Imola Motorsports, a Golden Valley, MN-based shop, provides service, maintenance and repairs, and performance enhancements for European-made cars. Imola’s owner, Kevin Tan, hired Creative Color (Burnsville, MN) to execute its entire signage and branding program. A centerpiece of the campaign was providing a full wrap for Imola’s 53-ft.-long Featherlite transport trailer, which transports and provides support services for customers’ competitive-racing vehicles – Porsche 911’s, Audi R8s and BMW M3s, among others – to Road America and other Midwestern tracks.
Brent Luther, who co-owns Creative Color with Jeff Volino, said, “There’s nothing better than working on an original branding project with a client, and then carrying it through all advertising aspects. Three months ago, we began discussing wrapping the trailer with Kevin.”
He continued, “When a customer has never ordered a full trailer wrap, it’s sometimes difficult to imagine the exposure one can provide for your business. After giving it a lot of thought, he agreed.”
Luther enjoyed working on a mint-condition trailer, but the rivets along the sides required extra planning and labor. Using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, they collab-orated with Kevin to create the logo and wrap design.
He added, “The main focus was aligning the logo and a Porsche 911 image to cover the entire side. I designed the wrap to fade to black, with a red edge and gradient textures that blend the graphics together. To make the logo pop in the background, I created a faded-black circle behind the logo that makes the red honeycomb design jump out. We created a larger file than normal to make the graphics especially crisp.”
Creative Color produced color samples to make sure the Pantone colors were accurate, and made subtle adjustments to brighten the red and add contrast. To maintain seamless images over the 1-in.-wide seams, Creative Color bled the colors when printing.
The shop printed the wrap in 30 panels on its Mimaki JV33-130SP solvent-ink printer with 3M’s Controltac 1J180-10C with Comply v3 air-release vinyl. Using a 64-in.-wide GBC Arctic Titan laminator, Creative Color protected the wrap against Minnesota’s extreme seasons with 3M’s 8518 glossy topcoat.
Installers prepped the vehicle with a wipedown mixture of XIM GON-20 waterbased cleaner and isopropyl alcohol. They removed the rear taillights before installation, and applied silicone and 3M Primer 94 to boost adhesion in certain areas. Thirteen panels – each measuring 50 x 126 in. – were applied over each side, two in the rear, and two panels on the side windows.
Creative Color used the hinge method; installers applied 6 in. to the trailer’s top edge, and gradually worked downward while pulling the release liner away. Luther said the greatest challenge was laying down the panels with the red, diagonal background accurately. To apply the film securely over the 2,500 rivets on each side, installers used 3M hole punchers, rivet brushes and propane torches. To boost the wrap’s glossy sheen, installers blasted the wrap with a final shot of torch heat. All told, the wrap required a four-man crew 20 hours to complete the wrap.