1967 Pro-Touring 122 Amazon (Project Volvo X)540 Horsepower LS6/Tremec TKO600 5-Speed

[Iamtheonlyreal1]

This is quite amazing, mate. It's unique as hell, to say the least it will hardly look like a Volvo.

Personally, the color will make or brake the car, since it will be a hugely modern look. Willing to see how you'll pull it off.

I hope that it still recognizable as a Volvo Amazon, because I was only wanting to make changes that fit the car, but also highlighted the Performance Presence in public. And you are right about the color making or breaking the car, but it isnt like I painted it Purple.. LOL

[Iamtheonlyreal1]

Here are some Volvo X updates, and it looks like the car is finally getting some color on it next week.. It has been blocked sanded about 10 times already, and the results really look great, although it is really hard to show it in these pics. We have settled on the paint application process, and we will be painting the assembled exterior of the car first, and then exploding the car back to pieces again, so we can then achieve completely overspray free jambs and engine bay.

I have had my Email hijacked, and barely got it back, so I hope people havent gotten to much spam from my accounts, because I was not out of the country and robbed.. LOL It is amazing what kind of trouble that can do, and how much havoc they can play on your linked accounts, let alone actually get them back after being locked out of them.

[yurotrash]

[Edgar.]

This is quite amazing, mate. It's unique as hell, to say the least it will hardly look like a Volvo. And if your painter can pull it off, then my god, considering the room for error is as wide as it gets on a paint job.
Obviously you can't stroke the gun from left to right, since it will have more of a silver look between the length end strokes. So up and down the whole car? Just paint the damn thing!
Personally, the color will make or brake the car, since it will be a hugely modern look. Willing to see how you'll pull it off.

[Red535is' slave]

this is an exceptional build! ive always loved thses cars!

[Iamtheonlyreal1]

We have been extremely busy, and with this color choice, it is even more critical everything is as close to perfect as possible. I cannot really show the highlight affects in these pictures, but it is really off the wall how much variation in highlight and color is involved, and it will really showcase the shape of this car. This color is primarily used on alot smaller items, and not to often on a whole car, and now we can see why.

We are about at one more last blocking, along with making sure all the small details are taking care of, which includes some extreme cleaning and prepping before paint. We have a plan on how to paint the car, and we have to do it a bit backwards.. We would normally jamb the car out, and paint under the hood and in the trunk first, but this will not work here. There is really no good way to paint all the parts of the car at the same time, so we have to do it in stages. With this paint system, we cannot overlap coats, we cannot speed up or slow down gun strokes, we cannot have a variance in spray volume or speed, and that really complicates applying the paint over all the transitions from the Top of the car and to the side of the car, not to mention the need to wrap around curvatures.

The car has to be painted Black first, and the the Liquid Metal is actually a very fine specialized Pearl Like coating over the Black Base. If you dont have enough or even spray pattern, you will have a blotchy mess with too much black showing through.. If you put it on too heavy at points, it really just turns into Silver Paint, and totally loses all the Metal Affect. The application plan is this.. We will paint all the exterior of the car in 1 assembled piece, and then worry about under the hood, door jambs, trunk, interior, ect. By doing this, we can ensure that we dont have overspray in the normally previously painted jambs that can affect the overall color, and they will be completely fresh. After the exterior of the car is fully painted and cured, we will pull the doors, hood, and trunk off the car, and then mask off the exterior, so we can lay them down on a table to be able to have full access around the door, trunk, hood for an even spray pattern. At that time, we will also paint the under hood, body door jambs, and trunk area, so we have an unobstructive spray capability for them also. The Exterior of the car Has to be fully assembled in order to be painted, or else we are taking chances on eveningly matching color/affect of each panel, because that is all affected by the mixing of the color batch, application/timing and stroke pattern of the gun, ect..


It was kind of a cloudy day, and I cant really show it affectively in the pictures, but there is a huge range of highlight and color. When the light hits parts of the panel dead one, it is about the brightest looking silver/metal color you can get, and then all the contours are more of a graphite metal look, and it not your conventional pearl look at all.

[Iamtheonlyreal1]

Aren't there car vinyl wraps in the liquid metal type look?

I was looking into the vinyl wraps, but they have their ups and downs also... First down is, all the jambs arent done, so you have to have paint the games in a ballpark or neutral color, and they are not exempt from daily driver damage also.. You also have to all the same bodywork completely done before you can apply the wrap, and the actually wrap cost is more than the paint and material, so you might as well paint it, so all the nooks and crevices of the car all done in the same color. Atleast that is how I weighed out the Pro's and Con's.

