego. That's.
Speaker 1:Let's look at the numbers. Yeah, that's a new one. Welcome San Diego. Rest in Virginia. Who else? Oh, and Stockholm, stockholm. So again, internationally.
Speaker 1:I love checking out the stats, I love seeing that. Oh, and we wanted to. Before we pivot to the merch master, doug, he's got magnets, he's got a T-shirt, he had a hat until I stole it. We're going to do something a little different today, we're? We continue to rack up the reviews 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 because I think it's lovely and it doesn't say that I talk too much, which is rare in these. But how, how about this?
Speaker 1:December 26, 2024, from Vince Vroom 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 just new cars, not just old cars, not just nice cars. I like all cars. Each has its own flavor. The thing that makes this podcast fantastic is the scriptless format. Some would say we could use one. He continues Each guest brings their own car story and passion to the table. The hosts aren't interviewing or working from a script. It's a conversation with someone about something they love, the kind of excitement that can't be scripted or purchased. The variety of guests, stories and flavors is incredible. You won't regret listening to it. If you're lucky, you'll have a chance to share your story and passion too. I can't wait to hear. Well, thank you, vince, love that 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:They are anonymous on Apple, so just one of our listeners. Wow, that took it. Only takes a few minutes to write it, but that means a lot, right for our listeners. So please, if you like what you'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 via the uh, uh, sorry, via via the podcast platform of choice link at 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: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 you like what we're doing, If you have suggestions, if you don't like, let us know. If you need a hat and you can't find one and you just want to steal one from Doug, it's fine, he has a never-ending supply. Oh, real quick, though I like that shirt. Yeah, let's talk about the shirt.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about the magnet. So the shirt has yeah, he's a 9-11 alum.
Speaker 1:Why did you get rid of that car?
Speaker 3:Because it was a Tiptronic and it was my mistake for buying it.
Speaker 1:Okay, great shirt, that 911 that he bought from Five Below for I think, $5. Not necessarily below.
Speaker 3:I think, it was right at five.
Speaker 1:So what about the magnets? Let's talk about the magnets, okay.
Speaker 3:So Wonderful. Shutterfly was having a great deal, normally eight or nine dollars each. They 20 magnets a dollar each. Can't go wrong with that. So instead of 200 cost me 20 bucks. So we have this wonderful magnet, yep, which is also our lead magnet. So we're gonna be sitting if you want a magnet.
Speaker 1:Shoot us a note, we'll have a newsletter.
Speaker 3:If you give us your name and email, we'll send you a magnet. Magnet is magnet, has a DeLorean with our logo on it. Cars loved link, uh, link and and a QR code.
Speaker 1:So just to make it super easy the first 10 people to either email Doug at cars lovecom or Christian at cars lovecom Get a magnet. So hey, reach out and let us know what you think. Is it? Do we have anything else on the merch front or can we move on?
Speaker 3:uh, just um new website. Uh, should be going live pretty soon. Um, depending on when people hear this, it'll probably already be up by that time, but it's gonna be new and improved. You saw a preview of it, christian what did you think of it?
Speaker 1:love it looks really good. It's sharp. It looks like a uh, a 14 year old made it. It no longer looks like a 12 year old man. Well, so that's, that's improvement. We're moving forward. We're moving forward. Speaking of moving forward, it's time to introduce today's guest. Really excited to uh introduce our pal matt of top coat garage. How you? How are you doing today, matt?
Speaker 2:Good man, how are you guys?
