Vinyl Gold Chrome Car Wraps?

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.

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

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

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.

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 )

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

Before

After

My favorite Porsche color:

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

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Thanks for the offer.  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.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

I sent you an email. Thanks 

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Thanks a million Gameboy.   

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

Have you priced that wrap material. Its going to be 2-3K in materials alone, the good 3M stuff I have used off road without any issue. It can be baked in the sun and it lasts about 6 years in the worst possible conditions. 

The cheap stuff 2-3 years and it looks like crap and its impossible to remove. 

Install is not terrible but for that R8 someone posted your looking at a 5-6K job in SoCal with labor. 

In reply to wearymicrobe :

Nope, this is just in the dream phase after seeing a Sebring car wrapped in chrome. How much is just a paint spray with materials nowadays? I can do my own body prep. It's just like drywall, right?  Maybe just use chrome contact paper or red velvet wall paper?

Is there any reason a bumper like this couldn't be wrapped in chrome?  The local place that used to do plating closed and is now a Superfund site.

VolvoHeretic said:

In reply to wearymicrobe :

Nope, this is just in the dream phase after seeing a Sebring car wrapped in chrome. How much is just a paint spray with materials nowadays? I can do my own body prep. It's just like drywall, right?  Maybe just use chrome contact paper or red velvet wall paper?

IF your doing your own work and you used HOK for the paint I would guess 6K in materials. But the trick is if you can spray bomb well is Montana spray paint. 

I am not kidding when I say this is the BEST I have ever used for metallic finishes and its compatible with a number or 2K clears. I have no idea how they do their formulations or cans but when I say this stuff lays out like a spray gun I mean it. You could do a whole car your size with about 20 cans plus the 2K clear. 

https://www.michaels.com/product/montana-gold-acrylic-professional-spray-paint-10215527?cm_mmc=PLASearch-_-google-_-MICH_Shopping_US_N_Art+Supplies_N_PMax_OnlineOnly_N-_-&Kenshoo_ida=&kpid=go_cmp-17739573778_adg-_ad-__dev-c_ext-_prd-10215527&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw1um-BhDtARIsABjU5x7l66Du_GH34xaSNbt0t3IAUYm2Y_Z-0O9uLquPpAy3hhvJhMBeux4aAmOxEALw_wcB

helpcenter.montana-cans.com

Took awhile but it appears that Montana Gold paint is for interior/exterior use. 

LAQUER BASE: NC-Acrylic

PRESSURE LEVEL: Low pressure

- Very good weather resistance

- Winter proof

I already painted a three color Volvo sedan with cheap cans of gold spray paint. They didn't have fancy little trigger for spray cans back then and my fingers and thumbs almost died from trying to hold down the buttons. The car looked great but after about 3 months, it started turning green. That's when I finally noticed that it said "interior paint" on the can.

I would rather use some kind of good modern catalyzed paint and have a real painter apply it over my body and prep work.

My two super powers are grinding and sanding, not welding or spraying. 

VolvoHeretic said:

helpcenter.montana-cans.com

Took awhile but it appears that Montana Gold paint is for interior/exterior use. 

LAQUER BASE: NC-Acrylic

PRESSURE LEVEL: Low pressure

- Very good weather resistance

- Winter proof

I already painted a three color Volvo sedan with cheap cans of gold spray paint. They didn't have fancy little trigger for spray cans back then and my fingers and thumbs almost died from trying to hold down the buttons. The car looked great but after about 3 months, it started turning green. That's when I finally noticed that it said "interior paint" on the can.

Montana spray paint started for graffiti artists for large outdoor murals. Stuff stucks to anything and IMO holds up better then you would expect even without the clear. 

In reply to wearymicrobe :

Can confirm. After getting berkeleyed over by Rustoleum, of which I vowed never to use on exterior automotive again, I used Montana Gold on GRM recommendations.

I used their rainbow hologram clear. Its berkeleying awesome.

As noted in the GRM article / post on this topic, it appears as if the prep work (surface) for a good wrap is almost identical as that for a paint job.

E.g. if the car is not in the condition for a paint job, it likely will not look good with a wrap (not my observation, but the opinion in that thread)

I have a few friends who get wraps and have personally done a few myself. Wraps are a great way to change up a car and also provide excellent protection for the paint underneath. Biggest piece of advice, don't cheap out—make sure you get high-quality wrap for the best results, and if you don't feel confident, find someone to do it for you.

Color shifting wraps are also a cool option. A friend of mine has one that shifts between purple, black and blue but there are a few gold options out there.