Jay, sorry I can't answer your question about paint removal, but the DeLorean Owners' Association says there were 8,583 DeLoreans produced. No one really seems to know how they arrived at this number, though. 6,539 were 1981's 1,126 were 1982's and 918 were 1983's. Some factory workers claim they produced over 10,000 automobiles, but a lot of the factory records are long gone, so no one may every know exactly how many DeLoreans were produced. There is also a statistical study on this that is kind of interesting if you want to take a look at it. The address is: http://www.dmcnews.com/faq/n_chron.htm John Yeoman