Speaker 1:Excellent and thank you so much for joining the show. You know there's nothing quite like seeing a beautiful, unique or really distinctive paint job on an automobile, van, truck. But I didn't really think about it a whole lot until I visited the Hyundai plant in Montgomery, alabama and you can tour. I used to be able to tour this was, I think, before COVID just tour the whole plant. And somebody said you know, it takes 16 hours to make a car, but nine of the hours are spent in paint. And I thought, wow, I never thought of it that way. And everybody on the tour was thinking, wow, that much time. Yeah, it's really such an investment in the exterior of the automobile and that's what Top Coat Garage does. So could you please tell us a little bit about yourself and your business?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I've been into cars forever, I mean as long as I could think. And then, um, eventually having the opportunity to work on them at such a young age, um, you know, working on my own cars and then working, you know, just to make money, you know. And then, um, and then finally, you know, kind of like getting the opportunity to just open up my own shop. And now this is what I come here and do every day, and it's different whenever you're in your 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 a job anymore, if that makes sense. So now you just got this challenge, doing it for yourself, it almost doesn't feel like a job anymore, if that makes sense. So now you just got this challenge and then that's what we're, you know, that's what I come here and do every day. Just, you know, kind of like knock out this challenge.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, and one of the biggest challenges 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 about fresh metal, fresh substrates and everything, and now we just have to make it shiny. How the heck does it? You know, you know, take nine hours to do that, you know, and it's just like I understand it all you know. So, um, but yeah, and this is just what I do every day, you know, we pretty much just make stuff shiny, make it beautiful yeah, you're.
Speaker 1:You're kind of picasso or rembrandt, with just a little bit of a different canvas, a little bit different paint. So so what was the first thing car you ever painted? What was that like? How did that work and what? What bug bit you?
Speaker 2:well, I um, I mean, it goes back to like before I could even drive. You know, we used to take what are now what we call vintage mini bikes, you know, and we all wanted a different looking one than you know, our friends.
Speaker 2:So we would take them apart and buy some cans of spray paint from wherever you would get them and we would spray paint them different colors and you'd have some friends that would spray paint them and half of the paint landed on the ground, you know, and so it was always who had the nicest paint job, who had the best color scheme and all that. And then eventually, um had you know, being able, getting old enough to purchase your own car now you want a different color from your friends. You know, being able, getting old enough to purchase your own car, now you want a different color from your friends. You know, and um, I was, uh, in in high school. I ended up taking a vocational program and, uh, I was actually supposed to take a welding class but the welding class was filled up and they're like, well, try out this auto collision, you know auto collision and auto refinishing class and see what you think with that. And I got in there. I, I was real good with the teacher. I mean, the teacher hit it off real well.
Speaker 2:And then I started realizing you know, um, what it took to paint a car. You know how you could. You know your coordination and knowing of the chemicals could create the biggest difference in these paint jobs, from a good looking paint job to a bad paint job 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 little bit 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 teacher talking about painting cars, I'll tell you what the first thing I did was. You know everything that he said, every step that he said I followed, and my paint job came out so much nicer than everyone else's. And you know you get pumped off of that, you get hooked. You just did something really good, you know, and you want to do it again and again and again, you know.
Speaker 3:And then here we are yeah, so going, uh, yeah, 20 plus years later, right? Yeah and, um, you were telling us before the show started that before COVID you were working for somebody else and that's what you'd been doing. And then, because of COVID and basically people weren't driving their cars, they weren't smashing them up, right, people were buying cars. Car market was going kind of crazy, but including restoration, but you, you made a big life decision. Can you just tell us about that and where you are today?
Speaker 2: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 young age, at 19 years old and, um, you know, usually when you start out you become a helper and I was helping, but I was able to paint, I was able to spray and every chance they gave me I was spraying and the opportunity came up, I became a painter at a really young age and I mean, that's where the big money was at. So, 19 year olds, I'm I'm doing great like. I love those those years, you know, um, and uh, and that's kind of like how I built my life. You know, I was just painting cars every single day and eventually I became the head painter. I was even making more money, um, and I had a great life. Um, I mean, I had a nice house, we had property, I had cars. I even had my own hobby shop at home. You know, I built a pole barn and I put a paint booth in it. So I was, I was, you know, working during the day doing collision jobs and I was coming home and I was working on my own personal cars in my own shop. You know, um even started a youtube out of it and everything. Um.
Speaker 2:Well, eventually covet hit and uh, 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 ever getting like a zero on my paycheck. You know, and I'll tell you what I wasn't good at. I wasn't good at saving money. So now I had to figure out how to make money and thank god that hobby shop that I had that had a paint booth out of I was able to do my own little you know side gig, side gig out of. You know um, of course, throughout the years, when you're building cars and people like your cars, you know people want you to build their cars too, you know. So I always had like kind of like a little bit of um, you know, clientele on the side that wanted me to do personal stuff for them.
Speaker 2:And then during the whole COVID situation, you're kind of panicking, like what am I going to do for money? Well, you just kind of answer those 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 I met, you know, our mutual friend, jason Miller. He needed a car done. So we talked, you know, and eventually started painting cars for him. And then I started painting cars for all of his friends and so on.
Speaker 2:And and then all of a sudden, you know, you got your little hobby shop, you know, 1200 square foot place with a, with a paint booth, and now you have 20 cars sitting outside of it, you know. And then you have these other business owners that need cars done and they're looking at you and they're like what are you doing, like, in your yard with all these cars? And I'm like I don't know, I'm making a living, you know, and it's kind of like, you know, go where the wind blows, you know, and eventually expand, you know. You kind of know what you, you know what you can produce out of a 1200 square foot shop. I don't know, maybe, if the math is right, I can do a little bit better if I had a, you know, seven thousand square foot shop, you know, and it just grew from there, you know.
Speaker 3:So that's kind of how it went yeah, and, and really you've grown from uh word of mouth.
Speaker 2:You do some insurance work, but you also do custom work, right, yes, yeah we do like custom, we do um restoration, um, we do like a lot of like high-end repairs. You know, um like we have a bentley sitting outside right now and had a little fender bender so he just needed their fender repainted, you know, repaired and painted and so on. So a lot of people come to us. You know, there's actually like a hunt valley area around here, um, where a lot of high-end, expensive cars are at, you know, and and we're surrounded by corporate body shops. We're surrounded by body shops that are just trying to get you in, get you out. You know, so it's kind of good, um, that we have like a specialty shop like ours. We spray a certain paint, like a more high end paint, and everything. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that's, but. But he does more than paint. His shop does more than paints full body shop, so he can do all kinds of things including, including our mutual friend Jason.
Speaker 3:I mean, I think you turned his skinny 911 into a wide body, right? Oh yeah?
Speaker 2:It's beautiful work. Yeah, he had a narrow body Porsche and we ended up putting a wide body on it. That was actually one of the jobs I was doing out of my house and you know he would bring me this bumper. And, um, you know, he would bring me this bumper. He's like man, I got this old race car bumper and I'm looking at it and this bumper does not fit that car whatsoever and.
Speaker 2:but luckily we got great experience with, like you know, fiberglass work and you know the bumper was actually made out of fiberglass and I'm cutting it apart, I'm widen the bumper, I'm making it fit the fenders, you know, and giving it extra mounts to make it more sturdy, you know.
Speaker 2:And then and then he brings me these side skirts and this rocker panel and I'm just like, where did you get this from? You know, and here I am, you know, pie cutting it in places so it fits, the wide body and everything. So the wide, the body kit on his car, the bumper and side skirts, is a hundred percent one-off you know I made it out of custom gave me.
Speaker 2:yeah, you know, and, and I, and I tell you what man, my guys here, you know, um, I'll bring in a job. And they're scratching their head. How are we going to make this work? And I kind of like map it out for them and show them. And you know, they, they follow my steps and they're they're even more skilled than me. They just don't know it. You know, I just have to like guide them that way. That's what's really good about my team here is like I have a hundred percent confidence in them and you know we, or how we're going to make something fit, and they follow the steps and you know, they're standing back like wow, I can't believe we did that, you know.
Speaker 2:And it's all based off of experience from you know, giving me something and I'm just kind of like I guess I'll figure it out. You know, I'll let you know in the end, you know.
Speaker 1:And that's what makes you a great team. There's vision, there's creativity, there's and that's what makes you a great team there'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 further here, I do want to tell if you want to put a smile on your face, go check out Top Coat Garage or the Instagram page here. I know there's a little bit of rework on the website happened. It should be done by the time this 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 of transcends automobiles and it just it just looks like art what you've done with a lot of these cars, so creative and just just and just really beautiful here.
Speaker 2:We definitely don't discriminate against cars. We do them all, from the older cars to the newer cars, to the exotics. We just like them all yeah.
Speaker 3:But personally, right, and I know where Christian's going with this, I'm jumping in you like japanese cars, right oh yeah yeah, so. So, uh, christian, where are we going?
Speaker 1:in the way back machine. Let's hop into the uh the time machine and go back. Let's talk about your first car. Where'd you get it, how did it drive and what did it mean to you?
