Getting so bored with your crappy looking VW Beetle or an old Lexus with dirty paints and aged Lexus clutch?  And, you seem to want the VW to turn into something like this cool looking car?

I saw this picture yesterday and it just amazed me with the art work. Some other art cars were even painted under the hood, the engine cover specifically. So, I got curious of how they painted it. So, I searched and ended up with a paint project of Starbucks Customs featured in hotrod.com. They laid out important points in the job.

If you are interested to get your car painted with art, consider these things that I will be mentioning.

Prior to paint preparation, you got to make sure all the bolt-ons are installed properly, making all holes drilled and knickknacks knicked. Starbucks Customs recommend parting the car, “leaving only the body atop the frame where it would stay throughout the paint and color-sanding process in order to mimic the final fitment”.

Getting the entire body part newly painted would be a best time for a fiberglass repair. Get rid of the rust and dents so as to assure the paint would last longer. First, you got to rough up the area to be repaired, with the use of 80-grit sandpaper. Then, blow the area entirely clean. Make sure sand only the areas where you want the fiberglass repair to eventually stick.

There are two varieties of fiberglass sheets: the thinner, finer ones are for small repairs, and thicker, coarser ones are for large repairs. Whichever among the two is needed cut it eight layers of reducing sizes. It should roughly match the shape you are about to fill it in.

Mix a two-part fiberglass resin. Soak the layers of fiberglass cloth into it. Then, stick them onto the repair area one by one. In this process, consider wearing gloves, and tamp each layer with a plastic spatula, removing as many bubbles as possible between the layers.

After such process, it would look a little, or probably really messy. But, have no worry because the resin will just later easily flake off the areas that were not sanded. Letting it dry longer would be much better for it to shrink to its final size and would then leave you with lessen bodywork later.

After the resin got dried, smoothen it with 36-grit paper first, followed by an 80-grit and 150-grit subsequently. It needs to be thoroughly cleaned before putting in fiberglass-reinforced body filler. Make use of a plastic spatula to feed it deep into the pores of the repair. Then, cut down the high spots with a grater. Let it dry and smoothen it with the 80- and 150-grit paper.

Before getting the body primered, the glassed-in area should be coated with a fine finish filler to remove the sanding marks. And again, finish it with 220-grit paper.

For minor flaws, get it repaired same with the deep spots, but without using heavy filler.

Now, it’s almost ready to get painted. Have the first coat of primer followed by numerous repetitions of sanding and repriming using 150-grit paper and 220-grit after. To even smoothen it up, make use of 600-grit paper.

After several stages of block-sanding and epoxy priming and then wet-sanding and epoxy priming, the body is finally ready for the primer sealer. Make use of four parts hardener and one part reducer. Then, get it painted artistically with colorful paints and handful of skilled strokes. And, behold… a masterpiece!