I am looking to use Zaino Bros products on my stock 10th AE. They have two different polishes - one for paints with clearcoat, the other for cars without clearcoat. They gave me a technique to determine it, but not sure it will work. They said to use a polish/compound and if the rag turned to the paint color, then I don't have clearcoat. The problem is, the two compounds I have are both white, so how do I tell if I'm taking off paint or just looking at compound residue. So back to the question - Does anyone know if Mazda was using clearcoat in 1988 on factory applied paint?

I found the answer! Only the metallic paints had clearcoat. I got hold of the parts pages from a body shop repair manual and sure enough it was one of the first items discussed. FYI.

Crazy.. glad you got to the bottom of it!