Project Urban Chameleon

Nineteen years ago, I purchased my 1992 Mustang LX 5.0 to be featured in Fabulous Mustangs Magazine. I customized the car for the 1992 Specialty Equipment Market Assn. (SEMA) show, the world’s premier automotive-specialty products trade event that’s held annually in Las Vegas. “Project Splash,” as the feature article named it, featured such specialty equipment as a Xenon ground-effects kit, Recaro seats, Paxton supercharger, Budnik billet wheels, Eibach springs, custom paint, and a custom interior and sound system.

I also integrated many suspension modifications into the vehicle, which I then torture-tested running quarter-mile sprints at L.A. County Raceway in Palmdale, CA, as well as on the road course at Willow Springs Raceway in Rosamond, CA. Project Splash appeared at many shows and Friday-night street drags, won numerous trophies and was featured in many Mustang magazines, advertisements, catalogs, brochures, TV commercials and websites.

I recently decided to completely update the Mustang. The motor had been out of the car for a few years while we took it to various shops for repairs and upgrades. Torrance, CA’s Chicane Sport Tuning brought it roaring back to life.

I wanted to boldly update the original, handpainted exterior graphics. I began by gathering ideas from my friends’ Mustangs, and decided to use a grey, black and blue color scheme. I wanted to create a look that resembled a “drift car” for the street, so I used ground aluminum as the base graphic, then worked in Adobe Photoshop to add layers including a spiral-bound notebook, a healing mat and speaker cutaways that create an intricate graphic display.

Altogether, the wrap, which covers the sides, roof, hatch and bumpers, measures approximately 332 sq. ft. and required six panels. Graphics that list the car’s sponsors were printed separately in a lighter, brushed-aluminum color.

To use an airbrush to create these custom graphics would’ve cost from $10,000 to $15,000, so my shop, Garage Graphics (Huntington Beach, CA) printed and installed the graphics for approximately $2,000. Eric Goodwin, the shop’s owner, processed my designs via Roland’s VersaWorks RIP software. The shop then printed them on the shop’s Roland DGA Corporation SolJet Pro III XC-540 54-in.-wide printer/cutter with Arlon’s DPF 6000X 2-mil, cast, air-release media with X-Scape technology. Arlon’s Series 3220 cast laminate protects our work. The graphics came out crisp and clean, and the color matching was right on. Soon, we were ready to begin the installation.

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Between other jobs in the shop, the installation process took roughly a day and a half. Eric and I were concerned that some of the compound curves, as well as accounting for the surface twists caused by the ground-effects kit on this particular vehicle, would make adhesion difficult. So, we used 3M Primer 94 to aid in the process. Once the graphics were installed, I used flat-black, acrylic enamel to spray some areas where the old factory paint was showing, polished the wheels, cleaned the windows and greased up the tires.

The next weekend I was off to a Queen Mary Mustang Car Show in Long Beach, CA. Many of my old friends who had seen the car years ago, stopped to check it out and then saw me standing next to it. All of them asked me if I had sold my custom wheels, and I said, “That’s my Mustang!” They were blown away that I had completed such a major transformation. I was relieved; this was the first I’d seen completely wrapped.
I received many compliments on the graphics, and was very satisfied that I’d achieved my goals for the car. It continues to evolve with even more modifications, such as new wheels and tires, as well as interior and suspension modifications. I’m excited to update my “old school” Mustang using the specialty parts and graphic-design technology that have been introduced since I first bought the car.
 

Max Sigwart is creative director for Garage Graphics in Huntington Beach, CA.