Its like Chief just mentioned .
All your modern Pearlescent Whites are 3 Stage ,
When production cars dating back to the Cadillac Allante in mid/late 80's started making it available to the open market as a factory finish - it caught on fast.
Every manufacturer piled on.
2-3 coats White / 3-4 coats Translucent Pearl / 2-3 coats Clear
Then came the Reds and Blues , mimicking Custom Candy Colors. (fake candy)
Ford Mustang Laser Red
Used a base of a standard type red Metallic
Then coats of a translucent-tinted Red or Red Pearl for deeper/richer color depth
Then Clear
Some of the Blue Versions are same process - ^ as above.
True Candy used a Base of White, Silver or Gold
Then multiple coats of a translucent color (of choice)
Then Clear
True Candy takes highly experienced/highly polished spray-gun operators when doing large objects.
Fake Candy is easier to work with - with less chance of inconsistent/lazy overlaps showing up as terrible dark/light streaks in finished product.
Its why they developed it - for somewhat easier/uniform use in mass production.
Boost sales with the extra Eye-Candy .
It Works too
Then the aftermarkets come up with standard 2-Stage colors that closely resemble the 3-Stage Colors (to an extent) . For some to use on overall repaints.
Less materials required = Less Cost
In some cases it is close enough to use for blendable match repairs , or they just repaint the whole side of the car with it.
Saves time and money vs. Tri-Coat
A lot of todays painters are scared of -or incapable of -total satisfactory results with Tri-Coat.
The "blendable" BaseCoats are useful as a crutch.
Some owners are easier to fool than others.
In some cases on a Tri-Coat , you won't tell for absolute certain whether or not they nailed it until the clear goes on.
- Then it has to pass the "outdoor/sunshine" test too.
Not for the faint of heart , or mediocre.
Never was really a good idea for passenger cars
But sales marketing doesn't worry about the repair aspects.
It (tri-coat) is beautiful stuff if you have an advanced eye for color
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