2015 WRX Project Northstar – Full Vehicle Vinyl Wrap

As some of you know and saw in my last update I decided to have Project Northstar vinyl wrapped. Before I even owned the car I had a plan in mind for the exterior and when purchasing the car I was not that concerned with the exterior colour. While I am fond of the WRB paint, I wanted the car to stand out where other Subaru owners would notice while not being too over the top so a non-enthusiast would likely not give a second glance. Other then my Lexus, all of the vehicles i’ve owned have been repainted gray but I wanted something different with this. Taking inspiration from Audi’s Nardo Grey paint I set out to find a colour that was close to this. I have always been interested in vehicle wrapping but many of the vehicles I have seen in person did not represent what a quality job should look like so I was a little apprehensive about it. The nicest thing about wrapping a vehicle is that you can simply remove the vinyl when you’re tired of the look or are ready to sell and there’s no depreciation to the vehicle like their would be with repainting just the exterior of a car. Even if the only reason for painting a car is a colour change, you will always lose a little bit of value when you go to sell the vehicle as most assume repainted vehicles were painted due to an accident or collision. With my mind set on getting the car wrapped I set out to get feedback from people that had their cars wrapped before. After much research I was pretty set on using the pretty well known Sekanskin to wrap my WRX. Somewhere along the line I was chatting with a client and mentioned my plans to wrap the car. It just so happened that he was a 3M certified vinyl installer with years of experience that had recently relocated with his family from BC. After looking over his portfolio and chatting with him I felt confident we were on the same page in terms of the expected end result of the wrap. Damir, who owns and operates Mad Graphics, is extremely detailed and meticulous with his work. He shares a lot of the same values as we do at Touge Tuning when it comes to only doing work right and not cutting corners or sacrificing quality for price.

I browsed through a few vinyl wrap samples from 3M, Avery, Hexis etc. 3M’s Scotchprint 1080 wrap vinyl would be my first choice but they have a fairly limited colour pallet and did not offer what I was looking for. A close second is Avery’s SW900 wrapping film which is a quality wrapping product and they had the colour that I was looking for. I initially wanted to test the waters before having Damir order a full roll of the colour so he got enough to do the hood of the car and we started with that. I drove around for a few days with the hood wrapped looking at it in different light and I was pleased that the colour was very close to what I wanted. Below are some images from when the hood was completed.

After about 1-2 weeks the roll of vinyl arrived from Avery and I arranged to drop off the car to Damir at his new retail location which happened to be on my way to the shop from home. They do a lot of commercial vehicle wrapping from cars to trucks to food trucks and everything in between. Many general sign shops outsource their wrapping to Mad Graphics as most places to not employ a full time wrap installer with the skills necessary to do these jobs. I dropped the car off on Monday morning and Damir explained the process with which things would go and he gave me a rough estimate of 3-4 days to perform the wrap. As I did not want to go as far as wrapping the full door jambs the doors did not need to be removed. I stopped by Tuesday on the way to the shop and the car was pretty much stripped down to where it needed to be for the wrap. Antenna removed, headlights off, mirrors off, door handles off, gas cap lid cover off etc etc. Given it’s the middle of winter Damir would not start wrapping until the vehicle temperature was stabilized inside and that every surface to be wrapped was 100% clean of any dirt, salt or other debris which would cause the wrap to not look nice and at the same time possibly cause it to lift. Due to the complexity of removing everything on the 2015 and the road salt on the car Damir said it would take about another day to complete which was fine by me as I had planned to be without the car for at least a week. Wednesday morning I stopped by again and was pleasantly surprised to see the progress that had been made on the car. The front fenders, trunk and roof had all been completed and they were in progress of wrapping the A pillar to rear fender area which to me looked like a complex job to do as one piece. The results were looking fantastic and it was nice to see the car each day with more progress. Below are the pictures from the Wednesday visit.

I stopped by on Thursday as planned and found even more progress which looked awesome! The sides had been completed and all 4 doors had been done as well. When I arrived they were working on the rear bumper. It was all starting to look great but I knew the hardest parts were to come, the side skirts and front bumper have some extremely complex curves that would challenge even the most experienced installer.

Friday morning I was anxious as Damir said pretty much everything would be done and when I showed up I wasn’t disappointed. He did an amazing job on the bumper and sideskirts, no weird stretch marks or anything. The only thing left was to install the front fender sides, mirrors, door handles and tail lights. Damir wanted to leave it overnight in his shop with the heat up as he said the Avery wrap material was more heat activated then 3M and this would provide the best bond for the vinyl. I left excited like a little kid on Christmas to pick up the car Saturday morning complete and ready to go.

So here’s the finished product from the day I picked up the car and a couple shots from today outside. I have found it difficult to get pictures that really represent the colour as true. It also really transforms depending on the backdrop and light source. At night it looked like a much deeper gray where as in the sun light it looks very light, almost off white. Overall I am 100% happy with how it turned out and Damir at Mad Graphics did a phenomenal job with the wrap. I have been driving it for almost a month now and have taken it through multiple car washes with no apparent issues, although this is not recommended as their’s always the chance for damage by the equipment in drive through car washes. I haven’t had a chance to install the fender emblems yet, I initially wanted to do them plastidip but my recent experience has me second guessing it. I am torn whether to do them matte/flat black or gloss black as the wrap is gloss. Any opinions on that? Once I decide on the colour i’ll likely have Uni-Body paint them properly for me rather then use plastidip. The last piece of the puzzle will be installing our company graphics on the lower door much like we have already on Project Blackout. Once we get those on and I decide on some summer wheels I think it will look awesome. I want to blackout the headlights but have not had time to tackle that yet. For anyone looking for a full wrap job don’t hesitate to contact Damir and the crew at Mad Graphics. Their website is being re-developed right now but I will put his email below. A wrap like mine on most Subaru’s would be around $2800 + tax, they can also do it for around $2300 + tax if you’re ok with a few more cut lines on the complex areas which speeds up the job. The performance stuff is coming soon I promise!!!