YES!
Base coat with clear.
I'll try to keep this story short:
In college the only transportation I could afford was an older used sportbike. A CBR600. Within the first two weeks, it got stolen and I didn't have insurance on it yet. I didn't even have a license plate on it yet!
Anyway, I got it back but it had been partially stripped, with almost no body work. I went to local junk yards and ended up with a "lego bike." All the parts fit, but they were totally different colors.
I decided to paint it myself. I bought a small hobby airbrush and small compressor. Really small, like you would paint model cars with. Body panels are small on a motorcycle, so this was fine.
Then I went to the paint store. I said, "Set me up!" And they did! We decided on a two part PPG urathane paint system that does not require rubbing out. I think it was PPG "Deltron 2000" acrylic urethane. The base coat goes on semi flat, and then the clear top coat makes it come alive. It was wicked expensive, I think retail was over $400. After working with me, hearing my story and such, the guy gave me commercial paint pricing and I was out of there for about $250. Plastic primer, catalyst/hardner for the clear, quart of yellow, quart of white, quart of clear, 1 gallon of reducer and (I am hazy on this) some kind of thinner to clean my air brush.
The review:
Wow. Seriously. I would have never dreamed a rookie could make a paint job look so good. I would have liked to say it was me, but it was the paint. The base coats go on super smooth. It dries in minutes (literally) and is almost impossible to ruin with drips and such. If memory serves, you could handle a painted part in 20 minutes! By the time I cleared the air brush of base coat and loaded it with clear- the body panel was ready for the clear coat! The finished product looked amazing. It really did have a hand rubbed look, just like the paint shop guy said it would.
oh crap. I said I would keep it short. oh well. Funny side note: I was living in an apartment at the time I painted the bike, so I painted it INSIDE the apartment! I made a tent out of plastic. I removed a single body panel at a time and painted it, put it back on the bike and grabbed the next piece. It took me about 2 weeks. The paint smell was strong, and I somehow managed to get a little overspray into the apartment. Kudos to my live in girlfriend at the time. I can't belive she let me get away with that.