VolvoHeretic
VolvoHeretic SuperDork
3/16/25 2:20 p.m.

Back almost 50 years ago, I stripped all of the ugly Volvo stock gold paint off of my 1800 and removed as much chrome as I could and had it painted with beautiful Dupont Metallic Gold Imron 2 part polyurethane paint. When I went to pick it up, it was sitting in the parking lot on top of a few inches of freshly fallen snow on a brilliant sunny day. It looked like it was gold plated.

I will never be able to afford another real paint job and don't have the energy anymore to do the prep work needed, how about a vinyl chrome car wrap? Gold, Translucent Candy Apple Red, or Sapphire Blue Chrome Car Wrap maybe? User applied? Mrs Heretic and I watched a couple of YouTube videos which looked awfully hard and frustrating.

I wonder how long it lasts or stay on?

I got the idea yesterday while watching the IMSA 12 hour Sebring race and one of the cars had chrome wrap on it.

 

 

 

 

 

preach
preach UberDork
3/16/25 2:39 p.m.

My clear wrap on my Cayman went on in 2016 and still looks great. I plan on wrapping my Opel when it's done.

Duke
Duke MegaDork
3/16/25 4:12 p.m.

It's your car, but please don't.

 

Appleseed
Appleseed MegaDork
3/16/25 4:20 p.m.

You will blind the berkeley out of every living thing with reflections. You will become the living embodiment of LED vengeance.

They make very vibrant gold wraps that won't blind people in space. Be that guy instead.

GameboyRMH
GameboyRMH MegaDork
3/16/25 4:35 p.m.

Here are some examples of matte gold wrap that won't be an optical hazard:

(This manufacturer doesn't want anyone to know that's a BMW cheeky)

VolvoHeretic
VolvoHeretic SuperDork
3/16/25 6:36 p.m.

You guys may be right, back when my car had only 1" wider than stock wheels, I had 1/8" mirrored plexiglass wheel covers cut with a 3/8" hole drilled in the center that attached to the center bore inserts where the center wheel caps with a hex cap screw would screw into. When they where snugged up to the wheel the covers had a slight concave shape that reflected the sun like 16" diameter mirror reflecting telescopes. 

As would have been attached to these wheels if I only had a photo of them. sad

It would have been a simple sun beam glare except that there was a slight out-of-plane distortion of the mirrors caused by the slight bulging over the wheel weights so that the reflection had a strobe affect that got worse and faster with speed. 

I don't remember noticing any accident they caused through my rear view mirrors.

stuart in mn
stuart in mn MegaDork
3/16/25 10:20 p.m.

There are some modern gold paint colors that are pretty cool.  I bet you could get a wrap that mimics them but isn't a chrome finish.

VolvoHeretic
VolvoHeretic SuperDork
3/16/25 11:25 p.m.

dculberson
dculberson MegaDork
3/16/25 11:41 p.m.

I think it would look amazing on your Volvo. You're not driving it to work in rush hour traffic every day so why not do it? I'd love to see it in person. 

VolvoHeretic
VolvoHeretic SuperDork
3/17/25 12:53 a.m.

I have this one photo that is hanging on my bulletin board so I have finally scanned it with my HP 3 in 1 newish printer at something like 1200 dpi. All of my other photos are digital photographs of existing prints, I will have to see if Mrs Heretic knows where the rest of my hand full of pictures of my car are and scan them as well. What's the optimum dpi for scanning 4x7 prints? Next would be to hire someone to fix the rust in Photoshop I guess. smiley

Before

After

preach
preach UberDork
3/17/25 5:30 a.m.

My favorite Porsche color:

GameboyRMH
GameboyRMH MegaDork
3/17/25 7:03 p.m.

In reply to VolvoHeretic :

Higher is better but at some point you'll hit diminishing returns depending on what you're scanning, I find that there's rarely any improvement to scanning beyond 600dpi. If you send the original to my username at gmail I can take care of that rust wink

 

VolvoHeretic
VolvoHeretic SuperDork
3/17/25 8:24 p.m.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Thanks for the offer. smiley I'll have to find the best photos to work on first.

I just remembered that the first scan I did at 1200 dpi and opened in Paint 3d to crop the photo, Paint 3d said it was too large and automatically resized it. I noticed dust on the image and cleaned the scan glass and when I re-scanned, I did so at 600 dpi and comparing the two, I couldn't see any difference between the images.

VolvoHeretic
VolvoHeretic SuperDork
3/17/25 8:52 p.m.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

I sent you an email. Thanks laugh

VolvoHeretic
VolvoHeretic SuperDork
3/18/25 7:13 a.m.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Thanks a million Gameboy. laugh  yes

Colin Wood
Colin Wood Associate Editor
3/18/25 9:19 a.m.

Whatever wrap you go with, I'm eager to see the results. smiley

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