Stickering-up (for Lemons)!

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This is the first of two posts detailing recent cosmetic "enhancements" that I've made to my car. There's a little back story to both. This first one goes back to December 2013 when I first floated the idea of the Le Mans Classic 2016 on here. The excuse was that this year marks the 60th anniversary of the 3-car Lotus team storming the race in '56. The 1500cc car, co-driven by "Chunky" himself, was lying second in class with four hours left, when a big-end bolt let go. One of the 1100cc cars hit a dog and had to be retired, but the other won it's class (750-1100cc) and came 7th overall!

Interest in the trip has waxed and waned on here and ultimately it's just myself and Jon going with Elevens, along with two of his mates with an MGB and another Westie. (We're piggybacking onto the TSSC tour and camping at Tertre Rouge. If anyone else is going independently then it would be great to meet up.)

Recently, it has become the norm amongst the Brits to "Sticker up" for the trip to Le Mans. I don't see the point personally, as you'd never be able to outdo these guys (2008 I think). Their backup vehicle was a similarly hued Type 2 camper IIRC:

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But I decided that I would do it for the Classic this year, but in a classic fashion. My car is already a shameless pastiche of a period racer, so period Team Lotus Le Mans car here we come..... The plan was to look something like this:

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...except that this is a Series 1 (albeit with special chassis and wide body for Le Mans) and ours are Series 2 bodies. So something like a '57 team car:

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(I think that it's three photos per post, so TBC.)

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Whilst you can buy vinyl roundels and race numbers all over the web, I wanted something quite specific. A few companies seem to offer a better selection, but the one I liked the look of was http://www.highgatehouse.co.uk a small company in London. They offer a range of services, with race car graphics being a sideline. I had extensive email dealings with Rick, who was extremely helpful and spent quite some time mocking-up various options and fonts.

I cut brown-paper templates to gauge the diameter required and found that whilst 18" sat most comfortably on the rear wings, the originals were 21" and I would experience problems with the compound curves. Rick also suggested Porsche Hellenfenbien White rather than plain white and I received two good-sized samples the following day. My initial thought was that whilst plain white was way too stark, the Porsche colour was a little beige. But I was wrong as the final result is spot-on (IMHO!). So I settled for 21" diameter, off-White roundels with screen-printed numbers in a font very similar to that used by Lotus in '56-'57.

The final choice to make was the number itself. I was originally going to go for "56" as it's ostensibly to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary. However, "56" was a team car entered by Lotus France in '57 and I didn't want to use an actual team number. In the end I decided that as our cars used a S2 body from '57 (probably) then I would run number "57". Highgate also offer a laminated roundel to keep the graphics pristine, but I already knew that fitting would be problematic without the extra thickness (and so it proved to be).

I received four roundels the day following my order. I only intended to fit three, with the fourth to cover the (inevitable) balls-up! Loosely rolled in a sturdy tube and with a fitting kit (hard, rubber squeegee and a razor blade, they weren't cheap at £58.50 including postage, but they were excellent quality and Rich spent considerable time answering questions and mocking-up samples.

There are plenty of video tutorials online showing how to fit vinyl stickers and I've seen several cars wrapped with paint-protection film, so I knew that I'd have to go for a wet lay (fnar, fnar!) using a spray bottle of water and a drop of washing-up liquid. Still, each one took well over an hour to lay, the rear wings proving to be absolute pigs owing to the area "shrinking" as the wing crests. Both wing roundels required a vertical slice and overlap, about three inches long, at the 12 o'clock position to absorb the "shrinkage". But once dry (24 hours) they are beautifully flat and tight with no air bubbles and the almost invisible slit looks deliberately purposeful if you actually notice it at all.

And it was only as a result of my own difficulties in laying the roundels onto the rear wings that I realised the significance of this photo of the three '57 team cars:

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I would place money on them having been stickered-up in the order shown, front to back, with the mechanics having decided after the first car (41) that wrapping the roundel over the top of the wing was a fools errand and gradually moving the roundel down on the subsequent cars, chopping off the bottom of the roundel and avoiding the problem of shrinkage at the crest altogether.

So finally, the end result:

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And a question for you all. I thought that the fourth roundel, on the rear deck, might be too much. But now I'm not so sure. Should I or shouldn't I?

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And a last one (and a taste of things to come........!).

Oh. And click on the photo for full resolution.

[erictharg]

Looking good! Even better with a few hundred miles of road grime on it. Far too shiny at present!

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Ah, well. There's a reason it's so shiny. I'm just about to start writing the follow-up.......

Besides which, my daily-driver more often than not looks like this;