Mostly-calypso: A $600 learning experience [Now S52 swapped]

[stonea]

Damn, that turned out nice. Congrats on having the balls and diving into it.

[sam_]

looks really nice. congrats!

[jpod999]

Congrats on finishing that up, a vinyl wrap is definitely not something I would undertake on my own!

[NJBiddle]

Finished up the wrap + reassembly this weekend. Will be getting some proper photos later this week after it's been cleaned up and all my trim bits are done. But here's a little photodump of the process of the whole deal.


Finishing the passenger side



Back corner was kinda tricky



Front bumper assembled



Showing how close the color match is. It's a shade more red/pink than calypsorot but pretty close



Taping up the seam for the roof. There are 8 seams total on the car for each pillar (top and bottom). You could probably do this with only 4 seams, but this was way easier







Cutting out the sunroof







Aaaaaaand all finished up and reassembled:





Overall I'm super happy with the results. My shabby bodywork still shows through, so there's definitely some incentive to have it professionally stripped and painted at some point in the future. Shoutout to those of you who do this professionally - extremely tedious and time-consuming. Took myself and my girlfriend ~3 weeks total working weekends and a few evenings when we had the time. Stay tuned for some better pictures :D

[NJBiddle]

Your threads makes me have mixed feelings about vinyl.

I would have definitely preferred a paint job, but $650 for the vinyl+supplies vs $3k-$5k for a good respray is a pretty easy decision at least for a few years. Whole lotta work though that's for sure.

[ahrensNW]

Your threads makes me have mixed feelings about vinyl.
Your car is coming along quite nicely, nice pick up.

[Cephas]

Kudos for diving right in! Thanks for sharing.

[BobombETA]

Solid progress so far! That cat has murder eyes.

[NJBiddle]

Made a little more progress this weekend. Finished basically the whole front end. Only panels left are the roof and the rear quarters which I'm not looking forward to -- complex curves are haaaaaaard. Sorry for the potato pics:





Also re-painted the trim, but it's not coming out quite right. Think it's too hot/humid here in TN for the paint to lay down.

[Chase Bays]

Fun read, cool that you're fearlessly diving in. I've considered picking up an X5 myself. Just makes sense.

[NJBiddle]

Thanks for the encouragement everybody. Protip for those interested in wrapping, the color I used was a little semi-translucent so things like white/pink primer or filler will show through pretty clearly. Had to hit spots with a darker primer to cover it up, which probably should be done anyway



Got a couple panels done this week, so hopefully I'll be done soon. In the meantime, here's a shot taken a couple months ago after a local E30 poker run a few groups in the area organized:



Had a great time - looking forward to the next one!

[Staszek]

Great progress, cant wait to see the results.

[iwantspeed]

Nice work so far

[NJBiddle]

And the 3.0 X5 is uber reliable!

Only time will tell.. Hoping the 5MT adds to the reliability factor. Where's the fun in boring reliable cars though amirite

[SSE30]

Dope calypso.

And the 3.0 X5 is uber reliable!