Vehicle wrap

patrick66

Old Man with a Hat
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I've got a very straight old '68 D100 that I'm considering wrapping, versus painting. Anyone ever wrapped a car in one color in lieu of a paint job?
 
Patrick, where I have not personally a neighbor has.....
I never knew it was wrapped untill I was over one day and asked why door jams were diff color....
I thought he had gotten another car but all he did was get a different wrap....
And I am seriously thinking of getting my '67 Imppy hdpt wrapped as a LOT less that a paint job
and right now I can not do painting being as I am still trying to get over some serous lung issues...
 
Well, I have seen some wraps that look great and some that don't. I think the key is the preparation. The ones that look great start with a good body that is mostly dent free, some people do the Paint Less dent repair to remove every little dent. You will see them all with the wrap.

But I think avoid a real glossy wrap, it will just emphasize any imperfection in the body.
 
Like mopar_4life said, I've seen some really nice wraps and some **** jobs, which I'm guessing comes down to the car condition and installer experience. I'm curious about the price. A friend of mine had his work truck wrapped (business logo and such) and said it cost $3-4K, which you could do a decent paint job for that price.
 
I’ve seen decent to good wraps go for $1.5-2K but of course these were on virtually dent free newer cars like Subarus with not much preparation needed.
 
We used to have our delivery and vans and wrapped. As is said, it's the skill of the guy wrapping it that is key. One of our vans had terrible trimming around the back doors, the others were decent.

I look into the plasti-dip before I would wrap it if it were me.
 
Of course... You could just do a Rustoleum paint job in the driveway like we did with my son's truck. This was a scuff, mask and shoot type job, but it was pretty presentable. We used a Harbor Freight spray gun and thinned the paint with acetone. If I did it over, I'd use mineral spirits. This one was done in an afternoon, but if you took some time, you could do a real nice job for not much money.

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In fact, there was a whole bunch of guys doing rustoleum paint with a roller... wet sanding between coats... and coming out with really nice paint jobs.
 
From what I've seen of "full wraps", they might not have the hard sheen of paint. Many have been more satiny, but the wraps we got on our work trucks stays shiny. I think Meguiars has a wax for wraps?

A body shop customer related that a customer had bought an early '70s Corvette for his high school age daughter to drive, as that's what she wanted . . . but she wanted it PINK. I suggested the wrap, the customer had it done, daughter got what she wanted, then another car after graduation.

The wraps are supposed to be completely removable up until they're 3 yrs old< from what I've heard. Might be a good short-term solution? As noted, metal prep is as important as it might be with paint.

With a wrap, you could also get some added graphics of "chrome trim" replicated on the D-100? MANY possibilities!

CBODY67
 
I've been tossing around leaving the truck "patina/primer" as it sits, completely repainting the whole truck (to include a body-off-frame resto, essentially), or do the body work and wrap it.
 
I've got a very straight old '68 D100 that I'm considering wrapping, versus painting. Anyone ever wrapped a car in one color in lieu of a paint job?
Big John has it right with the spray bomb being the cheap solution... I looked into wraps 10 years ago for the 40 foot bus... I don't remember the exact prices, but lots of automotive paint is way cheaper.

If the wrap is going to be a custom graphic, like a simulated wood grain and trim (with little sunbursts so folks know it's reflecting), or some other far out graphics... I'd say go for it. I work with a guy who recovers his hood every year or so with EB sourced fake carbon fiber... but he does it to cover the stone chips he collects driving 30K+ miles per year :)realcrazy:). The stuff doesn't seem to hold up more than a year in the sunlight.

I have seen a number of quality wrap jobs with the colored chrome stuff... the workmanship was there, but I don't love the look.

The biggest advantages I see are that you can remove it and if paying to have it printed in UV resistant ink, you can proof the graphics before committing to the materials.

I'd suspect Chris (@azblackhemi ) has some good information for this subject.
 
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