Full paint job on Stohr F1000? $$$???

[captain454]

I just got a quote for painting up my Stohr F1000 car, and both of the local body shops told me the price for what I wanted was going to be approx $10k! Holy crap! Has anyone else tried to price out a full paint job for this car and wound up paying this much?! They freaked out when they saw the finish on the body panels, it seems that most of the cost is going to be the prep work.

So I think I might take up refinishing as a hobby this summer. Ever since I tuned into F1 in the early '90's, I've wanted to drive a formula car with that red/white Marlboro scheme used on the old McLarens. I recently acquired that bizzare red/orange color that McLaren (and Penske) used to use (European paint code RAL3024, it's now used on German fire engines), aka "daylight fluorescent red". So I'm thinking I can just grit blast the body panels, sand them up and do this myself. Any suggestions?

[Nicholas Belling]

I think he was able to get it done from a local body shop for around 1500 to 2000 dollars.

he can guide you in the right direction as he has painted most of his sold cars I beleive.

Nicholas.

[ASRF1000]

Nicholas is right. $10K is way too much for a paint job. We've had our Indy Lights car painted by a true Pro Painter in multiple colors using Planet Earth paint for under $5K and that included all our spare wings, etc. Are you taking the body panels to the painter, or are you requiring them to remove parts, etc. to do the work? Prep work can eat up a chunk of $$$.

Wayne at Stohr is a good resource. Another may be a local Formula car builder or race team in Southern California near you, as they may have a list of shops nearby that have done the work a lot cheaper.

There is a list of F1000 car constructors and teams on the F1K Series website: www.F1Kseries.com that might assist you.

[carnut169]

Painting a race car is a ton of work. All of the parts, pieces- everything has to be sanded, chips filled, etc. the prime, paint, clear... the parts will consume a full paint booth. Some shops just can't do a 80% job and want to put out a show piece.

I've always done the prep work myself, then assisted when it was time for paint. By running the shop's decals and paying for the painter's time and material it can be done right for $1000.

[ASRF1000]

"By running the shop's decals and paying for the painter's time and material it can be done right for $1000."

Very good point!

[Wren]

Consider doing a vinyl wrap also. It is pretty tough stuff and will take the constant sandblasting from the track pretty well. Cost should be very reasonable and it will look almost as good as paint from the beginning and maybe better than paint by the end of a season or two.

[JohnPaul]

I did the old barter thing. I let my painter (and friend) use my RV for 3-4 days. We were both very happy!

[glenn cooper]

Please tell me you're not gonna splash "MARLBORO" lettering onto that thing!
(But if ya do, how about some pics of diseased lung tissue for added realism?)

Yeah, sounds like the guys at the body shop are playing the odds: For every 10 potential customers coming in the door, there's likely to be 1 or 2 that will not question the quote, especially if they are driving something like we do!

Having said that, you couldn't force me to make a living breathing all that crap, putting up w/ the dust, the fumes, etc... Ever notice how painters seem to be "not all there"?

[dc]

Knowing what the Stohr body panels look like new fron Stohr, I can understand the painter's quotes. That wasn't an actual rate, that was a "we don't want to touch those with your hands" price. The body panels on the early FBs that I saw from them were absolutely the worst 'glass panels I have ever seen on ANYTHING—race cars included (sorry, Lee, they are awful quality—unlike the rest of the car). They are going to need a massive amount of labor. Body filler and time will be enormous. No flat spots on the whole car, multiple panels, it will need almost 100% hand work... the $10k price you got was one of those "go away" quotes.

The Marlboro Penske colors are fluorescent red, backed with white. A simple House of Kolor fluorescent or more accurately, Shimrin Kandy Basecoat - NE504 Red Neon. It absolutely must be applied over white or a white primer, then clearcoated. No fancy European RAL codes necessary.

My thought is that the weight in body filler that you will need on those panels will be a tremendous down-side to doing actual bodywork. A true negative for a race car like that. You could conceivably add an unnecessary amount of weight in really bad places for a race car.

I would suggest looking into a wrap for cleanest, easiest, and most cost-effective options for fixing the issues with the Stohr bodywork. The problem is, there is really no way to replicate the fluorescent red in a printed wrap. You're kind of stuck in the middle of trouble with the scheme that you want to do.



Lightweight spot fillers, sparingly applied, finished "just good enough" with a decent 50/50 race car paint job (looks great at 50 feet doing 50 mph), might be the best course of action with that body. I wish there was a better option, but knowing what the last couple of Stohr FBs looked like that I saw up close, it's not going to be cheap or easy.

