# Car Paint Configurator Repaint a BMW M8 Coupe between Motegi Red and Brands Hatch Grey and see how the layers of car paint make colour, sparkle and shine By Vipul Topic: Art, Music & Film [Open the interactive Jig](https://ask.jig.com/j/IP0zt5KuKElb) ## Guide ### 1. Pick a paint This BMW M8 Coupé is waiting in the paint studio\. Choose red or grey below, or tap one of the sample cards beside the car\. Drag anywhere else to walk around it\. The red is called Motegi Red and the grey is Brands Hatch Grey\. Both are metallic paints\. ### 2. Four thin layers Car paint is not one thick coat\. Watch the layers build up from the tail: bare steel, then e\-coat, primer \(a smoothing undercoat that helps the next layer stick\), colour and a clear top coat\. All four together are only about a tenth of a millimetre thick, roughly the width of a hair\. The e\-coat goes on first: the whole body is dipped in a tank and an electric current makes the paint stick, to stop rust\. ### 3. Where colour comes from The colour lives in the base coat, the third layer\. Its pigment soaks up most colours of light and sends back only some\. Red paint sends back mostly red light, so red is what reaches your eyes\. Under pure blue light, a red car would look almost black\. ### 4. Tiny mirrors inside Metallic paint hides millions of tiny aluminium flakes in its base coat\. Each flake is a little mirror, so the paint sparkles as the light moves\. Grey looks bright where the body faces you and darker on the curves\. That change from bright to dark as you walk around a car is called flop\. ### 5. The glassy clear coat The top layer has no colour at all\. This clear coat is the thickest layer, about 40 to 60 thousandths of a millimetre\. Watch the paint turn from dull to glassy as it gets its clear coat\. This tough lacquer also guards the colour against sunlight and small scratches\. ### 6. A world of grey Around the world, most new cars are white, black or grey\. In 2025, about one new car in five was grey\. A bright red stands out in a car park, while grey shows off every curve of the body\. White 29%, black 23% and grey 22% of new cars worldwide \(Axalta, 2025\)\. ### 7. Your pick Same car, same shape, and a different mood with each paint\. Switch between red and grey, walk around the car, and pick your favourite\.