paint thickness

I have been reading more books on detailing and it seems that as a general rule the combination of the primer /base coat and clear coat is about 8 mils thick. What I wanted to know is this....will high end luxury and sports cars have more layers of paint than what is considered average? We had a Porsche (older classic) in the shop some time ago and the owner was boosting about the standard paint application that Porsche uses on their high end cars..(he claimed his stock paint was 25 mils thick?) which is 3-4 times more than average...I was just curious if anyone knew this, so I can be more educated......thanks guys...TM

That's pretty damn thick. While it's possible he's right (I'd have grabbed a paint gauge), It would seem that in order to get the paint that thick without it cracking like a dry riverbed, would take far more time and effort than is financially feasable for a factory production-line car.

I'm sure there are custom shops that can and have put on paint that thick for show cars that undergo major wet-sanding to get a 'perfect' finish, but I'm also sure that it would be expensive as hell, and not practical for anything other than a PURE show car.



Don M
'02 Cavalier LSSC
2200 DOHC