Car Wrap

[Muscle Cars]

I have a 68 Camaro and have the opportunity to get full body wrap for free (materials and installation). I need to get a template for it. Any suggestions?

[YNOT]

Ouch...a vinyl body wrap on a classic 68 Camaro??? Why not go for custom paint?? Sorry...I run my own auto-related design biz and I'm a little partial to a simple...well-designed, flawless custom paintjob (which I've designed a number.

My motto: vinyl belongs on your house...not your ride.

Seriously...I'm just joking with ya. As for a template...when I design graphics for cars I typically illustrate the car from photos. You can check out my website (http://www.tmooregraphics.com) under 'Custom Paint Design' to see how my side profiles work.

Any further questions let me know and I'll see if I can help you out.

Tony

[D-Frag]

yeah good luck getting a template for that car. your best bet is to shoot pics of the car, side, front, back, hood and roof if possible. Your next assignment will be the tougher one. Get out a very long measuring tape, have some one else help you with the measuring and make sure you have plenty of writing material. Measure from the back of the front wheel well, to the front of the back wheel well. Then measure fender to fender. Measure from the bottom of the car to where your window starts. Then measure from the top of your car to the bottom in 4-6 spots (for the curve of the roof) all the way across the side. It wouldn't hurt to get real specific on your front and rear quarter panels as well. Be this meticulate on the rest of your car and you should be fine. Remember to give plenty of bleed (up to 8 inches on the corners, front and back, sometimes even more ask your printer for all the goods) for the wrap around. Oh yeah one last thing, if you plan on wrapping your windows measure those too. Once right down the middle vertically, then each side vertically, then repeat those three steps horizontally (so you exact curvature of the window).

phew, i think that about covers it. its a black art but with a little skill and a ton of measuring you can accomplish custom wraps like this fairly simply.

[Typically]

i'm with YNOT get a nice paint job. i just cant see a wrap on a car like that

[WannaBrie]

I'm not a real "car" person, but there was always something so sexy about the 68 camaro. My dream car. Candy apple red. Sweet!

[Danger_Mouse]

i think the key words here were...FREE VEHICLE WRAP.

I would repaint a 68 over wrapping it anyday.

[Virgo Nightingale]

Is vinyl wrap permanent? Does it destroy the paint beneath? If this is only a temporary thing, I guess a free wrap could be cool for sh¡ts and giggles. But if it's permanent or damages the paint upon removal, I don't see the point.

[Muscle Cars]

I understand everyone's concern about putting a wrap around a 68 Camaro. It really is free, however, other than the template or artwork design (and no I do not have to have advertising on it to get it free...lets just say I know somebody). I am actually probably even more crazy than you think. This car was mine as a teenager, I am now letting my teenage boys drive it?!? We just had all of the mechanical stuff redone and I thought it might be fun for my boys to do something with a wrap that looks dramatically different than what one normally gets with paint. My plan would be to have all of the body work done (not much is really needed...just a couple of small rust spots) and then wrap it without painting it. At some point in the future I may take the wrap off and paint it.

[D-Frag]

Is vinyl wrap permanent? Does it destroy the paint beneath? If this is only a temporary thing, I guess a free wrap could be cool for sh¡ts and giggles. But if it's permanent or damages the paint upon removal, I don't see the point.

no vinyl is not permanent. the good installers/shops use 3M controltac vinyl because it has air channels and its alot more forgiving when putting it on. the 3M vinyl comes with no warranty (that I know of, might be like a 1 year manufacturer warranty but im not sure) and it will fade and chip if exposed to alot of sunlight and heat. generally you want to remove a wrap every 2 years or sooner because after that not only does it start to look like crap but its extremely hard to remove.

vinyl will not destroy paint, in fact it actually helps the car retain its original paint (because of no sun exposure) but i have seen some people do half wraps or 3/4 wraps and left it on for a couple years, when it was removed the original paint compared to the paint under the vinyl did have some color shifting.

the only thing that can really damage a vehicle when doing a wrap is when the installers use "primer" to get the vinyl to stick to parts it wont stick too. ive seen some installs where they don't use any primer, then ive seen other installs where the installer literally mopped the stuff on which in turn ruined the paint underneath.

by the way, if anyone ever needs to get primer off of a vehicle, I hear that brake cleaner will work but make sure you test it on the paint before going bucknutty with it.