Speaker 2:well, my first car was a 2000 honda civic hatchback and, uh, I remember playing gran turismo on playstation and uh, there was just spoon. There's a, an automobile performance company in japan that specialized in honda's, called spoon, and uh, they had this spoon civic hatchback. I mean, it had a carbon fiber hood, a carbon fiber wing. It looked plain, but for some reason, the way they built that motor in the game it had it was a high revvy motor. It had the lowest horsepower, but I tell you what it performed so well against these cars and and I fell in love, I was like I can't believe you can do this with a Honda Civic hatchback. I mean my neighborhood, if we want to talk about the influence of cars beforehand, I mean, I had nothing but guys with muscle cars, big motors, big blowers. You know that's literally what I grew up working on. But when it came time for me to purchase my own car, I wanted a honda, I wanted a civic. I was so impressed with the way those cars were balanced, the performance aspect you could get out of it such a low horsepower number car and such a lightweight car and what people were doing with it. So, yeah, I was all about, you know the honda civic and, um, my father knew that and, uh, he, it's crazy.
Speaker 2:Back in the day we'd be in the paper. You know, you're literally looking at these little tiny paper ads. And there was, um, a family that had the car I think the brother owned. The brother had possession of the car. The owner of the car actually ended up passing away and they were selling this car like weirdly cheap like nowadays we would call it a scam, you know, it would be a facebook scam but we were like there's something weird about the price of this car. My father called and, um, they wanted that. They were, they were for real. They were like, yeah, we're just trying to get rid of it. We don't really know what it's worth. Um, I think they wanted $4,000 for it, which was a lot of money back in the day.
Speaker 2:And, um, when I was, you know, 15, 16 years old, um, but my, but, I had a job. I was in a body shop. Um, actually ended up working at that body shop for 20 years. Oh, yeah, I was there for a while and since my dad knew I had a job and I had to give my paychecks to him to put in the bank, he could charge me a weekly payment on that car, and that's what I did. You know he he purchased a car for me and I had to pay him back.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, kept you responsible, smart dad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what a great lesson. Wow, I don't know that we've ever heard that before, but but what a great sense of of kind of responsibility.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my dad was really good at a budget. Um, I'll never forget that he had 25 cents of his name at the end of every month. I mean he had giant books of budgets. He would write it out. You would think I would have learned from that. I definitely didn't, but he definitely tried to teach me that. I don't know I do okay in the business now, but I'll tell you what. Up to COVID, when I was making doing really well at 19 years old and up, I did not save a dime. I will tell you that.
Speaker 2:It was pretty much. I just purchased cars, car parts. That was pretty much my life you know well fun.
Speaker 1:Fun isn't cheap, fun isn't, I know that. But but great, dad, yeah, it's funny. Funny, you mention that because just last week I bought my. I got three sons, my middle son. I bought him his first kind of real car. He had a beatup corolla that just died. He didn't have it very long. But we, uh, we're going down the road right near where we live here in in florida and there was a cool 40th anniversary convertible mustang and with, just you know, the for sale little sign in the window and I said, oh, we got to make that happen. So two days later, later, and it was in really good shape, my son is over the moon. I haven't seen him in a week. I assume he's having fun driving around with his friends.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, at least he's going to get snow experience.
Speaker 1:I better not see him come and drive down my street in that thing with the ice. He's having real fun with the snow.
Speaker 3:No but, don't remind me, don't remind me Steer with the rear buddy. Steer with the rear.
Speaker 1:I can't wait to get my hands on it. But yeah, I've not seen it. But sorry, doug, I didn't mean to interrupt.
Speaker 3:No, no, that's okay.
Speaker 2:You know, what I thought was pretty cool is Matt is um, matt, you still have this car. Right, I still have this car. No way, I ended up I've listen. This car is transformed like crazy. Um, I ended up making it like you know, my spoon dream car, almost. You know um we made it into a road race car we put a cage in it.
Speaker 2:The suspension was done, you know, inside and out. I mean we stiffened it up with every bar we possibly could. The motor was completely built. We ended up putting a completely different motor in it, a little bit more displacement, but we wanted a high revving motor, just like them spoon motors. It had individual throttle bodies, four, nine final drive. I mean this thing was like a dirt bike.
