Our GT-RA in LeMans Livery

[JML68]

Hello All,
I thought I would post some pics of my father-in-law, JT's GT-RA. We finished it up the night before a double driver's school and regional race at Memphis Motorspots Park two weeks ago. I was still putting decals on until 6:00 that night we needed to load.
Both JT and my brother-in-law Michael, put a bunch of time into really cleaning it all up, installing current belts, etc. I had trimmed a bunch of excess material off some of the panels at Thanksgiving to improve fit. The school always ordered them untrimmed from us at Panoz Auto since it was cheaper, and them trimmed them wrong!
This was the first car sold by the school (some obvious inside connections let us get first pick ) and was a texas car with only 118 hours on it, so it was a good candidate. We chose to do it up in the livery of Panoz's 2006 Team LNT 24 Hours of LeMans winner.
We were all very happy with the results, except my mother-in-law who hates the color!
Best Regards,
John

[Gatorac]

Nice job. These cars are a huge white canvas. Let's be creative and see what happens.

[panoz302]

excellant work, I like the color, I have a texas car also, bought it with 240 hours, from wirewheel, have been cleaning it up. Did you use a special paint or a flex agent.?

[JML68]

Panoz302,
The only thing special required to paint any of the plastic bodied cars is the use of a plastic adhesion promoter. Everything else is pretty standard. FYI, the exact procedure, including the PPG #'s is in the GTS User's Guide on page 56, which I believe someone has posted a link to somewhere on this site.
Regards,
John

[jmimac351]

Originally Posted by JML68

Panoz302,
The only thing special required to paint any of the plastic bodied cars is the use of a plastic adhesion promoter. Everything else is pretty standard. FYI, the exact procedure, including the PPG #'s is in the GTS User's Guide on page 56, which I believe someone has posted a link to somewhere on this site.
Regards,
John

Jim Pomroy posted this:

http://pptd424.online-access1.com/we...etPage?pid=503

[Squerly]

Looks "GREAT" John! I really like the way the black outlines the brake light area. Car looks like it's riding a little high in the ass end, or is it just the way the picture was taken?

[JML68]

Thanks Squerly,
The black was an attempt to "slim down" and give some character to what is a pretty large, flat area! The relative lack of character in that area was one reasons we completely reworked the shape for the production Esperante. That's really the only area where we deviated from the LeMans car's paint job other then leaving off two logos on the side that wouldn't fit.

It was interesting doing the decals since they cut for the LeMans car. The basic shapes and layout between an Esperante, a GT-RA/WC/GTS and the GTLM GT-2 car are all very similar, but are enough differences in split lines and other details to keep from making it easy. I actually ended up with about 2-1/2 extra feet of the stripes on the side that must normally get consumed by the flares and more rear overhang on the ALMS car.

Looking at that picture at that angle your right, but it's an optical illusion on the rear ride height, though it is not set as low as your GTS car. It is still at the school ride height. In fact we are still running the car on the schools P7000 street tires. It's just sooo hard to throw away usable rubber, so we'll try to burn them off during some track days before moving to the good stuff.
John

[PanozDuke]

Originally Posted by jmimac351

Jim Pomroy posted this:

http://pptd424.online-access1.com/we...etPage?pid=503

Link no longer works.
Mike

[Gatorac]

http://gatorac.com/webapp/GetPage?pid=503
This is the correct link.
Not sure about the link above?

[NZGTRA17]

Originally Posted by JML68

Hello All,
We were all very happy with the results, except my mother-in-law who hates the color!

Nice job, car looks fantastic. Reaffirms why I dont consult with my mother in law on race car issues!!

[Kevozzi51]

Hey JML68, where did you get the cool yellow headlight stickers?
thanks, Kevin in Savannah

[PanozDuke]

Originally Posted by Kevozzi51

Hey JML68, where did you get the cool yellow headlight stickers?
thanks, Kevin in Savannah

Can't speak for John, but PAD has been reported to have them in either yellow or white for about $90 at set. There are a couple other sources listed in Tribal Wisdom, but don't know the pricing or quality. I need some also, so if there is a better source, let us know.

Mike

[eric1h]

John's car was actually the inspiration for my decal scheme....

[PanozDuke]

Eric,
While John's car looks fabulous, my wife says orange is a no go. It's an Aggie thing. She decided she likes blue. Her inspiration is your car. I got her to agree to Viper Blue, but not to the money to do the body, paint and graphics- just the idea of it. I need stimulus money to do my part to help the economy. I'm making a poster to take to Obama's next public appearance. I just know painting more cars (especially mine) Viper Blue will help Chrysler. Some of the others can do some Corvette Competition Yellow to help GM, but they have to make their own posters.

Mike

[jmimac351]

Mike, quit your job and you'll be able to afford it.

Check out doing a wrap on the car. You can have whatever graphics you want and it will be durable.