After 2 months of visualizing and sampling different blues we landed on a film that completely transformed this red porsche into a classy deep navy blue that enhances all of the unique curves this Porsche has to offer.
This was a special project from the start. The previous owner was in the process of restoring this porsche when he passed away. Lot of things he did himself, one of those happened to be the paint job, which from a distance looked perfect. But zoom in and you’ll notice it was far from perfection. Now with a new owner with a new vision this vehicle needed something temporary to avoid doing a complete paint strip and while still completely transforming this barn find classic into his outlaw classic.
From the initial contact this project was a unique one. It’s quite rare for a wrapper to wrap an older vehicle let alone a classic one. But for this client it seemed right for what he had planned for the vehicle. He was looking for a complete transformation and after informing him of the risks and potential points of failure with a wrapping a resprayed vehicle. He was completely fine with sanding, filling and correcting the entire vehicle if we had to—in order to get the best possible wrap finish.
So with that covered we started to look at what he had in mind for a color and finish. He was really leaning towards a blue with a dechrome, but after looking at the color swatches he was having a hard time envisioning what the various blues would look like on his vehicle. So we decided a visulization was needed in order to make a decision on the film. This is an extra service I provide when getting the perfect color is worth a little extra investment.
After seeing the visualizations we decided to do introduce a few more blues and it was soon narrowed down to a metallic blue grey and a deep navy blue with leaving the chrome as is. We had one more visit to see some large samples in person along side the vehicle. It was there a decision was made on what film to go. it ended up looking very close to the image above.
With the the material on it’s way and a drop-off date set I decided to work on something to make this wrap even more special. Hand drawing this beautiful machine as a gift for the client. Drawing every curve and paying close attention to all the design decisions that went into this vehicle gives you more appreciation to what makes a porsche a porsche.
With the vehicle dropped off it was time to get to work. First by doing a full disassembly of all the necessary pieces, including door handles, headlight/taillights, mirrors, trim and emblems. Times were simple back then as the disassaembly was as straight forward as you can get. The next step was try to level out the paint, sand any flaking and fill-in many of the rock chips around the Porsche. Even with several days worth of prep, each panel had to be carefully examined in order to ensure durability. Especially around edges and within the door jams as the vinyl had to go far enough to hide any red from the outside. As you’ll see from the close up shoots there was plenty of roughness to smooth out then throughly cleaned before a panel could be wrapped.
With all the panels prepped the wrap moved along smoothly as we approached pick up day. Although this a small car the smooth curves and lack of panel breaks makes it difficult even for experienced wrappers as you have to think about how to make set up transitions to look as smooth as possible. For instance both front pillars all the way to the rear hatch were wrapped in one large piece. This on most other vehicles is often 3-2 piece job as they’re broken up into separate panels.
Within a week in a half this Porsche got a complete transformation from a faded red to a deep elegant navy blue. Completely changing the personality of the car with it’s new layer of skin. Now that the outside has been realized. The inside now awaits its turn starting with a new engine and completetly redoing the interior.
