Wrapping that Championship Season

Since the Giants’ migration from New York to San Francisco in 1958, the team hadn’t won a World Series, despite having been a frequent contender that’s enjoyed the talents of Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Barry Bonds and countless other current and future Hall of Famers. However, 2010’s squad, thanks to postseason heroics of Tim Lincecum, Edgar Renteria and Buster Posey, among others, broke the streak and brought a World Series trophy home to the Bay Area.

To honor the team’s achievement, Giants officials hired Custom Vehicle (CV) Wraps (San Francisco) owners Michael Hufana and Kwasi Boyd, and their team, to outfit a Toyota Tundra truck, which Stevens Toyota (San Jose, CA) donated, with a wrap for the team’s Series trophy caravan. In addition to showcasing the trophy throughout the Bay Area and Northern California, the bedecked Tundra also traveled to Oregon, Nevada and across the country to New York for the team’s East Coast fans (and, probably, to tweak Yankee fans, whose $200-million-plus-payroll squad came up short of the Fall Classic).

CV Wraps fine-tuned the graphics, which Giants staffers Michael Martin and Danny Dann designed, using Adobe’s Creative Suite 5 to render the artwork and adjust the colors to RGB.

“The Tundra’s body has a lot of extra moldings, and its rear lights take up a lot of space on the truck-bed door,” Hufana said. “We had to be careful to position the logos so the artwork wouldn’t be cut off.”

The shop used isopropyl alcohol to prep its surface, and Primer 94 to aid vinyl adhesion. Hufana and Tyrone Atkinson Jr., the project’s installers, removed the Tundra’s mirrors, Toyota emblems, headlights and backlights so they could tuck the vinyl in, which created a more attractive wrap.

The wrap entails Avery’s MPI Easy Apply RS 1005 air-release film, which it produced on its Mimaki JV3 SP-160 solvent-ink printer. To fabricate the window graphics, CV Wraps used Avery’s MPI 3528 50%-perforated, window film.

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Although trucks have less surface-area square footage to cover, the Tundra did require patient, method¬ical installation because of its numerous curves and recessed area. Hufana and Atkinson negotiated the Tundra’s contoured “canvas” using Lidco yellow, felt squeegees, torches, Olfa knives and propane space heaters to warm the wrapping area and improve vinyl conformity.

To protect the graphics for the cross-country trek, CV Wraps applied Avery’s DOL 1060 gloss-finish, cast overlaminate using a Royal Sovereign RSC-1650 C roll laminator.