Grandma's Beige Buick Regal Gets a Splash of Color

(Tommy)>> Today on Detroit Muscle we take grandma's old beige Buick and give it a splash of color.

(Marc)>> Plus we get our chassis back from the powder coaters and start assembling the suspension to get it rolling. [ Music ] [ engines revving ]

(Marc)>> You know I have to say I do love this color you picked out. That battleship gray really pops.

(Tommy)>> You know for you to be such a small man you sure can cast some pretty big stones.

(Marc)>> Yeah I would clear it if I was you.

(Tommy)>> No sir. I've got a fancy color picked and this thing is gonna look killer.

(Marc)>> I believe that.

(Tommy)>> You know it's taken quite a bit of work to get here but I sure am excited to see this thing finished up.

(Marc)>> Oh yeah I mean it really has. I mean mini tubs, full chassis, LS Connect and Cruise, 525 horse. I mean this car is complete transformation from where we started.

(Tommy)>> Yeah but that's not the work I'm talking about. I'm talking about all the sanding, blocking, dough work, all that. Luckily I found a friend of mine that doesn't mind wiping the sweat off his brow and get a little dirty, puts in some effort.

(Marc)>> I hear you.

(Tommy)>> Everybody wants to be the trigger man when it comes to painting but you can't spray a car straight. It comes from hours and hours of sanding. Now you don't want to just invite anybody to come over and help you. You're not trying to remove a refrigerator and all you need is a strong back and weak mind. This type of situation you need some skilled hands. Now Michael back there he's a really good friend of mine. I've known him for quite a while, about 20 years or so, and there's a few things that I know on him and there's a few things he knows on me but we don't ever tell nobody unless it's us when we're drinking and you know it's kinda bragging rights.

(Michael)>> Yeah I know some dirt on him. He knows some on me. We've been in some stuff together. I guess that happens when you've known somebody for that long.

(Tommy)>> Once the Buick was whipped into shape it was time for a coat of primer and street regal was ready for some color.

(Marc)>> You know I admire all that body work but you have to admit you're not the only one that's put a bunch of time on this thing.

(Tommy)>> What have you done?

(Marc)>> Well I got the chassis all torn down and taken off to the shop to get blasted and powder coated.

(Tommy)>> I got you.

(Marc)>> And judging by the colors you picked it's kinda hard for me to tell what color you're gonna paint the body. So what is it?

(Tommy)>> Man I've got a red from Summit Racing that's gonna knock your socks off.

(Marc)>> Summit Racing paint like we used on Sydewinder?

(Tommy)>> Yeah it's basically the same material but the techniques on the application slightly different.

(Marc)>> No rollers and brushes?

(Tommy)>> Nah, it's far more traditional if you will.

(Marc)>> You could same we took an out of the box approach with our fox body's paint job. We called in our old friend Ted Swann with Summit Racing to help with the distressed look we were going for. He gave us some tips and hints on how to pull off a cool yet weathered patina paint job on Sydewinder.

(Tommy)>> I know that's just a bit unorthodox but it turned out when we were all said and done, and your ears have probably been burning.

(Ted)>> They have been lately. A lot of people have actually asked how we ever got together and it was a rather remarkable thing. It was on multiple projects over the past couple of years. So I guess it's time to paint your Buick project now?

(Tommy)>> Oh absolutely man. No, no, no, don't get excited. We're not doing the paint brushes and rollers again.

(Ted)>> I really needed that.

(Marc)>> I'm just kidding!

(Tommy)>> No this one is gonna be far more traditional. We're gonna paint this all shinny and that On Fire Red from Summit.

(Ted)>> You know what that's a really nice color. I mean that's got that deep, lustrous, almost burgundy, slightly candy apple look to it, and we're going full shine this time correct?

(Tommy)>> Yep with several coats of clear. I want this thing to look deep.

(Ted)>> This is gonna look real deep. We're gonna put some overall use clear on this thing so that we don't run out of recoat time and we can wait a little bit longer between coats.

(Tommy)>> Now I know Summit's got several other colors. You have any hand in picking those things out?

(Ted)>> Believe it or not no! That was one of the things they picked on their own with some of the colorists. Actually what they thought was gonna be popular and timeless, and some of the colors are actually updates on some of the very popular older colors. I mean colors like the solid color Boss Blue, or the Go Bananas are like brightened up and slightly toned down of classics that our parents or grandparents might have had. The Bahama Blue Metallic, real nice classic color but it's gonna fit perfectly on anything from a Harley-Davidson custom bike to somebody's resto mod '63 Corvette.

