Tried putting Lemans stripes on my car...

[taxcider]

... hilarity did not ensue. :lol:

Got some 10" wide black vinyl stripes from eBay.

Applying them was not rocket science or anything, but lining them up was still very difficult. I could probably do it again and not eff it up, but after having only successfully gotten the hood stripes on (one of which has a stretched wrinkle in it), I decided that this weekend I'm going to paint the damned things on (Krylon primer and glossy black).

Oh - and even with the wrinkle, the vinyl hood stripes do look very cool (in a funny way). I'll shoot some pics after I paint them on this weekend.

[taxcider]

Okay, here's the vinyl stripes on the hood (I'll hopefully have some painted pix up on Sunday):

[Tim]

Looks good! :thumbleft:

I bet you gained an extra 20 hp from those stripes alone!


Regards,

Tim

[taxcider]

I bet you gained an extra 20 hp from those stripes alone!

LOL! My coworkers suggested the figure was more like 13 hp, but they're a pessimistic bunch!

[Safety Guy]

When painting, will you wrap those stripes down onto the grille? I think that would look really good, and be easier done with paint than with stickers.

Karl

[4cylDreadnaught]

wide masking tape, and a dry erase marker is what a friend used to put lines one his car.

used the marker to mark off where the tape went to make it centered, ran a long length of tape grill to trailer hitch. It worked quite well, except the stripes he got were poor quality and started peeling off the gate after 3 months.

[taxcider]

When painting, will you wrap those stripes down onto the grille? I think that would look really good, and be easier done with paint than with stickers.

Karl

Absolutely, on all counts.

I actually bought the paint for the grille, the vents below the windshield, and the hatch (no way in hell I'd be able to make the vinyl straight onthe concave part near the license plate), but I have enough paint for striping the whole car front to back.

So, this weekend I'm pulling off the vinyl, taping out the stripes with painter's tape, and having at it. Would have done it last weekend, but my wife suprised me with a weekend getaway to a cabin in the redwoods. She rocks!

[taxcider]

An update!

So I'm just slowly working on this when I get a few hours. Tonight I did the grill with paint. I think it looks pretty good. The paint is not as shiny as the vinyl, but that's okay - I'm going to remove the vinyl soon, and the aqua isn't super shiny anyway, so it actually goes better.

The job is certainly not professional, but it works for me, I think it's hysterical and looks pretty neat. I'll keep posting pix as I finish the job. Next is the vents in front of the windshield (I almost did those tonight, but the tape all came up when I opened the hood because I hadn't cut it back yet and wasn't paying attention).

[4cylDreadnaught]

looks pretty slick

[ChrisDrives121DA]

Looks very good. I am not a fan of that GT40 look to a 121 but you did very nice there!

Much better than just the hood...

-Chris-

[taxcider]

Thanks for the kind words! I've loved GT40s since seeing "thx-1138"!

I want to finish the stripes this weekend, but it's rainy and cold here, maybe next weekend.

Here's some sweetness:

[Anonymous]

:sleepy3: :love4:

[taxcider]

Finally finished. There are a couple of spots that need a bit of touch up [example: back left stripe, 1 mm gap above grey plastic trim, dangit], but otherwise I'm pretty happy with them. Taping was very tedious. I used Rustoleum Auto Paint (and primer) for the stripes, EXCEPT for the vents and grill that I did earlier with Krylon.

The Rustoleum is VERY glossy, about the same as the vinyl was, so that makes me happy. It does take a lot longer to dry than the Krylon, though.

Anyway, enough details - here's some pix. I haven't put my back plate on yet because the paint is still tacky (some will say it will ALWAYS be tacky... :lol: ).

[Safety Guy]

Looks good! Now you have me wanting to do some stripes.

Karl

[taxcider]

So I added a name to her. Kind of a tribute to "Dazed and Confused", but I also think melba toast is an interesting concept.



ps: no the stripes are not flat black, the car is just dusty! :lol: