This 1991 Acura NSX (first year produced) came to me all the way from Indianapolis for a major restoration detail. The owner drove 3.5 hours to bring it to me, then hung out in Columbus for the weekend, and drove 3.5 hours back after I was finished. The weather had been looking a bit sketchy on the final day, but we got lucky and the rain held off for his drive home.
For a 19 year old car with 16K on the clock, it was actually in pretty good condition. There had been some previous paintwork done to it and the body shop left me with sanding pigtails and other issues to deal with, but otherwise it wasn't as bad as you may expect. Having said that though, the paint was very finicky to deal with. Despite fully prepping the surface, I found that it took very aggressive means to get rid of the defects, yet with even light pressure it would mar the finish. It was like a combination of rock-hard Audi paint combined with BMW Jet Black. It took a bit of an odd combination of polishes/pads to get it to finish down the way I needed, and I spent 11 hours on the compounding stage alone with wool and Megs M105. To finish I used Menzerna PO203S on an orange pad with the PC7424XP. Final stages were Chemical Guys EZ Creme Glaze, and then followed by Blackfire Wet Diamond Sealant.
Before photos:
There were a few major defects on the hood that I needed to do a little wetsanding on.
This was after compounding with M105 and wool:
The next two shots are after testing with PO203S/orange/PC. I found my winning combo for this particular paint.
Before:
After:
Pigtails from previous D/A sanding done on the car:
After several passes with wool/compound, but before finish polishing:
Plenty of clarity restored:
After shots:
It was mostly cloudy out, so I couldn't get really good outside or direct sun shots. Correction level was in the 90-95% range.
Given the amount of time involved, and the efforts that the owner went through to have me work on his car, I gave him a t-shirt!
Total time involved was right at 22 hours.
Thanks as always!
For a 19 year old car with 16K on the clock, it was actually in pretty good condition. There had been some previous paintwork done to it and the body shop left me with sanding pigtails and other issues to deal with, but otherwise it wasn't as bad as you may expect. Having said that though, the paint was very finicky to deal with. Despite fully prepping the surface, I found that it took very aggressive means to get rid of the defects, yet with even light pressure it would mar the finish. It was like a combination of rock-hard Audi paint combined with BMW Jet Black. It took a bit of an odd combination of polishes/pads to get it to finish down the way I needed, and I spent 11 hours on the compounding stage alone with wool and Megs M105. To finish I used Menzerna PO203S on an orange pad with the PC7424XP. Final stages were Chemical Guys EZ Creme Glaze, and then followed by Blackfire Wet Diamond Sealant.
Before photos:
There were a few major defects on the hood that I needed to do a little wetsanding on.
This was after compounding with M105 and wool:
The next two shots are after testing with PO203S/orange/PC. I found my winning combo for this particular paint.
Before:
After:
Pigtails from previous D/A sanding done on the car:
After several passes with wool/compound, but before finish polishing:
Plenty of clarity restored:
After shots:
It was mostly cloudy out, so I couldn't get really good outside or direct sun shots. Correction level was in the 90-95% range.
Given the amount of time involved, and the efforts that the owner went through to have me work on his car, I gave him a t-shirt!
Total time involved was right at 22 hours.
Thanks as always!
. Awesome buddy! You should have an email coming from me soon... 
All of the cars that you mentioned are still favorites of mine. Those were the hot cars when I was a teenager, and I'm still fascinated by them. I loved the RX-7 with the BOSE "Wave" stereo system. I'd love to own one of each of those.