When you mention Sherwin-Williams, many people might automatically think house paint. But there’s another side to the largest producer of paints and coatings in the United States. If you’ve traveled the US, especially the west coast, you might not know that one of the most famous landmarks in California, the Golden Gate Bridge, is coated with Sherwin-Williams paint.

And many of those cars crossing the landmark bridge just might be coated with Sherwin-Williams paint, also. Sherman-Williams has been in the automotive finish industry for over 6 years with what they call “Planet Color”, and you can now find these paints and their multitude of colors at your local auto parts stores, like Pep Boys.

We talked with them today at the SEMA show, and Sales Representative Gunnar Long was on hand to tell us about their finishes. He showed us the Roush Mustang they had at their booth, and talked about the paint that was applied to not only the car, but matching paint under the hood on a few of the engine components.

We asked if they had to modify these three-stage pearl paints to work on such engine components like engine covers and some valve covers, and surprisingly he told us that the paint was straight out of the can, with no additives. We asked about other components, like the supercharger on this Mustang and he did say that the paint can withstand temperatures around 300 degrees, but some components might begin to discolor or fade if the temps are too high. Some underhood components, like engine covers and dress up parts shouldn’t have a problem though.

Long said, “We’re seeing more and more people who are color-coordinating their engines to their car, and Planet Color is one way to go about it.” Having been mostly found at jobber stores in prior years, making their automotive finishes available to the public like this will help people to see that they aren’t only in the house paint business.  Said Long, “People are trusting our paint on their $400k house, why not trust it on your $30k car?” It makes good sense. If you’re interested, check out their web site or head to a Pep Boys and get your color on!