“Axalta” is a new name to a lot of us, but you already know them by their old name – DuPont. At this year’s SEMA show, we got a chance to experience their Cromax line of automotive paint, which is available in both waterborne and solvent-borne formulations. Outside the main hall, Axalta had a full spray booth set up, and they were providing live hands-on demonstrations of their “coat and a half” Cromax Pro waterborne base coat system.

In addition to letting potential customers (and even ham-fisted magazine editors!) try spraying panels with Cromax Pro, the Axalta team let a group of three celebrities with no paint and body experience shoot the base coat on a Dodge Challenger just to prove how easy and forgiving the system is. Once the car was painted, professional pinstripers were turned loose, and the results were amazing…

We also got a turn in the paint booth, and even with all our previous paint experience limited to spray bomb jobs on beaters, we managed to get excellent results. In many regions, like our home state of California, waterborne low-VOC paint technology is the only way to stay legal, but it doesn’t seem like you’re giving up anything compared to solvent-based chemistry. For those in places where it’s still allowed, Axalta offers Cromax Mosaic solvent-borne paint, but considering how fast and foolproof Cromax Pro seems to be, we’d be hard pressed to see why you’d want to stay with the old technology.