Basecoat/clearcoat vs. single stage?

[bhatt]

Hello,

Have a black hardtop for my red (signal red - code #DB568) 1990 300sl.

I'm going to paint it myself but have a question on paint types.

What year did MB switch from the "single stage" paint to "basecoat/clearcoat"? Paintscratch.com says "most" manufacturers switched in around 1986 or 1987.

I can get that color code made up in single stage paint. Is there any reason I can't do it single stage? I'm relatively new to painting and don't want to screw up the job by adding a bad clearcoat to a good base coat! I'd rather just put on a few coats of single stage and call it done!

Hardtop is on the car 7 months of the year and is covered by snow for 4 months of that. If the gloss of the paint is different between hardtop vs. the rest of the car, that's OK. It just can't be TOO blatantly obvious.

Thanks!
Neal