[Purple Frog]

One can do it at home for a few hundred $. If they can be happy with a 50/50 paint job. (looks ok at 50 mph from 50 feet away)

In this picture provided by Pepper Bowe, all the purple on the car was applied in the back yard with a simple gravity feed gun. The silver flat panels are vinyl wrap. The wheels are shaker can.

Sometimes strategic placement of decals plays a big role in hiding the "homemade".

For the record, one usually won't see backyard paint jobs on cars still retailing above $35K, nor any car from Southern California.

I always make sure I don't park close to Carnut169/Sean's beautifully turned out Mygale. I'm always afraid Pollywog's ugly will jump off onto his car.

If you do it yourself, you will find out what the good shops already know. There's about 80 hours of prep for every hour of spraying.

If you are doing it shadetree, it pays to have a good relationship with your paint supplier (or a PhD in chemistry). Every layer of stuff you apply must be compatible, whether it be fillers, bondo, scuff coats, primers, paints, etc.

[VehDyn]

Just because you wrap it, doesnt mean you won't have to do a lot of prep. As a former owner of a Stohr FB, I know that you will have to do a bit of sanding so the wrap won't look like the surface of the moon after application. That said, perhaps that would have the effect of dimples on a golf ball? You never know.

The paint job with the flames on the nose you see in the new aero/wing package thread that is getting a lot of replies cost 2500. THat was really cheap, but it was a friend of a friend and he was doing a favor. It took a lot of prep work to say the least. I'll take this opportunity to give it up for Texas Outlaw Customs for the fantastic paint job. That paint job looked a ton faster than I turned out to be.

[Rick Kirchner]

A couple of other potential issues - a lot of shops are used to living off the insurance teat. I's steady income that once properly estimated, isn't questioned. I went to one local shop with FC panels where I had ground out the cracks and reinforced with glass mat but left it ugly because I suck at filler. All that needed to be done was spot fill, sand, prime (they use a high build primer now) and paint. $5000 estimate....

Next shop down the street - $600 out the door. And that was eight years ago! Like doug said - the first price was a "go away" price. OBTW, guess who gets all my insurance work now?

One problem you have in SoCal is the cost of the paint. The painter told me that 50% of the cost of my job was the materials. If you manage to do a backyard job in SoCal, depending on your location, you may either need to spread the work out over several days or buy three different reducers - the temp change during the day if you don't have a conditioned booth will make it tough because the california paint (at least PPG) has a pretty narrow application temperature range. With the morning and evening breezes, and generally dry conditions, there's a lot of dust in the air in SoCal. I've used a big tent from Wal-mart as a paint booth, and sprayed it down with water first to keep the dust down.

The thing to do is go to Vegas for a couple of days and buy paint there. Cheaper and you can get stuff that's more suitable for the backyard shooter.

[ASRF1000]

The Marlboro red on Penske's cars is actually a bright orange if you see it up close in person. The reason is that orange comes out as bright red on TV and in photos. We used it on our Indy Lights car in 2008 when we had Air Force design on it (see photo).

A wrap can be the best way to go, as Wren stated. It last long, protects the bodywork, you can have logos incorporated in it without having to place a bunch of decals on your car, and if you have a local guy who like racing, you can probably get it done relatively cheap, if you let him have his logo on the wrap and possibly allow him to use it for promotional purposes.

That being said, I'm not sure of what the condition of the bodywork is from Stohr as mine was delivered in immaculate condition...thanks Ken!

[Ian Lenhart]

How bad are the panels? Try to make a 30+ year old piece of fiberglass that has battle scars, cracks, and crappy patch jobs from decades of racing look like a million bucks. Your car can't be more then 5 years old so I'm picturing something a bit more presentable. Fill in the chips and do a once over with some fine grit. Prime and take it over to Maaco for the once a year $250.00 presidential special and have them hose it down with some white paint. Oracal makes a high performance cast fluorescent vinyl that will last 2 years outdoor and is available in a Fluorescent red or Flourescent orange and even a flourescent red/orange. Not cheap but more cost effective than having someone paint it.

Ian Lenhart
Level 11 Creative
www.level11creative.com

[Michial Shumate]

Since you are in So-Cal. Take it by, www.skinzwraps.com . They have office in Los Angeles: 310.593.4784

you will be amazed at what they do,

Michial

[dc]

How bad are the panels? Try to make a 30+ year old piece of fiberglass that has battle scars, cracks, and crappy patch jobs from decades of racing look like a million bucks. Your car can't be more then 5 years old so I'm picturing something a bit more presentable.

