Photos by Blades Media
We have also recently worked on Damian from TheCarGuys.tv superb and absolutely stunning 458 Speciale Aperta. In extremely limited numbers and very hard to come by, it was a real pleasure to have this in our studio.
Finished in Giallo Triple Strato with a blue nart and white stripe flowing back onto the engine decklid, this of course is a vehicle really worth protecting. With values now floating around £600,000, the only option for this car was full body XPEL Ultimate Plus Paint Protection Film (PPF).
With a perfect match to the official Ferrari launch specification, this is already known as one of the greats, and will go down in history that way.
With this car being used a lot and doing decent mileage for one of these, and not a ‘garage queen’, going on many road trips across the UK and even Europe, it really made sense to go for full body film on a car like this. If the car is looking slightly grubby and in need of a clean, it is not a issue to simply wipe the car down with quick detailer and some cloths, because no damage, such as swirls or scratches will come to the bodywork. Whilst we always recommend the 2 bucket method and it is essential to use pH neutral products, It can also be cleaned on the road and again, due to the film having self healing properties, no damage will come to the paintwork.
Being such a rare and expensive colour, and also with a painted stripe, stone chips, road rash and other damages that are usually prevalent on the front end of cars would not look very good at all and would be a extremely challenging respray, which is highly likely to never look the same again.
After the car is given our through 21 stage wash, the preparation begins for Paint Protection Film.
A really important stage is thoroughly decontaminating the whole car using tar and glue remover and fallout remover, then onto mechanical decontamination, using a clay bar. This car has covered a good few thousand miles already, (although the front end has been protected by PPF from new) so it is even more important all the panels being protected are decontaminated.
Next, we move onto polishing the whole vehicle, to ensure what is being sealed in by PPF is perfection, and also a extremely clean surface for the film to adhere too. After polishing, we then thoroughly re-wash the Speciale Aperta, ensuring all possible polishing dust is removed from panel gaps, as this will cause issues when it is PPF'd. The Ferrari is then air dried, and is now ready for film.
To make it even easier to maintain, we coated the whole car in Gtechniq's specialist wrap or PPF coating, HALO, which makes the car hydrophobic, and therefore bead for around 3-6 months on film depending on usage. Therefore water will simply run off the bodywork, making it extremely easy to dry.
UPDATE - 17/12/19
We visited Damian's garage to give the whole fleet a maintenance wash, before putting the cars away for winter. After another several thousand miles covered in the Speciale, now was a perfect time to give it a overall checkover. The PPF has held up amazingly well, and has done a superb job in protecting the triple layer paintwork.
