FWIW, my TR7 (also a 1976 car) didn't have the orange peel at all when I took delivery straight off the boat. I'm fairly fanatical about that topic and so when the time came for repainting I did it myself. Naturally, since I was fooling myself about my painting capabilities, I had such bad orange peel that it was almost like elephant hide, and it took me a month of wet sanding and compounding to get it back to a glassy finish again.
- Steve Richardson
76 TR7 (original owner)