[89325iturbo]

Aren't there car vinyl wraps in the liquid metal type look?

[Iamtheonlyreal1]

Well the Spray Test was a fail, and we will have to try again.. It seems that the application process is completely different than typical paint, so we ended up with nothing more than a couple of variations of Silver Paint.. LOL My painter applied the Liquid Metal mixture as if it was a typical paint process to gain coverage, and this is apparently the wrong process for this Color, because the heavier the build the more it looks like regular paint. I called PPG and talked to them, and found out that our paint supplier also supplied us with the wrong Reducer, which also caused it to have a more silver paint appearance.. I was advised that the needed application process is more like a Pearl Application Coat, and if you go beyond or heavier than that, it will look like standard paint.. A black base coat is needed, and you apply thin fast layers of the Liquid Metal over the top, but you arent going for coverage with the Liquid Metal layers at all.. It is completely trial and error to get the metal look you are going for, and that is accomplished by the very thin application of the Liquid Metal Paint over the black, while not completely covering the black base coat... It sounds like we are going to have alot of practice on test panels, and it might be a respray or two, because this could be a very difficult paint job to get uniformity over the whole body.. I feel sorry for the painter on this one..

Here is the Liquid Metal Affect, and this is basically what it should look like on the car, but as you can see from the pictures below, it isnt how it came out after application..

[Iamtheonlyreal1]

I'm probably the only one that likes that wine red color better than the pricey silver stuff

I dont have a problem with the Brandy/Wine colors, but they have there place, and it isnt on this car.. LOL JK.. I have this 69 Pro-Touring El Camino I am driving, and I like the color on it..

[ItsaCorolla]

I'm probably the only one that likes that wine red color better than the pricey silver stuff

[Iamtheonlyreal1]

Well here are some pics of our Starter Base Coat experiment.. We are using the PPG Liquid Metal Paint, and a couple of different base coat colors for this test, so I can choose the best overall color result.. I have seen that most guys tend to use a black base, but I think that gives it more a Chrome Affect, which I am trying to avoid.. I have a Black, Charcoal, and Silver intial base coat sprayed, and then we will have a Gloss and Satin clear cutting that in half to make a color grid.. I am still leaning toward the Satin Clear, but if this color looks more like metal than a paint, I may run the gloss for potential cleaning and maintenance reasons.. If it is more of a subtle difference between the Satin and Gloss, I will probably go for the Gloss, because the Satin takes alot of special cleaning and maintenance procedures, which can be a pain in the ass for a daily driver.

We have to wait for the Satin Clear to dry overnight, because it takes a bit for it to flatten back out as it dries. We can apply the Gloss Clear in the morning, and I will get those pics up then.. It is very hard to see the difference with pictures, but there is a difference between the different color base coats.

[Raarasutra]

that color!

[Iamtheonlyreal1]

Here are a few more body work updates from later last week, and it is getting closer and closer now, so it is time to lock on a color.. I am going for a bare metal theme, and dont want any metallic style silver or typical greys, so I dont really have any other alternative other than a Liquid Metal Color. I plan on going with a PPG Liquid Metal paint color, and will probably still go toward the finish with a satin clear, but we will be spraying test panels to see if a gloss or satin works best with this paint. Overall, gloss would be better maintenance wise, but I am not looking for flashy high gloss style paint job for the theme I am going for.

Here are some more pictures of under the hood, and how it is getting cleaned and prepped for primer and paint. I have been battling the flu over the last week, so I havent been able to get out there for more current pics. In the last few weeks, it seems like someone in the household, someone working on items, or myself has been stricken with the flu going around.









Here are a few sample pics of the Liquid Metal Color that I am probably going to run. This stuff is about 200 dollars a pint, so we are trying to see if it is possible to put a couple of coats of a close silver base down for coverage first, and that way we can go over the top of it with with the high dollar stuff to save cost. My painter suggested using a neutral base color for initial coverage, and once initial coverage is achieved, and then apply the minimal necessary color application to save material cost. We are going to try that on a couple of test panels first, that way we can make sure the color doesnt change.

[Iamtheonlyreal1]

Here are the new Door to Fender Gaps, and it is items like this that will set the car off, because they took alot of work and attention to get them this way.. It is looking like we have a few more Guide Coat/Block Sanding steps, and then it will be in full color soon.. I cant wait to get out of the body shop updates, and start having more colorful updates soon.. Once Volvo X is back at the shop, we are doing some reorganization, and then Project Saint Marie and an P1800es project will start up again. Alot of items from Volvo X are being duplicated for those builds, along with future builds, so the pace of everything should start picking up, being that everything will basically be off the shelf items..