Speaker 2:You literally I mean to go like 40 mile an hour. You, you're probably in, like, you know, third gear, like if I was on the highway, just try to trying 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 RPM through turns, you know. So we really built it out. You want to stay at high RPM through turns, you know, so we really built it out.
Speaker 2:And I ended up, you know, not making as much money one year and, believe it or not, the money 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 to get rid of a car here and I ended up selling that car because I had a friend that wanted to purchase it and it was the biggest regret ever. I hated it. I wanted that car back so bad and I was actually fortunate enough for him to run into a little situation. I think he was going to like throw a divorce or something and he was like dude, if you want this car back I never even titled it in my name Just give me what we paid. And I said, absolutely. I was like bring it over. I got the money for you, let's go. And I ended up purchasing the car back and from then on I vowed to myself any cars that I truly liked.
Speaker 3:I was never, ever selling again.
Speaker 2:Cause there are a few other cars that I purchased down the road that I ended up selling, and I'm like man, why did I even sell the car I didn't even need to? You know, should have just kept it. So yeah, now I'm like 15 cars in the hole now.
Speaker 3:I can't wait to see the collection. What? What was the time period?
Speaker 2:between the time you sold it and you bought it back, um, I want to say maybe like two years went by. Okay, I want to say about two years. When the purchase, the person that purchased it he was a friend of mine and he kind of had like a mini car collection, you know. So he would just kind of take his um, he had like a dealer tag and if he wanted to take it out he just put his dealer tag on and he'd go run around with it, you know and you know, and he would just kind of like had all these cars kind of like in limbo, um, but he would just swap a tag on them, you know, back and forth. So he never titled it, you know so.
Speaker 2:But anyways, yeah, I was so happy to get that car back. It's in my garage right now. I definitely have future plans for it. I do purchase parts for it every now and again. The parts pile is collecting. But eventually, when I get a hold of this shop and we get it running smooth and I can get some free time, I definitely want it to. That's one of the cars I want to give some attention to later down the road.
Speaker 3:Gotcha. So you've owned that car over 20 years, right? Yes, yep, awesome yeah and then your second car, because you like japanese cars. So much was a it was another civic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a another two-door coupe. Um, that was back in the days when I was working at the body shop. A car would get totaled, and it was before they would um force your car to have a salvage title. You had the choice if you wanted to pay for it out of your pocket, you wouldn't have a salvage title oh, you'd have a clear title, got it yeah insurance could total it.
Speaker 2:So, like we would have these civics, they would have like a busted headlight and a and a bent radiator support and um and like, and it would need like a hood. And I mean we would have these parts floating around, you know 50 bucks here and there or whatever. But of course when it's going through insurance company they want to purchase everything new. You're talking about like a new hood from honda. You could total a car easily. So what I would do is I would out, I'd see the customer taking their tags off and I would walk out to the customer and say, hey, you know I really like this car. And of course they would tell me this was the best car ever. Barely any mileage on it. Can't believe a total. Now I have to find a new one and replace it.
Speaker 2: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 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 tell them like I really liked the car when you keep the car going and you know they see the opportunity to make more money off of, you know, just handing their title over to me, and um and and bam, I would get this car. I their title over to me. And um and and bam, I would get this car. I'd put a couple hundred bucks into it and I'd have a low mileage civic, which is what I had at the time, and that became my daily driver because my first car ended up getting a little crazy with the modification right drive, you know, and and all that just for like daily driving, you know so then I had my like little comfortable two-door.
Speaker 2:You know coupe um civic at the time. But then I ended up putting a motor in that and I started to get a little radical too for it. But but I ended up selling it gotcha, but till this day I wish I would have kept that one too yeah, I bet.
Speaker 3:I bet you're probably looking up the see if you can find it somewhere. There are no secrets on the internet.
Speaker 2:No, there isn't.
Speaker 3:So I wanted to. I did want to ask you again Japanese car and one of the cars you put down as your dream car is one of my favorite cars Acura NSX, I assume the original Gen 1. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Can you?
Speaker 3:tell us why. That's your dream car, have you?
Speaker 2:you've probably painted one or two over time, I bet I have two in my shop I'm staring at right now oh god, love those cars yeah, um whoa so he's coming from his shop, by the way, for anybody uh if you're listening to it.
