Vinyl Wrap Completed

[autostang]

Figured I would share a couple pictures of the car now that I have finished wrapping it in vinyl. This was my first time using vinyl and it was an experience. I would say its a good option if you don't expect perfection and are willing to spend a lot of time. Most people that have seen it don't notice the flaws (non car people), but pretty much the entire thing could be better :) I stopped trying for perfection after the second body part. My hope is that this lasts 3ish years at which point I will decide if I want to have someone else do body work/paint. Total cost for the vinyl was around $700. I think I used 70ft of the orange and 10 feet of the black, both were 3M. The black was more forgiving than the orange. In the orange the vinyl would show a line if there was a change in the amount of stretch on the film. I still need to get the zero decibel hood and rear hatch louvers powder coated black along with a new exhaust fabricated before the exterior is all finished up for the time being.

I also got a 3D printer and designed some tweeter pods to cover the interior gap where the door, windshield and dash come together. Curious what peoples thoughts are on how they turned out, overall I am pretty happy with them.

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[GoDadGo]

That Looks Pretty Flipping Good!

Would never thing it was a vinyl wrap.

Very Nice From This Dad's Perspective!

[07FIREBLADE]

Looking great!!! Want to share the stl file for the tweeter mount.

[Clover]

I think it looks very good as well. Nice work! For the money it sure seems like a great choice. About how long did you spend doing it?

[autostang]

I think it looks very good as well. Nice work! For the money it sure seems like a great choice. About how long did you spend doing it?

Thanks for the compliments! Each of the big pieces took around 8 hours (front and rear bumper, and sides). The rest of the pieces were probably closer to an average of 4 hours each. I did everything working by myself, but I think it would be a lot faster and have better results if you had someone helping stretch on the bigger parts.

[TexasAviator]

wow, just wow

[redbudrr]

Really looks great!!! I plan on wrapping mine. What brand of wrap did you use?

[OnlyAndy]

Nice job....... I was at the Huntington Beach event a couple months ago to test the water and see if I really wanted to do a 33'. Well, yeah, placed order early July... But my comment,,,, I talked to a 33' owner from AZ for at least half hour, very friendly and willing to share his experience,,, they ALL were,,,,, he showed many things to do and things to watch out for,, then he told me the Rod was a wrap. I had been standing 1 foot away from it for 30+ min and had no idea. He showed me a seam, I would have never seen it if he did not show it too me, and it sure was a wrap. Metallic black and included graphic stripe whole length of car. He HAD it done and said it was half the price of paint. So, it seems a WRAP is a viable option and he mentioned it was a lot more forgiving on rock dings than paint.

[wallace18]

Very nice!

[AZPete]

Great work! And, I really like your tweeter pod a lot. Now thinking about copying it to cover the A Pillar gap.

[BrianToronto]

Looks great. Unless the camera is hiding the sins, it sure looks great to me! I was going to try vinyl myself and go with a similar colour, so I'm pretty happy you made this post!

[Hindsight]

Looks fantastic to me, from the pics you posted. We are all our own worst critics. Well, that and like that one guy at every car show lol.

[CVOBill]

That looks amazing, you should be proud.

[autostang]

I'm definitely happy with the outcome. But you do see every flaw when staring at the piece your working on for several hours from a foot or two away. The flaws also show up more in the garage then outside in the sun. That being said to get them to show up in a picture you have to really zoom in. For anyone that wants to do their own vinyl I would say the trickiest places are around the scoops, both on the sides and rear deck, and the rear bumper. The way the reader bumper curves at the bottom makes it tough to get everything to lay smoothly. Of course that is also under the car, so near impossible to see. Using a color that is close to the red gel coat is also helpful. I ended up with a couple of very small tears at edges and they don't show at all with the orange. A more contrasting color would probably show them.

[Arrowhead]

I'm definitely happy with the outcome. But you do see every flaw when staring at the piece your working on for several hours from a foot or two away. The flaws also show up more in the garage then outside in the sun.

What kind of "flaws" are you talking about? Application like air bubbles / creases or over stretched ares? Or flaws under the vinyl like dirt or imperfections in the body work? Did you do any bodywork to the panels?

[autostang]

There are some lines that show up depending on light angle where the film was stretched differently. Some particles under the film, no matter what I did to clean things it seemed like a piece of two of something would get in there. Around some corners where the film would get some crease lines in it. The film definitely continues to change shape a bit after its installed during hearing and cooling cycles. The 3m film makes it really easy to get bubbles out, so that wasnt really an issue.

I did some minor body work to smooth out some imperfections and clean up th edges of panels. Not a whole lot of time though.

[Canadian818]

Looks great!

[rychi1]

Did you wrap the underside of the hood and trunk, or when you open those things is it just the original gel coat?

[autostang]

I painted them with undercoating. So they are a black textured finish. Not fancy, but it looks good enough for me.