Orange peel is getting more and more common since car manufacturers have switched to water-based paint.
It is a lot thinner, and runs easily. Although the robots are applying extremely thin coats, they will begin JUST to run, and then they stabilize. You can see the little waves where the paint started to run and then hardened. NO flash curing! Gravity pulls the paint down from the mainly vertical panels. Therefore OP is far less present on the horizontal surfaces. Mazda tried a good method for eliminating OP in the early 90s with the rotation spray & bake process. The whole body was suspended onto a special sleigh, which rotated the body in the paint booth and in the oven. It was applied on the upscale Xedos 6 & 9 models (Millenia), and was pretty good. For today, it is too expensive.
True, the panels of the common models are not that perfect, therefore the inconsistent surface of the orange peel hides some irregularities. Lexus has the most perfect presses and panel uniformity in the industry, followed by the newer Acuras/Hondas. Germans are mediocre at best (big, inconsistent panel gaps & fitting) while others can vary a lot.
According to my experience, Toyota paint is quite good, while Nissan is a cost-cutter (read: usually bad). Lighter Hondas are good, darker ones can be really crappy; and all are sensitive.
FoMoCo paint is pretty good (except trucks), especially on Mazdas, Volvos and Land Rover. The Korean cars and Renaults have usually too thin clear coats which results in a kind of cheapo matte finish. The crappiest paints come from Opel, VW and Ferrari (mica & pearl). I have never seen uglier factory paint than on a bordeaux 612 Scaglietti, I recently tested. I will send that pic, but it is on my laptop in the office. I had a test Passat with absolutely NO clear on the left corner of the trunklid! Even the flakes were so inconsistent, that you could see the basecoat between them...
DaimlerChrysler is trying to solve the OP with CeramiClear and powder clear (on the A-Class), but even that method has plenty. I had only 3 testers from Chrysler in the last two years. Two of them was decent, while a Sebring was inacceptably horrible. And of course, the Italians! Fiat, Alfa & Lancia is never good enough but you can see one or two Maseratis, single stage Ferraris with no OP whatsoever... Pure luck!
On the Shows, that shows!!! Usually the show cars in Geneva or in Frankfurt have only one coat of something (usually AutoGlym or Sonax, etc.) and squirts of QD for removing fingerprints. No more. The lights are doing the trick. Even with that, lotsa carz are pretty-s#itty...
