John Deere factory paint

[Unruh]

My BIL recently toured the Waterloo John Deere assembly plant where they were assembling the "R" series tractors.
He said that they were painted with paint that cost a thousand dollars a gallon and clear-coated. I doubted that so commented, "that must be automotive quality paint" to which he replied, "it's better than that and then clear-coated".
Does anyone here know for a fact what the factory uses to paint their tractors? Is it any different than what is offered at the local dealership off the shelf?
 

[CNKS]

I don't remember the exact term but I don't think it is "normal" paint. It is applied by an "electrostatic" method or some other procedure. 1K/gallon, no.
 

[Jason S.]

I work for Deere and I can tell you that we e-coat and then powder coat. The main guy over our paint facility came from Waterloo and he told me they powder coat there too. I don"t know why that guy would have told that.
 

[tgs61255]

Both the Horicon,WI & Waterloo,IA JD plants apply urethane powder over cathodic epoxy electrocoated primers. The Des Moines (Ankenny) IA facility was and may still be finishing with an acrylic (green) cathodic direct to metal over a zinc phosphate pretreatment. Small parts, both green & yellow were coated with an alkyd melamine finish applied via electrosatic guns or dip coated. Unless suppliers changed over the past two years, Valspar is the sole vendor of finishes to those three plants. Have no clue where the mega $$$ paint scenario evolved from!