Not the average Jag

Ok, so my current car is a Jaguar X-type which has a stigma attached to it of being an old man's car, well I'm here to change this (1st November 2014), admittedly it is.

The first idea was to vinyl wrap the car, which is seriously difficult to do on your own. The result was really good, but it must have taken me around 3 hours to do each panel. The most awkward part was getting rid of material, like due to the bonnet having creases it allowed me to stretch the material, making it relatively easy-ish. The bumper wouldn't have been too bad either, but I had already used way too much vinyl up from mistake's. The roof and boot lid were probably the hardest parts, and wrapping it solo was impossible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next idea was to paint the car, unfortunately I would have to do it outside in a relatively high temperature climate, which was the time when I wrapped the car, although now the time is not right. I was going to wait until next year but I found something else - bed liner. It's not very common over here in the UK, and basically is a thick plastic coating that is applied to the bed of a pickup truck to add a level of resilience. I think it looks cool, so why not coat the car in it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first part was to key the original lacquer, I used an extremely coarse scouring pad, no going back now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The liner is a polyurethane based material, it comes in a bottle in which a hardener is then added. The bottle is shaken and then screwed onto a schutz gun, I have to say that I'm very impressed how easy all of this is. It took about 5 minutes to spray the bonnet, I will be coating the bonnet, wings and the front bumper twice as these will take the force of day to day driving, the rest of the car will get one coat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I removed the front bumper, and then the wings, these took a real lot of effort to work out where all the bolts were. I didn't have the time to spray the lot due to preparation times, so I chose the wings as these require the most time to fit. The next day I will spray the bumper in the morning, fit the wings and then the bumper in the afternoon. My air compressor doesn't quite seem to be up to the job, so the texture is a little different to the bonnet. Hopefully next weekend the weather should be good, I will prep the car in the mean time and then when it gets to the weekend, I will mask off the whole car - which will take about 2 hours. Give the areas a really good clean, and then spray the whole of the car at once using my works compressor, this will ensure that the texture everywhere will be consistent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I fit the wings in the morning and they looked awful, so I made the decision to take it back to work and respray it, and do the bumper at the same time. It was clear that my compressor was not up to the task, the flow was not high enough and it would not atomise the paint. The wings and the bumper have come out a different texture to the bonnet, but hopefully next weekend this problem will be rectified.

 

I spent the next week sanding down the car, I only had two days to spray the car, one was raining and this day was cold and a little damp, but I took the risk. It took so long to mask everything off and give it a clean, but I got there in the end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The spraying is now finished, the only parts to do now are the door handles, the mirrors and the wheels. The front wings looks a little duller than the rest of the car, this is because they are dirty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A year and a half later the paint is still fine, I didn't expect to ever sell the car but I chose to get a Canada work visa and the car had to go. The interior was immaculate and mechanically it was perfect, I had spent quite a bit of money, clutch, tyres, etc... so I guessed this would help with the sale, I even considered importing it but it was too costly. I managed to get £850, I would have easily doubled this if it wasn't for the paint but I did have fun and did get a lot of attention from it, money is certainly not everything.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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