Dragon Auto

10/14/2026

This 1997 NSX-T was built the same year I was born, so this project hit different

I started Dragon Auto because of my love for Japanese import tuner culture, and the NSX is one of the few JDM legends. It has so many cool aspects to it, like his friend spent eight years building this custom hood; and it's one of the cleanest, tastefully modified, NSXs we've had come through the shop to date!

It came to us with 28 years of wear, and 80,000 miles of road trips behind it, we prepped every panel, applied three layers of Icon Rocklear ™️ to the front end, with one on the rest of the car, and ceramic coated his glass, trim, and his TE37s; everything went back home with its shine back!

Comment NSX, and we'll send you the link to check out the full video of this project!

10/05/2026

if we'd just put Icon Rocklear straight onto this faded 15 year old Honda Fit, it wasn't gonna fix it

it was the first of three sun-damaged Honda Fits we brought back to life in one weekend, we had to get our boy Felix looking right again!

back in march 2025, we compounded the paint first to take off that dead, faded top layer of clear coat, cleaned and coated the trim, masked everything off, and only then did the Rocklear install. the prep is what brought the paint back, and the Rocklear permanently sealed it in

a minute later in the full video, we finished compounding it and I said "that's like a night and day difference"

comment HONDAFIT and we'll send you the full video: taking Felix's 2010 Honda Fit from faded to finished, the roof that was too far gone to save, and his reaction at pickup! (He loved it 🙏🏽)

10/02/2026

In 2019, nobody would let me practice a ceramic coating on their car, except one childhood friend. He handed me the keys to his Honda Accord and said "bro, I trust you," and I spent that weekend in my grandparents' garage doing my first one.

I sold ceramic coatings for years after that, and we don't put them on paint anymore. In 2023 we switched to Icon Rocklear because it's a better coating for our clients in the long run, and we gave up a lot of repeat revenue to do it.

Most ceramic coating warranties require a yearly inspection at the shop that installed it, at around $200 a visit. Of the 30 shops and mobile businesses I checked around the Bay Area, only nine publish a price, and a coating with a 5-year warranty averages about $1,300. Covering 15 years takes three of those plus the inspections in between, which adds up to over $6,000 for one car.

Icon Rocklear is one application with a 15-year manufacturer warranty, and there's no yearly inspection or reapplication unless something hits your car and we have to put it back on.

Before you book anywhere, us included, ask what it takes to keep the warranty active, then add it up over 15 years.

If we still sold ceramic coatings, one customer would be worth over...

09/30/2026

we had to take the coating off an R34 GTR's hood, and redo it six times, because I refused to send it home with a subpar install

it was a dream car I always wanted to work on, and the owner's dream car too

we didn't know its last owner in Japan had repainted that hood, so I was at the shop until 5 or 6 in the morning

earlier in the full video, I compared it to stamping concrete: once it sets, it's game over, so you want an installer who actually cares before they go home for the day

comment REDO and we'll send you the full video: a brand new M3 that showed up with 750 miles and two rock chips already on the hood, and how we protected it

on the sixth try, it finally looked good enough to meet our standards

09/28/2026

5 a.m. in april 2025, working on a $200k 1975 911 restoration build, and I was like, "damn, this is real now"

it was one of the first classic Porsche's we ever got, so it really felt like a turning point moment

right after this in the full video, I said 23-year-old Noah probably could have cracked under the pressure. probably would have, I would bet on that

comment OURSTORY and we'll send you the full video: why we skipped PPF on that 911, and the rest of that unscripted 5 a.m. ramble

from my grandparents' garage to a shop doing a $200k Porsche, we only got here because of our clients and our community. extremely grateful for the opportunity we have now 🙏🏽

09/06/2026

We checked on our client one year after their install, to see how it was holding up!

A black 2013 Highlander and a silver 2009 Tacoma, one year after we restored the paint on both, and permanently protected it with Icon Rocklear ™️. Angelo and Nancy brought us the cars in September 2024, and last September we drove out to their house to find out whether it was still worth it to them.

