In 1940s, painting car was a specialised task and it took 40 odd days to paint a car;this proved to be a big bottleneck to increase car production. The solution to this challenge however came from an unrelated industry due to the resourcefulness of one of the greatest innovators,Charles Kettering.
Charles Kettering, who was then a Research Head in General Motors,shortly after his session with the paint manufacturers, happened to be in New York browsing Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. There, in a jewelry store window, he spotted a wooden pin tray finished with a lacquer he’d never seen before. He bought the tray, tracked the maker of the lacquer to a backyard shed somewhere in New jersey and bought some
lacquer, too. Working with Du Pont, he homogenized the lacquer with existing paints, producing a liquid, thin enough to spray, that dried-glossy and weather-resistant-in minutes. Thus the first spray painting technique for the cars was born and revolutionized the look and feel of the cars.