Speaker 3:Check out our YouTube channel. We'll have some clips on there, maybe the whole. Maybe the whole video with Matt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, yeah, I mean, you know, like I said, growing up with Hondas, just wanting every Honda out there, and I've had like Integra Type R's, I've had S2000s, you know. So I've had some like pretty awesome Hondas, but the NSX is just, I mean, that is the top Honda, you know. 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, I mean, I think they based that chassis off of like the indycar, you know, um, and even in the game cran turismo, it was such a good handling car, um. But you know, there was a time when, um, you know, I mean the prices on them, even on the brand new NSXs, is pretty out there and their technology is crazy. They've kind of like got hybrid electric motors in the front, you know, and they're still running that V6, you know, in the back turbo. Now it's just crazy just where that car is at compared to other cars now. But yeah, back in the day, the older nsxs with the flip up lights, you know, or even when you get to like the newer version, like the o5s with the, you know, projector headlights and all like, I mean that is just a car I still dream to have. I haven't owned one yet. I'm very close. I'm actually in negotiations with one now. Um, maybe during spring. I'm he, we're talking, and it's good talk that we're having.
Speaker 2:It's a fingers crossed really really rare one, um so rare, and I had actually had the opportunity to purchase one too before I decided to um go with the shop. Um, it was, and I'm, and I'm still in touch with this car too. I can talk about this one. It was an 05 NSX with 47,000 miles on it. It was painted Laguna Blue. I mean, it came Laguna Blue original color. That's one of 900.
Speaker 2:But this one also had a Comtech um 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. Um, it was in Florida and it was completely sun faded. Um, the the son was selling it. The father, I think, ended up passing away or not able to drive the car anymore, and it was, uh, it was a hell of a deal. Um, I could probably a friend of mine purchased it and I think I was getting a little bit better deal than him just because I knew the guy that was in charge of selling it, um, but it was. It's probably worth now, you know, probably in the $140,000 range and I think I was.
Speaker 2:I think it was like 80, 90,000, which we were kind of like talking about. But you know, um, that was right about when I needed to like do something with this opportunity of, you know, opening a opening a shop. You know, I just had so much clientele, so many cars coming in I needed to do something with. I needed employees. I was, you know, I was working my 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. Or do I want to put it into a shop to make, you know, an even bigger career move?
Speaker 2: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 me out with a couple months worth of rent while we built the shop and so on, or whatever. And, um, what's really good is that a friend of mine ended up purchasing the car too, and he actually purchased it for his, his mother. It was a car that she always wanted and it's at a.
Speaker 2:It's at a shop now getting all the 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 paint job on it. Everything I wanted to do to it, I still get to do to it. So I'm really happy about that. But then, like I said, I'm in a better position now and this other nsx opportunity popped up and, um, it's even more rare that one we were talking about lower mileage, um, fingers crossed, you know my fingers are crossed on that note um can I?
Speaker 3:can I come to your shop sometime in video? Absolutely Okay, absolutely.
Speaker 2:You come hang out see what we do for you. I'll show you around.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:It's pretty impressive.
Speaker 3:The lineup of cars that we have here. Yeah, if the weather is good and I have my car back from the shop, I'll bring my DeLorean up there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh man, that would be awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not much paintwork we can do on that but yeah, I know it's nice to see the shop, yeah, yeah, well, yeah, but the bumper might need some painting. So I'm keeping oh yeah, hey, you, you got the right guy right there. The big thing and we're seeing I'm seeing more and more cyber trucks down here speaking of stainless steel and they're all wrapped. Yeah, I see more wrapped now than I see, than I see with that. But I have the dumbest question in the world that I have to ask you, matt. I've wanted this my whole life and it's led me right to you. So when we're talking about flake in a paint and flake is that little it's what is it that allows the paint to almost shimmer or glitter? Is that metal? Is it ceramic? What is that little flake piece? Is it different material? What is that? Is it gold?
