New nose, wild paint

[squarefour]

The story:

I got into a bit of a shunt which cracked my nose cone, so I got another one from Kinetic. After fitting it up (VERY difficult job, much harder than building the chassis around the nose cone, which was the original process) I decided the old girl deserved a nice paint job. At the same time, I had been doing some engineering work for a painter buddy who is kind of a big deal in the custom bike world. He offered to paint the 7 in exchange. I mentioned I was a fan of the "Hippy Porsche" of the late 60s, and that I had seen a Carrera at Laguna Seca with a similar scheme. Everybody has seen cars done in the "Gulf" colors, but the "Hippy" is rarer. He was pretty excited about the idea of a hippy homage, and actually had a bike customer who wanted something similar, but never pulled the trigger. So anyway, after much Photoshop experimentation, a lot of freehand Sharpy sketches on tracing paper, and some expert paintwork, this is what we ended up with. I'm the one who sketched the final tracing paper pattern, so all blame should be towards me.

 

The wife had a big tour planned for last weekend, but I opted for a short checkout trip instead. It has been off the road a long time.

 

The original, 917-043:

 

 

And mine:

[twobone]

groovy baby!

[S1Steve]

Groovy for sure, 917LH 043 lives about a half hour from my house at the Simeone Museum. I have seen it a few times along with all the other great cars there.

 

Nice paint work, it looks very good......

Edited April 22, 2013 by S1Steve

[MHKflyer52]

So did you wear your bell bottoms and have a big floppy hat on your checkout tour.

Just kidding as I knew where the design came from with out reading your post and just seeing the photos stream by to the last post.

 

VERY COOL MAN.

[xcarguy]

squarefour,

 

First thing, we are going to change your user name to hip7dude. Man, I can't look at this thing without thinking of Woodstock or hearing songs like White Rabbit and Light My Fire playing in the background. Jimi would have owned one and Janis would be proud. :hurray::cheers::hurray:

 

X

[squarefour]

Groovy for sure, 917LH 043 lives about a half hour from my house at the Simeone Museum. I have seen it a few times along with all the other great cars there.

 

Nice paint work, it looks very good......

 

Thanks for the compliments, guys.

 

It was very tough to guess the shade of blue, as it seemed to vary widely from one jpeg to another. If I'd have know you were close, I'd have sent you over with a Pantone chart:) Actually, the car was in my town until recently, oops.

 

In the process of adapting the aesthetic to the blocky, compressed shapes of the 7, the "groovy" factor just seemed to keep increasing. When I first beheld everything assembled, it was almost overwhelmingly trippy. I'm used to it now, though:)

 

I am expecting drug-sniffing dogs to be called in now, every time I get ticketed.

[xcarguy]

squarefour,

 

Sorry, but the way-over-the-top ‘cool’ factor of your car was begging me to do this. I hope you take this as the compliment it’s meant to be. If you don’t like it, I’ll make apologies now and gladly remove the post. :seeya:

 

X

 

[ATTACH]4990[/ATTACH]

[squarefour]

squarefour,

 

Sorry, but the way-over-the-top ‘cool’ factor of your car was begging me to do this. I hope you take this as the compliment it’s meant to be. If you don’t like it, I’ll make apologies now and gladly remove the post. :seeya:

 

X

 

[ATTACH]4990[/ATTACH]

 

It's cool , man:)

 

I was kind of expecting something like this:

Edited April 23, 2013 by squarefour
broken link

[xcarguy]

Wew! I'm glad. Kinda felt like I was crossing a line, but the paint really is COOL.

[Mondo]

Far out man, I think you should of painted the whole car blue and continued that graphic... but hey, I grew up in the SF Bay Area in the 60s.

[Toyotus 7]

That paint is truly fantastic. I had been considering something similar to the beatnik bandit for my own car, that or a rendition of a yellow jacket (wasp), but you're takes the cake. Nice work!

[squarefour]

Far out man, I think you should of painted the whole car blue and continued that graphic... but hey, I grew up in the SF Bay Area in the 60s.

 

As did my painter, but I am kind of fond of my bare Al, plus it's too wrinkly for nice paint anyway.

 

We are toying with continuing the graphic over the hood in grit-blasted, etched, or scotch-brited Al.

[Automoda]

I keep trying to convince my friend to let me paint his Europa in gold paisley on candy red with simulated wood trim, or else copy the Dukes of Hazard scheme, except it would be the "General Cornwallis".

 

I really appreciate some creativity in the paint. It is because I started off in the VW Bug cult, and you could do ANYTHING with those cars. One of the bugs that I'll always remember had a Hawaiian theme and somehow they had a perfect, raised floral pattern that covered the whole car. I don't know how they did it. Bugs are all curves.

 

I went a little off the beaten path with my paint job, too. After a lot of photoshopping I came up with the idea of some chevrons on the nose to give the car a bit of an angry look.

 

http://herb.linkrealms.com/Rally%20for%20Ron%20-%20Sept%202010%201.jpg

 

I think I've seen a 7 painted with tiger stripes, and one with cow spots.

 

I think my next paint job is going to be an experiment with wrap. I think I can pull-off my candy red / chevrons scheme with some of the fancy new wrap materials since the 7 is such a simple body shape.

[squarefour]

That paint is truly fantastic. I had been considering something similar to the beatnik bandit for my own car, that or a rendition of a yellow jacket (wasp), but you're takes the cake. Nice work!

 

Thanks!

Just a suggestion, AFAIK nobody has done the "Pink Pig Porsche":)

[squarefour]

I keep trying to convince my friend to let me paint his Europa in gold paisley on candy red with simulated wood trim, or else copy the Dukes of Hazard scheme, except it would be the "General Cornwallis".

 

I really appreciate some creativity in the paint. It is because I started off in the VW Bug cult, and you could do ANYTHING with those cars. One of the bugs that I'll always remember had a Hawaiian theme and somehow they had a perfect, raised floral pattern that covered the whole car. I don't know how they did it. Bugs are all curves.

 

I went a little off the beaten path with my paint job, too. After a lot of photoshopping I came up with the idea of some chevrons on the nose to give the car a bit of an angry look.

 

http://herb.linkrealms.com/Rally%20for%20Ron%20-%20Sept%202010%201.jpg

 

I think I've seen a 7 painted with tiger stripes, and one with cow spots.

 

I think my next paint job is going to be an experiment with wrap. I think I can pull-off my candy red / chevrons scheme with some of the fancy new wrap materials since the 7 is such a simple body shape.

 

We talked about the vinyl option, but I'm a bit of a purist.

 

So the green didn't cover very well and took ~5 coats, thus creating a 3D effect. The painter was concerned I wouldn't like that, but I said "hey, it just proves it's not vinyl!"

[DeanG]

I like the harlequin VW Rabbits. A similar paint job on a 7 would be cool.

[Toyotus 7]

There's something very sevenesque about a yellow jacket. Even the wings are shaped like a set of clam shells although a literal translation would mean the seven would be flying backwards. I think it's a cool inspiration for a paint job, though. Check out the image at the link.

http://cdn.orkin.com/images/wasps/yellow-jacket-illustration_1950x1518.jpg

[rnr]

Thanks!

Just a suggestion, AFAIK nobody has done the "Pink Pig Porsche":)

 

We used the pink pig colour scheme on our E30 Lemons car. We then ended up pitting next to Reinhold Joests former mechanic who said that Joest would have loved to see our car. Joest was the guy who crashed the Pig at Le Mans when he ran out of brakes.

 

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4092/4975593413_191e565778.jpg

[Bonjo2]

Love it!

Edited May 23, 2013 by Bonjo2