How to: Gulf livery on 73 RSR
 

Ok after many,many,many, did I say many? hours of prep, bare steel chassis, new cage, fitment of all parts, blocking and priming, painting the cockpit black, taping that off, back on the rotiss to paint the pan, trunk, wheelhouses with single stage blue, remove from the rotiss, final block and tape off all previous painted surfaces, the shell gets a white epoxy base/sealer and blue base coat applied....
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1110557734.jpg
the blue base coat sits overnight, and hood, doors and both tails are refitted to the chassis. the taping begins, careful measurements are started with centerlines ,templates, and good? judgement. 18" used for spacing + 3/4 for black. the door lines are found with a string from front of fender/bumper line to rear fender/bumper line, giving a touch line at the flares. the door is opened to touch the string, and that height transposed to the rocker, thus giving a height to carry forward on the door. after all the initial tape lines have been set, all bolt on parts removed and the outer body basecoat blue and all previous single stage painted surfaces are completely taped off. Black basecoat sprayed, allowed to dry, and taped off 3/4...
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1110558538.jpg http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1110558588.jpg
Next the orange is applied...http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1110558805.jpg http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1110558866.jpg
a little dry time and the anticipation gets itchy, time to untape the body to reveal the complete basecoat portion of the paintwork...http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1110559022.jpg

Clean up the booth, clean up the car, tack off all that you can see, and spray three coats of urethane clear to bring out the lusterhttp://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1110559256.jpg http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1110559303.jpg
A full wetsand and buff with 1000 and 1500 levels the clear and makes the tri-color seamless, very gratifying. Bolt on the hood and wow! the customer is pleased, but there is a long road of assembly ahead, this is just the chassis, the 2.8 high butterfly is going to be awesome.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1110559637.jpg http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1110559675.jpg
Next project? SmileWavy

Sweet!

Awesome. I'd love to be capable of that level of craftsmanship.

Scha-weet!

The photos make the blue look a little paler than you typically see, which I think looks really cool.

I have a question, though. I've seen other 911's with this paint scheme, and I always wish the stripe ran head to toe, without curving out on the front hood to that bell shape. My quirky tastes, probably. But were there Gulf-liveried competition cars that had the front hood done that way? I assume that must be the case.

Beautiful car, though.

Man, what an artist! Damon, that thing blows me away.
Troy

That's erotic.

Mike

Looks great, nice choice. Looking forward to more updates.

Thanks for the compliments, you get pretty high when the work is done, could be a combination of the fumes and subsequent beers to a job well done. And ah, yes I use supplied air in the booth! I can gaze at this stuff after all the hours and marvel and poof it leaves! Back to resurrecting another 911! the process starts all over again.
I taped the car the way the owner wanted it, I have yet to peruse the new book Blue and Orange, but I do not believe a 911 was ever raced in the livery of the day. that was GT-40's and 917's.

Nice job Damon! You never cease to amaze me. Hey is that Sanborn's car?

Great job!! I'm drueling!!

Damon,

You are a true artist.

Michael

cool details
 

the inner door jambs continue the striping, rather than just ending abruptly...
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1110562757.jpg http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1110562813.jpg

The Martini stripes are truly astounding, 5 colors all wavy over a the 935, thats some painstaking work, I am ready for that challenge! Or get me a C4 and use my 959 bodywork and do it up P/D Rothmans, just waiting for the right wreck! Guess I will have to settle for redoing the Brumos livery on the RSA, track time is coming, even though we are expecting ANOTHER foot of snow this weekend!

Damon,

Looks great! Please keep my slot reserved to respray the RSR.

Brian, maybe we can tease you into the martini livery?

That's what I'm talkin' about!


I may just have to add a center stripe to mine.

I was thinking just the plain old #2323 Tangerine, though you never know. :-)

Brian , BE BOLD!!! what is so great about being "plain old", cuz ya know its "Live Free or Die" or Live, Freeze and Die, or is it "live ski and die"???? whatever, but we are all going to be dead for a long time, SO BE BOLD!!!!

We'll see. What's the time frame? 8 more weeks till you can take it?

The Gulf-Wyer 917K's ran two color schemes. One was the wrap around stripe as you describe and one was the straight stripe front to back. This made it possible for the teams to identify the cars at a glance. Example, Siffert's car usually had the wrap and Rodriguez usually had the simple stripe.

There are many cases of this type of thing still being done today. Teams that field two or more cars with the same livery usually make one colorful change to identify the drivers while keeping the overall look of the team unified.