(Tommy)>> Now I know some people may accidentally look at those colors and say yeah they look good but may be a bit concerned because they're so economically based, but that's really not nothing to be worried about is it?

(Ted)>> No it's nothing to be worried about. One of the most expensive things that any car paint manufacturer does is constantly chase the factory to factory variations that occur with the same color code. I mean often times if you read and engineering magazine you'll see the term "BACK". It's best available current technology. When they build a brand new factory they may have some brand new more transfer efficiency. In other words more that comes out of the machine actually stays on the car. So it's better for the environment, but they do have variation from factory to factory. I mean you can see this if you've ever gone to a modern salvage yard. After you broke a gas cap off your car you find one. Wow it's the same color, and you bolt it on and you realize how different it is. It could have been as simple as a factory in Georgia versus a factory in Detroit, or maybe even in another country because cars are made all over the world today.

(Marc)>> So you don't have to worry about matching colors when you've got something like this pallet. You pick the color that you like and that helps save a lot of money, is that what you're saying?

(Ted)>> It saves a lot of money because you make it one time, it's consistent from can to can, and more importantly it's gonna give you that consistency to the customer. They buy some more later and they're gonna have a very accurate rendition regardless of what the era was that they bought the paint in.

(Tommy)>> Now I know with Summit it's pretty much the go-to whenever you're gonna be looking for go fast parts, but even with the paint side of things that isn't just one thing they cover. They carry everything else that you need to paint this car as well don't they?

(Ted)>> Yeah you better believe it. I mean Summit Racing has a complete selection of products. Going from the preparation of the surfaces, to body filler, to sand paper, degreaser, all the way up through and including clear coats and polishes like on this Buick. A lot of people sometimes think wow, why doesn't my car look like that, like a Rolls Royce, and they don't realize the amount of finishing time that goes into a car like that. Where it's color sanded, compounded, and then polished to get that almost texture free look to it with zero particles in there. I mean that's a lot of detail work and hand work once the job is done, and it obviously gives you a spray job that's sometimes smoother and cleaner than maybe a regular production automobile would have.

(Tommy)>> Well we're pretty much all cleaned up and ready to start mixing and spraying. You gonna be around so you can touch in with us?

(Ted)>> I am. I want to see that thing when you down the base coat.

(Tommy)>> Alrighty, we'll holler back at you.

(Ted)>> Give me a yell.

(Marc)>> Coming up grandma's blah beige is gone.

(Tommy)>> Street Regal's in the booth and it's time for some color.

(Tommy)>> Well our Buick's ready for its transformation and I'm so excited. [ Music ] We've been working on this old Buick for quite a while and one thing I'm glad to see going away is this maw-maw colored paint job, yuck! I'll be spraying on a coat of sealer before we add on our color, and this process will help the paint adhere to the surface and gives us a uniform canvas for us to work with. [ spray gun hissing ] [ Music ] [ spray gun hissing ]

(Tommy)>> Not everybody enjoys painting but this is a point whenever you're building a ride that your vehicle makes the biggest transformation. They usually go from ugly and primered up to shiny and full of color. Now I really enjoy spraying red colored paint and it's not because red is my most favorite color. It's actually because that was the first color I got to spray. I was about six or seven years old and my old man was painting one of his trucks, and he was painting it Victory GM Red, and after seeing him paint his truck well I wanted to paint my toy truck. So I asked him, can I use that paint gun, and he said you've got to tape the windows up first and handed me a roll of masking tape. So I scurried around there trying to get the windows masked up, and after that he gave me the paint gun and I went to spraying. You could say I painted everything in a three foot radius from that toy truck. Grass, rocks, probably even a bug or two, but when I was done man I was smiling. So you could say that was a moment in time that ignited the fire for me building cool cars, and I've come a long way. This one looks a whole lot better than my first one.

(Marc)>> Hey Ted just wanted to give you an update. I don't know if you can see what's going on back here. I'll flip you around so you can see it okay?

(Ted)>> That would be great.

(Marc)>> We've got some color on it. Tommy's spraying away, what do you think?

(Ted)>> I think it looks awesome. I mean the color looks great, and painting it fully disassembled is gonna make for a beautiful job when it's done.