Ian, brand new from Stohr they make the 30+ year old FF panels look like fresh gelcoat. They have the worst finish I have ever seen—almost like 30-grit sandpaper was used for the mold liner. It's really bizarre. I was completely shocked when I first saw the new bodywork on a freshly delivered FB.

[Purple Frog]

Doug,
That was an aero trick to create good boundry layer separtation at sub-sonic speeds.

[WFelch]

Doug, the reason for the finish is because all our parts are oven cured pre-preg epoxy. The use of gel coat is not possible with the oven temps and chemical properties of the epoxy resin systems. That being said, they are very high performance composites. The strength to weight ratios are much better than any wet layup part. I don't know of anyone else at this level of motorsport using these processes.

We can make beautiful gel coat, wet layup parts, in our molds if anyone is interested.
However, they will not be as strong nor light weight.

Wayne
Stohr Cars

[dc]

Good to hear that they are all light and strong, but every Stohr owner I have met has had nothing bad things to say about the finish of the panels. I guess that's why most of them I have seen are unfinished black. It's too bad they can't be light, strong, and not completely cost prohibitive to paint. They might be light and strong, but they don't stand up to the eye test for quality composites. At least not to my untrained painter's eye.

[WFelch]

I only know of two cars out of twenty nine F-1000s that were not painted for a time. I think they are all painted now. We have had many cars painted locally that have come out great. The prices have always been two to three grand depanding on compexity and color.

If anyone needs help with painting we may be able to help. Give us a call.


Wayne

[Wright D]

Mike Devins (Hurley Racing Products) sells some high temp epoxy "gel coat" type stuff, that will work at oven temps. I have used the room temp cure version for all our vacuum bagged parts. And experimented with the high temp stuff for our pre-preg parts. Give him a call.

[Dick R.]

Since the original poster's question has been fully answered how about a quick thread hijack?

My 85 VD (think DB-1 with side radiators) has been repainted with lots of prep a couple of times and, of course, gets stress cracked in various locations and "heat" cracked near the header pretty quickly.

Will the wrap material work well for total coverage and will it cover the minor stress and heat cracks?

I tow on an open trailer and autox.

FYI the car's current condition is probably "it looks good starting at 20 feet or 20 mph" which works for me but my wife would like "it looks good at 0 feet and 0 mph" but we don't have the budget for a "looks that good for about 5 months".

Thanks,
Dick
CM85

[captain454]

Wow, lots of awesome feedback here, lots to consider. Sounds like I might be able to get a better deal if I shop around a bit, I do have a lead on a couple of other shops, I think I might be able to avoid the "Formula car tax" if I bring it a few parts as stand alone pieces, and see what they can do with them. I also think that at the end of the day it would be pretty cool to see if I can refinish it myself, so I may go to sears this weekend and pick up a compressor tank and some painting equipment.

Oh and BTW, I already have the Marlboro red, I'm definitely going to use it, so no wraps for me. I wanted the authentic color, so I went to the McLaren exhibit section of the Donnington Park Formula 1 museum and took hundreds of photos of the McLaren MP4/6, MP4/7 and MP4/8 so I could use them as a reference. Turns out while I was there the McLaren boys were dropping off an MP4/23, so when they saw what I was doing they put me in direct contact with the guy who painted the Marlboro-era McLarens, and he told me to get paint code RAL3024 aka "dayglow fluorescent red", which I then had imported into the United States last month. Took me 9 months to get it into this country so I'm going to use it!

[F1000champ]

Looking forward to seeing the final project when you have it completed. Should be a great looking car.

[Richard Dziak]

You might want to give Harbor Freight a try on the spray guns. You will need a HVLP (high volume low pressure) gun. They carry quite a few choices and sell a set specifically for automotive. You need only about 35 psi out of the compressor. I have a set and they work great. The prices are unbeatable. They have a website, if you don't have a store close by.

http://www.harborfreight.com/profess...kit-94572.html

I think if you practice with the guns, and get really good at the spray, you will be able to save a ton of $$$$ on the paint job. Of course the body prep will be very important. Be sure you have a good "dust proof" area for the painting. You need paint thinner to keep the guns and tips ultra clean.

Looking forward to seeing the finished product. Have fun.

