Coming Together for a Cure

The idea for the Find a Cure theme car started with its owner, Trevor Nishihira, who runs the Behind The Wheel auto wheel repair shop in Burlingame, California. An auto enthusiast, Nishihira is also good friends with Shareef Khan, owner of the SS Customs (www.sscamerica.com) a car aesthetic and performance enhancement shop that specializes in vehicle wraps, among other treatments.

Nishihira likes to show his BMW M3 off at various auto events; he also has family members struggling with cancer. When he came up with the idea of turning his car into an expression of support for the Find a Cure Project, he approached Khan.

“We were really excited to help him bring this to fruition,” Khan says. “He’d been in talks with people for a while to do the project, but nobody really hopped on board. We took the initiative and stepped up and decided to help him create the image.” Khan proposed the idea to 3M, who agreed to supply the vinyl for the project.

Khan had the wrap printed at his parents’ company, Sam’s Signs (www.samssigns.com), from which SS Customs had been spun off in 2005. The printing was done onto 3M Controltac IJ180-Cv3 with a Roland SolJet Pro III XJ-640 eco-solvent printer.

Installation took three days, with three companies participating. “We had a grand opening, when we did a partial unveiling of the car and opened our new shop,” says Khan. In attendance were the owner of Ikon Wraps, a vinyl substrate distributor, and the owner of paintisdead.com, a network of vehicle wrap shops and installers. “While they were here for the day, they got involved and helped us with the install,” Khan recalls. “But I’d say about 75 percent of the wrap was done by SS Custom.”

The result? Nishihara “gets everything from a standard thumbs-up to people leaving notes on the windshield,” according to Khan.

It was a big year for vehicle wraps; read our full coverage here or look through the photo gallery.