Making freshly coated cars look good under the showroom lights is the easy part. What matters is what a daily driver looks like a year later, parked outside, doing LA drives down i5 with all the bugs that come with it. So we started a series where we go to the client's house about a year later, wash the cars for free as a thank you, and ask them how the paint is still holding up.

Angelo's hesitation before he booked was an honest concern, is it going to deliver the look he saw on Instagram? His mechanic ended up answering part of that for him without knowing the car had been coated. "What did you do to your car?"

He also showed us fine scratches by the door handle, the spot everyone reaches for, and we talked through polishing them out of the coating while the paint underneath stays untouched. That part is in the video too, because a check-in where nothing is imperfect wouldn't be worth filming.

Thank you Angelo and Nancy for welcoming us to your home 🙏🏽

Comment YEAR1 and we'll send you the link to see the full visit!

07/06/2026

we almost never posted these.

august 2024, our clients Vue and Omar booked their clean S2000s, to get the paint protected with Rocklear.
of course we had to pull both finished cars into the showroom, and do a photoshoot together.

then the lighting that day betrayed us. background completely blown out, details lost to the shadows, so they say in a folder for almost two years because I genuinely thought it was unfixable.

finally a few weeks ago, we thought we'd ask Nathan Yang to take a crack at them. he blew away our expectations

young passionate photographers like Nathan, are the reason why AI will not be replacing true creative skill; at least not yet (and hopefully not in the future)

if you need clean automotive photo work in the bay, shoot him a DM! 🙏🏽

07/05/2026

Ferrari, Lambo, Porsche, Audi, Benz, and BMW, we got the whole continent here, it's another packed weekend at the shop, and somehow it turned into European week!

One moment that stuck with me: our client Ed brought in his brand new RS6 avant, and his wife happens to be my old elementary school principal. now she comes by with her husband, to the business I built in the same town I grew up in. life's full of these cool little full circle moments

A lot of returning faces came back with new cars this week! Norms came back with a new Model Y, after we coated his Model 3 last year, Andrew has trusted us with four Benzes since 2023, and Lou's family from last week's recap is already planning to do car #3. that part never gets old, it's not that we get paid again, it's that we did a good enough job the first time to earn that trust, and I consider that a privilege.

Thank you to everyone who trusted us with your cars this week, new faces and old! Swipe through, the story behind each one is on the photo

See you in the next recap 🙏🏽

06/28/2026

Our summer sale is in full swing and the shop has been packed, but the part that stuck with me this week wasn't the volume, it was who came through the door

A childhood friend I hadn't seen in ten years stopped by to see what I built back in our hometown. I met another Thai person from the Bay, and we ended up talking about the motherland more than his car. One dad brought his Highlander in after seeing what we did for his son's car, just in time before the sun ruined his hood for good.

Brand new BRZ and a Miata (because the answer is always Miata), new Teslas getting sealed before they see their first summer, a Macan back in for its 30 day checkup. None of these are crazy six figure supercars, but every one of them means something to the person who owns it, and getting to be a small part of that is still the best part of doing this

Thank you to everyone who trusted us with your cars this week. Swipe through, the story behind each one is on the photo!

See you in the next recap 🙏🏽

05/22/2026

This is probably terrible business sense

Mann brought his Porsche Taycan in this week, with a scratch he picked up downtown over the weekend. He's been bringing his cars to us since 2022, started with his Audi SQ5 back when we were still operating out of a garage!

Fortunately, the scratch was only in the top layer of his Rocklear. That's the whole point of putting the coating on, it sits on top of the factory paint and takes the hit so the thin, delicate factory paint underneath doesn't have to. We sanded and polished it out in a few minutes, without touching his actual finish

We didn't charge him

Mann has trusted us with three of his cars over four years, so the last thing I'm going to do is hand him an invoice for something that takes five minutes. My focus is how can we help the next coating client, not how I get another fifty bucks out of this one

We're not that pressed about nickel and diming people. If it's small and inconsequential for someone, who's been supporting us, we'll help

Comment PROTECT if you want to see how Rocklear actually works on your paint