Painting (as an art form) motor cars..

Just this past weekend I attended a car show (of sorts) at historic Beaulieu House and motor museum's simply Japanese event (more of which later). During the day I had several people look at the car all thoughtful and come up to me saying 'you do that blog' which was the first surprise, the second being that they then would tell me off for not having kept it up to date with the end of the respray!

Okay, so I'm busted for being a bit.. tardy. But you all knew that anyway.

Sooo, I suppose it's like picture time, better that than my mumbling muses on the subject.

Steve @ Skylinespares4uessex Popped up in my Facebook feed with a set of original Nismo Skirts, bumper and spats for a R33. Naturally they were reasonably expensive although the price seemed (what I thought) fair, so I snapped them up!

They actually look quite nice on the donor car, however the paint was awful! One side had been repaired and sprayed in the damp. So the paint was 'bubbly'. There was also stone protect film at the ends of the skirts and spats which had been painted over. 

This was all crammed into a VW Golf where my glamorous assistant then spent the next two hours preventing it from sliding around and clobbering our heads! 

This is what it's all about, the 'NISMO' sticker. Mmm, lovely... I then proceeded to blast them off with a jet washer as I cleaned the thousand years of muck off! 

My sanding station, a bench in the back garden. It could be said that this is therapeutic, but anyone saying this would be wrong. It all starts off well enough but then after a few hours it starts to dawn on you how big an area it is! Of course there is the added delight of finding all the cracks and old repairs that have to be done again as well.

Initial test fit, just bolted straight on.. I knew this would be good! 

As Ms Skyline is getting more 'mature' you would expect her butt to get big! 

I had been laboring under the impression that the body kit was that of a 400R, although this confused me, as as far as I was aware this didn't exist! A good friend James in Australia who also blogs on http://www.inxilegtr.com/

came up with the goods.  

Turns out Nissan made a NISMO R33 GTST

Although not convinced about the Supra looking rear spoiler, I was delighted to see that a tiny bit of Skyline folk art would live on! 

 And onto the meat.

I would have loved to have got busy sanding, for about five minutes and then walked away. Never to sand again! That ghastly hole for the terrible Nissan branding was soon to go!  

Getting ready for underseal, near the front bonnet hinges was the dreaded rust beginning to form! 

Rust in the wing... Arrgh!

Gooey underseal time, inside the wings.

All the inner wings

In fact under seal everywhere! (Which is a good thing). 

Sanded down and cleaned up ready for paint (my favorite picture) 

Boot Lock now deleted and a view of the new titanium rear box.

Base coat

I kinda liked the satin finish! 

On with the lacquer

The hard part has to be polishing! 

A nice shot of Marco at Fully Loaded Cars 

So was it worth all the effort? You bet it was! Although I have found the usual amount of resentment, fear and loathing to be evident from my peers. I have also had a lot of very positive feedback, this was 'my' vision after all.

 Roll of honor

Sarah who made it fun, drove me around, helped and generally did a 1001 things (all with a smile).
RT Autobodies for the supply of the rear 400R spoiler blade
Fully Loaded Cars long may they continue to build dreams! 0208 4930440
Skyline Spares Essex - Steve
Project Modified for all modified cars

And all the countless people who have since just randomly stopped me and said 'I like it... What is it?'

Car stuff - Boring.. But there's cake!

Yet another Birthday has sneaked past me and I had a delicious cake baked for me

Yum!

As for my actual Birthday treat I elected to work on the car all day. In fact for a present my girl super spoiled me with a 400R carbon rear blade set up. Can't be bad can it? I must be doing something right, although am perplexed if I know what it is!

400R Style rear blades

Just the tonic I needed really!

I recently managed to acquire an original set of 400R bits made specifically for a GTST by that little known style house 'NISMO'. Yep genuine original parts that I'm pretty certain the copy shops would have loved to get their hands on to make some molds! To be honest I wasn't aware that Nissan even made these parts for a GTST and only produced them for fat bottomed GTR, but I can't argue with my own eyes! 

So I have got as far as test fitting the bumper (got bored with sanding).

excellent fit! 

Happily as an original Nissan part it needs no fettling and looks pretty promising. The exhaust is due adjustment this week. In fact I am having a new one made (but that is for laters!). 

I also took the car to a scratch specialist

Chips Away are a franchise operation operating in the UK. I obviously can't speak for all of them, but would like to say a big thank you to Steve and his team in the Reading Berkshire branch. Usually Chips Away use mobile specialists, although in Reading it is a drop off service. This results in much more clean conditions, which therefore obviously means a much better chance of a good job! 

I wonder if that tickles?

Both the scratches in the rear quarter panel were touched in. This isn't perfect 'but will do' for now and are only really visible if you tilt your head and screw up your eyes (in the right light conditions). As for the larger scratch in the front bumper.. It is gone! Chips Away doing one of their 100% repairs to the affected area.

As to the engine bay, it looks this good!

Taking the car for a drive has become a very entertaining experience now and I really can't fault Drift Street Imports Build or MB Motorsports map. In fact I feel like a stake holder now in the BDC where Drift Street and MB compete in the Pro events. 

This is something else! 

So what a muddle this post is although it sums up the eclectic mix of mini posts that I have been too busy/idol/indifferent to write lately! 

This weekend there is Japfest, a celebration of all motors Japanese, although most of my readers are overseas and it looks like a very wet one, I am looking forwards to saying Hi...