Speaker 2: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 little aluminum shavings. You know they have coarser shavings, they have finer shavings. You know they have coarser shavings, they have finer shavings. It all depends on the effect that you're looking for. But paint is changing more and more. Nowadays the technology is getting crazier. You have your pearl paint jobs, um, and they use like a, um, kind of like a certain type of metallic also, but they cut it a certain way. It's dyed a certain way to give you this look of a pearl paint job, kind of like a smoother, like color change. Look and it's. It's getting crazier. Now you'll start to see it on the internet. Um, now they got some colors that are not. You know, we've always had like chameleon style paint jobs where they'll take like a prism almost, and it's a different color on each side.
Speaker 2:I mean, now these colors are changing drastically to where it's almost like at one angle the car is just one complete different color. Um, at another angle it is one completely different color, instead of how the um prison paint jobs were, like the chameleon paint jobs, where it was kind of like, as you start turning, certain panels are starting to change. I mean, it's all about how to get the angle of that prism to immediately change.
Speaker 1:So so is that flake that's, or there's got to be, some sort of tiny piece in there that's reflecting the light from different angles. I wonder if it's triangular or a little piece that's well, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:You'll see, like you know, you'll have like some chameleon colors that will change three colors. You'll have some of these chameleon or color change color that would change like five different colors. I mean, you got to think there's five different sides of different colors there, little tiny, microscopic piece of flake, you know. So as you're walking by it you're seeing different sides that somehow lay all at the same way. You know what I mean. So it's pretty amazing what paint does.
Speaker 1:Do you have to have so your equipment? I assume you have very high-tech sprayers. Do different paints with different size flakes or type flakes? Can they all go through that nozzle? Do you have different nozzles?
Speaker 2:Do you have?
Speaker 1:different equipment for the different liquids that must be aerosolized through there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we definitely have different size tip guns. Typically all of your OEM paint jobs that you see on the cars that you see around, they're sprayed with a, you know, 1.2 to 1.3 millimeter tip, but then they get a lot bigger. So, and it all depends on what kind of application of paint you're trying to do, like, sometimes we have to put on these heavy build primers. You know we call them polyester primers. We're using a giant, you know 2.0 tip, which is, I mean, we call them super soakers, you know, and we're laying out as much material as we can sometimes and they get bigger than that. But, yeah, some of these bigger flakes, like you know you'll see your bass boat flake or your, your big giant flake, you'll see on some of these like low rider paint jobs, you know, um, yeah, we're taking that primer tip gun you know technically our primer gun, and we're running big flake through there.
Speaker 2:You know just, so we can get that to spray out evenly, you know. So, yeah, you definitely have to use um different guns, different guns, I mean your typical painter, um, he probably needs a good like three different types of guns, you know, to spray but, me. I mean I have six different guns. Most of the painters that I spray with and painters that I know have like six to eight different spray guns what they're spraying.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, and these guns aren't cheap. 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 that these guns, the quality of these guns, are amazing. I mean, I have guns that I've had for 20 years. You know, some of my first guns you know I still use to this day. If you take care of them, they last, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I like that. So when you're doing these prismatic paint jobs about how many coats does it take? Is it primer? Obviously maybe a couple, and then is there sort of a base coat, and then is there flake, and then is there kind of another clear coat on top of that and then a final sort of top coat on top of that. Do you just build?
Speaker 2:it up that way or no. It can get tricky. Typically, when you have a paint job, you want to start out with the smoothest surface possible, right. So you have this completely prepped panel. You're in the booth, you're going to want to spray a sealer coat down first.
Speaker 2:You, you know sealer is going to give you kind of like your base color. You know if you're spraying a dark color, you want to have a dark sealer on there. If you're spraying a light silver, you know you want to have a light sealer on there. But that's a sprayed surface. It's going to lay flat, it's going to give you an awesome smooth substrate and Now you can lay any type of paint on there and it's going to look great on there.
Speaker 2:Then you get your metallics. Now that you've got this super smooth surface, you can spray your metallics on there. Your metallics have no problem laying a certain way, laying right, laying, even laying together, having that sealer surface down there. You're not going to have any stripes, you're not going to have any. You know weird, you know differences in the surface. It's all even the same. But then it gets tricky after. You know metallics. You know typically your normal silver paint job, yeah, you're putting a clear coat on after it. But then let's talk about like your candy coats, right, you, this metallic silver surface down, um, and then you're gonna have, you know, you could have, like um, a candy coat sprayed on top of which you have like a transparent red, you know, and you're spraying it over top of this silver.
