racing stripes or no?

philcore3

Dirt-Old 20+Year Member
Aug 20, 2004
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I am repainting my 91 gt vert black. I have a dual scoop cervini hood and was thinking about running yellow racing stripes on the raised hood scoops and through the rear. My trunk lid has the luggage rack deleted w/no spoiler. I have yellow vinyl for my mustang gt lettering on the ground effects, as well as yellow lettering on the interior leather. My question is, do you think the yellow racing stripes will come off as cheesy or unique.

And my second question, has anyone ever painted racing stripes and what have you found the best process has been.
 
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I'm not huge on racing stripes, but I've owned a car with 'em before (silver '87 Fireturd with black stripes), and it got a lot of looks. Depends on whether or not you want attention; me, I try to make my car as subtle as I can so that I don't have cops eyeballing me and pointing speed guns at my car all of the time. :)

Darn near anything will go good with black. Just don't go for some icky neon yellow, pink, or green crap, and it'll look good. Red or blue over black would be more subtle, whereas white or yellow would really stand out in contrast - what kind of effect do you desire?

Silver would be my pick, too, but that's because I've got a sort of black/gray/silver theme going on with my black notch, so it depends how the rest of yours is set up - your interior, your wheels, etc. Silver + yellow + black probably would not jive. It's hard to put anything else with a yellow-on-black scheme (except more yellow or black) without it looking weird or tacky, but it depends on how obvious or minor your other yellow details are. (Pics would really help.)

A single, big fat ol' stripe up the hood would be nice, IMHO, kinda like the mid-80's GT's; carrying stripes all the way from the front air dam all the way over the roof and down below the exhaust, however, is a tad bit overkill. Being that you've got a Stormin' Norman hood, I'd just go with stripes on the scoops back to the cowl, and that's it.

Please, please, PLEASE don't do that ridiculous single offset stripe thing that I see on every other import ricemobile out on the road. It looks like they couldn't afford the other stripe, or someone peeled it off there one night as a prank. If you're honestly using the car for autocrossing and this is a driving aid of sorts, however, do it if you absoltely must ... but you'll still look silly. :D

Rolls of plain ol' white vinyl for racing stripes can be had at Autozone for less than $20, IIRC. (Has a picture of a red Camaro on the front with white stripes all the way front/back.) If you wanna go the bling route, they make rolls of chrome tape, too, which are usually found right next to the white vinyl there... :D

If you want a first-hand visual idea of what it'll look like, or if you want to try some different striping ideas out, get some of that blue Painter's Masking Tape (or, for a more yellow look, plain ol' masking tape works, too), and lay some strips of that on there, maybe take a few pics, and then manipulate the color with Photoshop to see what'd look best.

Enjoy!
 
Do vinyl but don't get some cheap ass parts store stuff. And watch what you get off Ebay. You want a good cast vinyl. Most of what you see at parts stores and Ebay are calendered vinyl. The difference is the adhesive on calendered will start to go to the cut edges and look like ass and it will not conform to complex curves well. Plus cast will last 8-10 yrs outdoors and under all weather conditions. Calendered will not last half that long. You can get by with that stuff on windshield / window decals but not something like a stripe that is gonna really matter.
Also trying to match an exixting color is gonna be hard.
Have someone photoshop it for you.

BTW I have done a yellow Saleen kit on a black Mustang....it wasn't my thing but it didn't look that bad.
 
bubba-dough said:
BTW I have done a yellow Saleen kit on a black Mustang....it wasn't my thing but it didn't look that bad.


heres yellow and black.
post-3-1074032246.jpg



yellow stripes and especially lettering would be ugly......white or gold
 

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Whatever you do don't put vinyl on your car Trust me, you'll regret it in a year and half or so. I just got done taking vinyl stripes of my car that had been on there for 2 years and 4500 miles, and let me tell you they looked like crap after that little of time and were a pain in the a$$ to get off. They weren't cheapo vynal stripes either, top of the line 3M stuff that's supposed to be really good. After about a year and a half and 4500 miles, being mostly garage kept and only being driven in the summer, they faded and cracked and started to come off the bumpers. It really looked like crap. Some of it came off by peeling with a heat gun, but I had to buy this special vinyll and strype remover stuff that disolved it (partially anyway) and had to scrape it off with a plastic razor blade, and then had to deal with the glue that was left. Probably about an 8 hour job!

If your gonna do it, do it right and get them painted on. Mine's a black 92 GT that had silver racing stripes. I loved how it looked, just didn't like it for my personal car, plus it was just too much of a cop magnet.
 
im red, but i was thinking about painting mine 1 of 2 colors... crows black, or triple black... crows black is a real sweet black that looks like a hint of blue in the light or in the sun.. like a crow looks in the day light.. but i think im staying RED so those ideas are anyones to take!
 
caseywan said:
Whatever you do don't put vinyl on your car Trust me, you'll regret it in a year and half or so. I just got done taking vinyl stripes of my car that had been on there for 2 years and 4500 miles, and let me tell you they looked like crap after that little of time and were a pain in the a$$ to get off. They weren't cheapo vynal stripes either, top of the line 3M stuff that's supposed to be really good. After about a year and a half and 4500 miles, being mostly garage kept and only being driven in the summer, they faded and cracked and started to come off the bumpers. It really looked like crap. Some of it came off by peeling with a heat gun, but I had to buy this special vinyll and strype remover stuff that disolved it (partially anyway) and had to scrape it off with a plastic razor blade, and then had to deal with the glue that was left. Probably about an 8 hour job!

If your gonna do it, do it right and get them painted on. Mine's a black 92 GT that had silver racing stripes. I loved how it looked, just didn't like it for my personal car, plus it was just too much of a cop magnet.
It want good vinyl if it looked liked crap after 2 years.. I worked a brief stint at fast signs and we would re-wrap cars that were done 8 years before and they werent faded and still looked new. This is in florida mind you where the sun fades everything.
 
I am a sign maker and let me tell you....you had crap vinyl. Even 3M makes a low grade vinyl. The difference between the 3M and other brand's low grade calendered is that 3M uses a permanent adhesive on even there interior calendered. There are interior and exterior calendered vinyl and cast vinyl. Cast, cast, cast. Its the ONLY choice for auto use, PERIOD.