Blackout for Joyride

To promote its new online resource for auto enthusiasts, Joyride – a group of tech-savvy professionals “who also happen to be auto enthusiasts” – wanted an impressive vehicle to showcase at auto shows that would embody luxury as well as market trends. Joyride quickly sought out Arizona print provider bluemedia  to jump on the matte-black bandwagon and wrap its Porsche 996.

“The matte-black wrap trend is taking the industry by storm and bringing a lot of newcomers into the market space,” says bluemedia’s Brian Howland. “The world of vehicle graphics is seeing a definite increase in the number of requests for ‘murdering out’ vehicles – where the vehicle is completely matte black, all the light covers are black, no gloss, except the windows, which have to be dark. It’s a great way to change the look of a vehicle and the market segment is growing.”

Creating the design for the Porsche was a relatively easy task because of the simplicity. “We didn’t have to engage our design department because it was a fairly basic design. Joyride had done mockups on the car using Photoshop and once we added logos and worked out the stripe thickness, it was off to our finishing department to have the pieces cut.”

Applying vinyl is nothing new to the bluemedia installation team, but a matte-black project leaves no room for error. “The biggest challenge was the installation. When you do a printed project, you can get away with seams, but when you’re making the vehicle matte, you absolutely cannot have a seam,” says Howland. “It takes a very experienced installer to knock one of these out and the install time is double in comparison to a normal wrap job.”

The team chose matte black and matte gray (for the center stripe) 3M Scotchprint 1080 Wrap Film, which does not require a laminate. For the center red stripe, Arlon 2100 cast red vinyl 01 was used, with decals featuring the Joyride logo made using 3M 1080 matte gray and white; bordering the decals is 1/8-inch black 3M Scotchlite Reflective Vinyl. The same media was also used for the logos on each side of the Porsche. Both stripes were installed on top of the wrap. All told, the project required about 280 square feet of media.

Four men worked to install the wrap for a combined 38 hours. The Joyride crew thought so much of the final wrap that, though the car was initially intended to act only as a show piece, it’s now driven around and showed off on a daily basis.
 

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