Speaker 2:So now your silver flake is going to poke through your transparent red, and now you're going to have, like this candy looking coat. You know where the metallics that you just sprayed are actually turning red. You know, or they're turning yellow or they're turning, you know, blue.
Speaker 2:You got candy blues, candy greens, candy yellows, candy reds, any of those and it gives it this depth to it because you yeah, yeah you have your silver coat, then you know your next layer is your candy coat, your red, and then you're going to put your clear coat down on top of that and it just makes this paint job look so deep like you can just walk in it. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Oh absolutely Like you can stick your finger in it. So then you're talking about layering up different things and that's how you get it. And then it's like how many coats of clarity you want to put on it. You know, typically our um higher end paint jobs, you know, like I have a um 365 ferrari, you know 69 ferrari 365 2x2 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 as possible. So we did four to five coats of clear coat on there. You know we're trying to each level of coat. We just want to have some depth in there, you know, so you can look like you can actually like swim in it, you know so anyway. So yeah, whenever you talk about that stuff I get pumped because that's like I'm pumped, I'm excited about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, great questions. Well, thank you.
Speaker 1:And it's always interesting to go past a car that's got a paint job like you're describing and you use the word depth and that is such a great word, texture, like this third dimension, like you can reach into it. It's so interesting the way you said it, because I feel the same and it's just very, it's a very distinctive look. Thank you for taking some time to explain all this to us. I tell you what, if anybody is anywhere near okay I got to say it right Hampstead, maryland, you've got to check out topcoatgaragecom for all your body needs, paint needs, automotive needs. Matt was saying earlier I can't remember if we got this on tape or not, but he will take everything. It's all kind of stuff. It's for the collector with something exotic, it's for somebody that just had a fender bender.
Speaker 3:And he's annie knows the trades, so if it's something he can't do, he's got the right people. Let's say it's engine work.
Speaker 2:Right, you can be that central guy, right, right, matt yeah, yeah, I mean, it happens to us all the time.
Speaker 2:Interior, you know some guys will want like you know, an exhaust put on their car, I have no problem putting exhaust on their car. But then whenever they want to like really crack inside that motor and they want to do some, like you know, internal stuff for more performance, you know we have shops for that. You know a really good friend of mine. He opened up his own shop too earlier than I did and he's doing great with performance work, you know, and we have interior guys. Um, I eventually want to have interior in-house, um, but right now we're just trying to. You know, perfect the flow of the shop at the moment. I want to have interior in-house, um, but right now we're just trying to. You know, perfect the flow of the shop at the moment. I want to add another step to it, but you know I got interior guys next door. You know you guys want custom interior or whatever man they'll take. They'll take your seat cover off, they'll mimic it, they'll change up the colors, whatever. So you back together a new one and they'll fit it right over Like it was done at the factory.
Speaker 2:You like it was done at the factory, 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 an entire interior shop. Pretty much just remake us everything, refit everything, and then we put it all together for them. You know so.
Speaker 1:But yeah, love that. Well, thank you for educating us and spending a little time with us. This was just wonderful. Thank you, Good, all right, so topcoatgaragecom, instagram, topcoatgarage. Lots of fun stuff there. So any other announcements as we slide the podcast to the off-ramp there. Partner, or did we get it all?
Speaker 3:ramp their partner, or did we? Did we get it all? I think we. I think uh. Only thing you didn't mention is uh, folks, if you, um, if you know somebody who would be great 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 for duos. We've had, um, we've had father son, we've got some father-daughter coming up. Love to have some mother-son, mother-daughter, but grandparents you name it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we even had a twist. The last interview that dropped before we put this down was us interviewing my son about his first car and driving around Humvees in the Army.
Speaker 3:So good stuff, and that's how we got.
Speaker 1:Matt was a friend of a friend, so please keep the referrals coming. And you have just heard the high revving, low mileage, late model heard around the world. Authoritative podcast on automotive nostalgia. He's Doug. Reach him at Doug at cars lovecom. I'm Christian. Reach me at Christian at cars lovecom. He was Matt and you know where to find him. So please follow, tell a friend, check out our link tree. I'm sure we'll see you at the next local car show, showroom, race strip or concourse. So keep the rubber side down, keep listening. We will see you next week.
