Hampton Roads Club Mini

You are not allowed to ask for recommendations for a body shop without telling what happened to your MINI.  :P

I don't even have my MCS yet! :D  My MCS is laser blue with a white roof. I want to get the roof painted sparkling silver with laser blue racing stripes down the center of the roof, sunroof and all and sparkling silver Viper stripes on the laser blue on the bonnet and boot.  I remembered after starting this thread that an old friend of mine owns Custom Body Shop in Virginia Beach so I called him and told him what I wanted and he said around $500. *shrug*  Seems a fair price to me.

The MINI factory paint is a water-based, extremely-low VOC mixture designed to be applied with factory equipment and then oven-baked.  I don't know if independent shops can get it, or even if they'd want to use it if they could.

Any of the major auto paint manufacturers (PPG, Sherwin-Williams, DuPont, etcetera) will be able to provide paint that matches the factory paint perfectly.

I'd suggest just having whatever shop you select use the paint they normally use for matching factory paint - they're probably going to do the best job when using products/processes that they're most familiar with.

Well, I don't think the factory topcoat (clearcoat) is water-based, and to do what you're planning, the shop would just need to scuff up the factory clearcoat to make a good foundation for the new paint.  I'm pretty sure that's what they did when painting Ben's roof black - scuffed up the factory paint and shot the new black basecoat followed with a polyurethane clear.

Any good shop like the ones you're considering aren't going to be caught by surprise with any of the factory finishes, so I wouldn't worry too much.

Thanks! I sure hope that it's going to look good!  I've never been one to follow a trend or set one.  I just know what I like. :D