Pineworks was built on Japanese car culture. The katakana on the van is not decoration, and 完璧主義 is not a tagline we found in a font book. If you own something from Japan that you actually care about, this page is the one written for you.
Most detailers treat a 1998 Skyline the same way they treat a 2024 Audi. They are not the same job, and approaching them the same way is how original cars get ruined.
Japanese cars of the nineties and early two-thousands generally left the factory with thinner clear coat than their European contemporaries, and a lot of the signature colours are known to the community for exactly this reason. Bayside Blue and Millennium Jade fade. Championship White yellows and is famously difficult to match. Classic Red on an early MX-5 was single stage, so there is no clear coat at all and every polish takes colour off, not lacquer. WR Blue oxidises on the roof and bonnet first, because that is where the sun sits.
The other half of the problem is not the paint, it is the parts. A scuffed bumper on a modern car is a supply chain question. On a car where that panel has not been made for twenty years and the OEM part number is discontinued, it is a completely different conversation. That changes how carefully you work, and it changes what counts as an acceptable risk.
Not an exhaustive list, and not a substitute for looking at your actual car. But if you own one of these, you already know at least one of these problems.
Thin factory clear. Bayside Blue and Millennium Jade are both known to fade, and the roof usually goes first. Panels are scarce and expensive, so correction gets measured, not guessed.
Nineties Toyota clear coat, and Super White is a known offender for lacquer failure on the roof and bonnet. Worth establishing whether it is oxidation or delamination before anyone polishes anything.
Championship White is the hardest colour in the game. It yellows with age, it shows every wash mark, and matching a repaired panel to it is genuinely difficult. Protection matters more here than on any other colour.
Soft, thin paint that marks if you look at it wrong, plus a fabric roof that needs a different product to everything else on the car. The rear window is the part people ruin with the wrong cleaner.
Thin clear over soft base, and thirty years of arch lip stone chipping. The pop-up headlight surrounds and the seams around them collect everything and are rarely cleaned properly.
WR Blue Mica oxidises on horizontal panels long before the sides show anything. Gold wheels are usually the other job, and the inner barrels have normally never been touched.
Mitsubishi reds fade hard and unevenly. Big rear wings mean an awkward set of edges and mounting points where water and polish residue both like to hide.
Early Classic Red is single stage. There is no clear coat, so every pass removes colour and the pad comes away red. Correct it once, protect it, and then stop.
Modern, but modern waterborne paint is thin too. These are new enough that coating them before anything needs correcting is the obvious move, and the cheapest one.
Silvias, Celicas, MR2s, Integras, 180SXs, Cappuccinos, Jimnys. If it came from Japan and you care about it, send photos and we will tell you what we would do and what we would leave alone.
Faces, barrels, calipers and arch liners. The bit judges look at and the bit nobody cleans. Booked as a separate service because it genuinely takes the time it takes.
Cleaned and dressed appropriately, not drowned in tyre shine. Plastics and hoses finished to look correct rather than wet.
Door shuts, boot channel, fuel filler, and the glass done last with two cloths. It is the difference between clean and finished.
Every job gets posted. If you want to see how a car was actually corrected rather than just the after shot, the process goes up as it happens.
Builds, process, before and after, and the bits that go wrong. The main place we post.
FacebookSame work, plus reviews and the occasional longer write-up.
PortfolioFinished cars with the service and the conditions listed, so you can see what was actually done.
Photos in daylight, the postcode, and tell us what you actually want out of it. We will give you a straight answer including when the answer is to leave it alone.
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