I'm considering a wrap for my racecar once the body is prepared and primed.
I think the cost is about the same, once the cost of numbers and graphics are included.
The wrap itself should be cheaper than paint, and if stored indoors should last a long time.
Just paint it, seriously it would be cheaper and easier. If I end up bringing the car back to factory black which is a 2 stage non metallic paint job (AKA you spray it black and if you screw up like getting runs in it or there's dust in it or splatter or whatever, you just send that crap out, and as long as it's still black when you;re done sanding it flat, you just spray clear coat over it and it turns the surface into glass smooth. If you get runs or dust in the clear coat, again you can just sand it out, but you would just need to polish it to make it look shiney again), and if you go too far sanding it, again unless you go all the way through the black to the primer, you just throw more coats of clear on it untill you get it just right. This way you can learn as you go. Starting with primer which you could literally paint on with a brush if you didn't care abuot how long that would take to sand smooth, to basecoat which takes more work, to clear which is hard, but still fixable.
This will last 10x longer, look better, you can do it cheaper yourself with a harbor freight HVLP gun. As you may notice my FIRST ever panel I shot with that harbor freight gun was smoother in primer than the majority of what this guy painted. It's a race car, you don't need to spend 1000 dollars in primer like I did. Some of the low end (but still professional qualty) primer will outlast the car if applied right.
Also while I hope I've shown the dangers of this type of removable coating, vinyl wrap is really no better. That shit can get baked on the car and EASILY be just as difficult to remove, same with those clear bras, they can like partially melt into the clear coat of a car and turn into a plastic rubbery goo which is dangerous to attack with solvents, and fucking IMPOSSIBLE to sand because it'll just ball up. So yeah think about spending easily 100 hours getting that stuff off, plus if you're doing it yourself you'll find it technically very difficult.
I wrapped that rear wing in carbon 1080 before the show, just so it wasn't primer white. It was VERY difficult. It takes the sort of touch/feel that you can only gain by doing it many times. Painting a car really doesn't take much feel. Have the right equipment, be super anal retentive about the details and basically more time = better result (take it as far as you want) and thats it.
Now looking back, regular paint is a removable coating too. Compared to these other products and their supposed "removability" it makes paint stripper and 80 grit sand paper on a standard paint job look pretty "removable"
Well, you've certainly convinced me to never try a removable paint job (or really anything not absolutely 100% proven regarding paint). What a PITA. I don't have much advice other than acknowledgement that it's OK to throw it on jack stands and walk away for a while. You can drive it and get some enjoyment that way, but if it were me, it would bug me that I'd fallen short of the mark I had in my head, so eventually I'd be sanding it all back down to bare glass and having a pro do a more traditional paint job. Part of the reason I paid a pro to paint my rx7 was that my self done paint job had a weak primer stage that took rock chips easier than it should have. I did everything by the book as best I could but it still wasn't quite right. I had them sand through everything I'd done when I had it reshot. Sucked, but after a few years of living with it as "okay" i was ready to spend some more $$$ on it.
In the grand scheme of life, getting burned for a few $k in bad paint isn't nearly a gnarly as a kid with cancer or any of a 1000 other catastrophes that some folks live through. That may or may not be a helpful observation but it's true. I don't think law suits or other legal deals are viable. The painter dude acted in good faith and put in a hell of a lot of work. He probably has mouths to feed as well and regardless you just end up with painter and manufacturer pointing at each other. Eventually they would probably point back at you too (some sort of prep, use of sharpies etc). Just not worth it. Let it go and move on. Hug your family, or your girl, or your grandma and be thankful that your challenges are that of a sticky restoration on a vehicle that 90% of the world couldn't afford in the first place.
Last thought, since too much adhesion seems to be the problem rather than too little, have you already looked into a wrap? That's at least a known layer of known thickness, in a consistent and known color.
Good luck!
-Joel
I'm going to drive it. It bothers me that I can't figure out what I'm going to do with it and after a year can't seem to come up with a good solution, but that never stops me from rocking it. I drove the car when it was still cracked up. I drove it in primer, and I even brought it to 2 cars and coffee with absolutely no body panels on it. And thats the thing you know... people loved it when it was in go kart mode, and I actually liked it a lot better. It was faster and more nimble.
Like I said in my reply above if I end up going back to a simple 2 stage paint, I'll do it myself. If it's tri stage, or just has pearl/candy in it. I think I'm out of my league, because you can't just turn to sandpaper to fix your small mistakes. Small mistakes mean you have to strip it and start over, and for nothing else given what's happened, I don't have the patience for that any more.
I hear you about the comparison to real life catastrophies and I understand. As for the course forward though I think I still want to give this guy the ability to fix this without going the legal route, but I spoke to a couple body shops, and they actually suggested it. They said what if he comes to your house, uses a solvent which starts to affect the fiberglass, and a month later the panels start to get wavy and soft (some solvents deff are NOT ok to use on fiberglass, and the manufacturer won't give us the OK to use their topcoat remover on fiberglass btw).
Other shops are also saying that it'll be tens to hundreds of hours to remove, this guy thinks it'll take 1 long day with the both of us...
So what I'm getting at, is this guy's perspective seems to clash with reality, and based on his previous work here... I don't know if I should trust the guy touching the car further. In fact I have a pretty clear case right now against him and his employer, to give this car over to a professional shop to remove and send him the bill. I don't want to do that for obvious reasons, but by workign with him I open myself up to the possibility (as small as it may be) of him causing further damage to the car, and then I basically have ZERO recourse because I was there helping him do it, or I at least OK'd it.
If a shop takes on the job and totals the car, that's what insurance is for...
So yeah I need to figure out what I'm going to do... I couldn't swallow the concept of the car being totalled, without insurance, but the alternative would be very ugly too.
I've actually been looking for opinions from other car guys on this decision because it's really difficult