(Marc)>> Yeah absolutely! Tommy's been hard at it. I think I'm gonna go break away here and go get him a snack, and give him a break for a little bit. We'll get back to you after while okay?

(Ted)>> See you in a bit, take care.

(Marc)>> Alright thanks Ted.

(Ted)>> You bet.

(Tommy)>> If you're digging the way that old Buick's turning out well you're probably gonna like this next step. We've got all the color on and now it's time to spray on some shiny. [ Music ] For clear we're using Summit Racing's High Solids Urethane Clear. We're looking to apply three coats onto our Buick. Now some people say it's a little bit tricky to spray on clear coat but really the trick behind it is to see where you're spraying it. Sometimes you have to maneuver yourself around to catch the light just right to see where it's going. Other than that just keep moving, keep spraying. With our Buick we're painting it with Summit's base coat/clear coat system. The base coat has to be top coated because otherwise it doesn't have any kind of u/v protection and the paint itself or the color will just weather itself away. So the clear coat itself doesn't only make it shiny it protects the color. One common problem that happens whenever you're doing some painting is getting trash onto the surface. One tip for you is try not to be all flailing around with your arms causing this big commotion. Just smooth and steady movements. Hey big man I had to give you a call back to show off my handy work. I got the clear on and it turned out pretty nice. Check that out!

(Ted)>> It sure did. I'm looking at the reflections, the lights, the logo, the air control unit, it looks perfectly wet right now. It looks great!

(Tommy)>> Yeah we're gonna do a little buffing a little later on. So I may give you a ring if you'll answer?

(Ted)>> Of course I'll answer. That looks fantastic though. That's gonna make it even nicer.

(Tommy)>> Well thanks man. Well I'm gonna go ahead and get off here. I need to get the gun and all cleaned up. So we'll be hollering at you here shortly.

(Ted)>> Take care you guys.

(Marc)>> Blasted and powder coated our chassis is back and we start installing our suspension.

(Tommy)>> Getting Street Regal one step closer to rolling.

(Marc)>> Well as we mentioned earlier Tommy's been getting the outside of the Buick looking all nice and I've been working underneath with the chassis, and as you can see here I've got this nice shiny gold finish and I think it turned out amazing, but believe me when I tell you it didn't look this nice not that long ago. We sure like looking at that fancy fab work that Street Rod Garage did on our custom chassis but it's time to coat it in some shiny. So we brought it to Blast from the Past in Lebanon, Tennessee. We've used them before on several projects and they do an amazing job, whether it's sand blasting or powder coating. Now our brand new chassis collected some rust over the time while we were building the car. So it needed to be blasted just like anything else would. Once it was down to bare metal it goes in the booth. [ Music ] The guys have to make sure that all the media is removed before the powder coating process starts. So they blow it off with some compressed air. The next step is to apply the powder. For our Buick's chassis we chose this gold color. We think it'll really accent that red nicely. [ Music ] After the powder is applied it goes into the oven where it bakes at over 400 degrees for up to 30 minutes. While that frame was in the oven baking they took some of our other suspension components like our control arms and spindles. On our suspension components we decided to go with a couple of different accent colors. We picked the traditional black for some components and others we decided to go with this gun metal gray, and those suspension parts turned out really nice and I like the way they work with that gold frame. Speaking of the frame it was time for it to come out of the oven, but we weren't really satisfied with that semi-gloss finish. So it needed to go back in the booth. Now this next part is a little unconventional. Normally powder coating gets one coat and then baked and it's done, but we're doing something special on our frame. I know this powder looks white but it's actually a clear coat. Once it gets baked in the oven it's gonna come out shiny gold. As powder coating becomes more and more popular some of the coatings get more involved, like adding a clear coat. What's nice about this is it gives you a finish like a base coat/clear coat paint would with the additional benefit of being more durable. I'm really glad we decided to go with that gloss clear because it made that gold pop, especially when the light hits it. We even had them do the control arms while they were at it. Now I just need to get the rest of this thing assembled, and hopefully by the end of the day today this thing's gonna be on the ground. Now when you're working on assembling something that's been powder coated you want to make sure you take your time because you don't want to chip the coating. It's really hard to touch that stuff up. We're using ARP stainless steel bolts on this project where we can. Got to make sure you put some anti-seize on there. Keep them from galling.

(Marc)>> Now one thing I like to do when I have something that's freshly powder coated like this is to get all the powder coating off the holes where the bolt needs to go through as I use this little abrasive here on a drill. That way on don't take too much material off. It's pretty handy. [ drill humming ] [ Music ]

(Marc)>> Another thing I'm doing here is I'm reassembling everything in the exact opposite order of which I disassembled it. I even took some photos before I took all apart so I knew how it would look when it was all together. [ Music ] This stuff only goes on one way. It's nice and easy. Just need to get the bolts installed, get them cinched down, and we'll be ready to get this thing on the ground. [ drill humming ] [ Music ] [ ratchet clicking ]

(Marc)>> It's amazing how much nicer these components look once they're all powder coated and put back together. It's really cool the way the colors play off of each other. [ Music ] Well I'm gonna go grab some wheels and tires and this thing is gonna be a roller finally.

(Tommy)>> Don't go away. We take our new paint to the next level!

(Tommy)>> Well we got our Buick all sprayed and it turned out really nice, and you know we can't just leave things alone. So we're gonna do a step now that can be a little bit labor intensive but when we're all said and done it's gonna take that paint job to a whole other level. What I've done is did a little bit of sanding here on the fender for this demonstration. As usual we've got a few pieces of trash in the paint. So we wanted to sand those slick as well as the rest of the panel. We're using some 1,000 grit and some water, and that did the trick. Now a few of you are probably a little bit concerned about that dull finish but don't worry about it. We're gonna make it a whole lot better. The first thing we're gonna do is use some Ultimate Cut from Sonax with their hybrid wool pad here, and don't you worry about it. There weren't any psychedelic sheep harmed in the manufacturing of this. What's nice about both of these products is they're designed to save you effort and time. All we need here is a few drops to get us started and we're ready to go to work. [ polisher buzzing ]

(Tommy)>> Now we're only buffing a portion of our fender to get started. Ultimate Cut is a fast cutting compound that quickly removes 1,000 grit or finer sanding marks from the paint, and has an odorless water based formula that keeps the dust to a minimum and uses no silicone. Heck yeah, that looks nice! Cutting and buffing is a pretty serious process, but if your ride's reflection is just faded or weather beaten it will help bring back its original shine. Man that looks nice and that's just the first step. Now for a few of you out there you're probably thinking it's pretty much done. We should stop right there. Well we're only half way through the process, and I'm sure you've seen a few other people that have stopped mid-way through because you've been at the stop light, or at the car wash or something and the car drives by and it looks like swirls all down the side of the car. Let me show you what I'm talking about. Kinda looks like a hologram effect and that's where they didn't carry the paint to its full potential, and this next step will take care of all that. Just a little bit of this stuff and it'll make you some happy paint. Now for our last step we're using Sonax Perfect Finish with their green polishing pad. Perfect Finish was developed to repair paint defects like trash and paint runs after sanding. It starts off with an initial deep cut and then diminishes to produce a high gloss finish, taking care of all the holograms left behind by our first step. [ polisher buzzing ]

(Tommy)>> Let's see how good this looks. Man yeah, won't nobody be making fun of your ride. If anything they'll be a bit envious of it. Oh yeah! Now with the paint that we started with it looks pretty nice but after a little bit of rubbing and some Sonax polish it took this paint job to a whole other league.

(Marc)>> If your car's already shiny or your spending the time to create that beautiful finish like we are on our Buick you want to protect your investment. You can do that with CoverCraft. This is their form fit cover that we got for our Regal. It's their most luxurious indoor car cover with polyester and spandex on the outside and 100 percent cotton sheared to a fleece finish on the inside. You can even customize yours with a custom logo like we did. They protect against minor garage dings, they're breathable, washable, and come with a four year warranty.

(Tommy)>> Well today has been a pretty big day. We got all the color sprayed on the Buick, the chassis is fully assembled and in color, and this thing is looking pretty sweet.

(Marc)>> Yeah I'm really excited about it, and I've got to tell you as far as the color choices go, the frame and the body, great job.

(Tommy)>> Appreciate man. I tell you I can't hardly wait to be behind the wheel of this thing stretching out on the open road. It's gonna be a sweet day man.

(Marc)>> Won't be long yeah, and the real question though is who's gonna buy the root beers?

(Tommy)>> Heck I'll buy the first round. If we're celebrating I may be even going as far as four rounds. I've got coupons!