[captain454]

Thanks for the tip, I've bought a lot of stuff from Harbor Freight in the past, I'll give them a look for my painting needs. In the mean time, some inspiration for my project

[Richard Dziak]

After seeing what you want to do, I would paint the entire car "white" first as the base coat, then come back and add your "red" in the areas shown in the photo. Then simply use vinyl decals from the sponsors or vendors, which I think if you correspond with the racing divisions of Shell, Goodyear etc, they will supply the logos at no cost to you. Decals from Goodyear should be very easy to obtain. There are many websites available to secure logos.

However, in todays era of anti-smoking, I would question the use of the Marlboro logo.
But it does look nice.

I think your paint job may be easier than you think. Body prep will be the key to end result.

Happy painting.

[allof6]

After seeing what you want to do, I would paint the entire car "white" first as the base coat, then come back and add your "red" in the areas shown in the photo. Then simply use vinyl decals from the sponsors or vendors, which I think if you correspond with the racing divisions of Shell, Goodyear etc, they will supply the logos at no cost to you. Decals from Goodyear should be very easy to obtain. There are many websites available to secure logos.

However, in todays era of anti-smoking, I would question the use of the Marlboro logo.
But it does look nice.

I think your paint job may be easier than you think. Body prep will be the key to end result.

Happy painting.

If you are looking to use the neon or day glo colors you will have to have a white base anyways. Working with base coat is very easy. Just make sure your area is clean when using the white. Paint is fairly expensive know but a base coat has a pretty good mixing ratio and a quart will go a long way. Be sure to check the availability of supplies in California as they have some strange laws. Good luck..

[Richard Dziak]

As far as "basecoat paint" and finding a vendor I suggest the following vendor which I have used. Both the quaility of the product and service is outstanding.

http://automotivetouchup.com/auto_paint_basecoat.aspx


You can buy pints, quarts or gallons. I agree with the above poster, a quart will go along way, but I think you may need two quarts. Never hurts to have the extra. At $79.99 per quart it is a small expense. You don't want to run out of paint in the middle of spraying a body panel. The product has already been reduced so you won't have to worry about mixing ratios. You use the paint straight out of the can into the spray gun.

Have fun painting.

P.S. You can also order the "clear coat" from the same vendor.

[captain454]

As far as "basecoat paint" and finding a vendor I suggest the following vendor which I have used. Both the quaility of the product and service is outstanding.

http://automotivetouchup.com/auto_paint_basecoat.aspx


You can buy pints, quarts or gallons. I agree with the above poster, a quart will go along way, but I think you may need two quarts. Never hurts to have the extra. At $79.99 per quart it is a small expense. You don't want to run out of paint in the middle of spraying a body panel. The product has already been reduced so you won't have to worry about mixing ratios. You use the paint straight out of the can into the spray gun.

Have fun painting.

P.S. You can also order the "clear coat" from the same vendor.

You guys are right, and it's just like Ron from McLaren (not Ron Dennis) told me, base coat of pure white (RAL 9010) topped off with a multilayer coat of daylight fluorescent red (RAL 3024). You have to seal the whole thing with a UV protecting clear coat to stop the RAL 3024 from fading in the sun. I've already got 2 liters of the RAL 3024 paint. I still need to get some of the "pure white" RAL 9010, but I figure that's a pretty easy one to get. So I'll try the automotivetouchup.com guys ASAP and see what they can do for me.

[dc]

The truth is, no matter how much UV clear you put on it, though, that all fluorescents will fade in sunlight. It's a downside of the type of pigments in the paint. McLaren guys don't care, because they never sit outside all day at a club race, and they have the ability to repaint if needed.

Clearcoats are a MUST, though. And they aren't much fun to paint yourself.

[Richard Dziak]

Of course it would be great to use the "red" McLaren paint color match.

Doug's comments are correct about the fade process on flourescent paints.

If you want a color that will last and is bright red, try "Ford E4".

Take a look at my website and look at my Phoenix F1000.

It is painted in "Ford E4" and it looks fantastic. No evidence of any fading after 3 1/2 years. Besides you will hardly ever see a Ford E4 paint fade.

Check it out.

I seriously doubt AutoTouchup will have the McLaren white basecoat RAL 9010.

Remember you are only trying to duplicate the look. No FB can ever be a McLaren F1.

Plus you don't have the deep pockets to continuously paint the car over and over like a professional multi-million dollar race car team can do. Doug had a good point.

Happy painting.