The Car Show - Preserving the rigs

[Marc R. O'Leary]

I'm curious about these coating...I mean if you really hit it hard with a baseball bat/big hail, wouldn't the metal substrate panel just deform?

And I suppose kiss any resale value goodbye. But I guess if it's a chase vehicle, it'll be beat to s$%t anyway and smell like cheetos and swass after a few years chasing.

 

[B. Dean Berry]

That's usually the case. I've never really bought a chase vehicle (or any vehicle) with resale value in mind. They're tools. There for a while, I was buying them for $2000, selling them for $500-$1200. This newer car is nicer, and $13K, but I have no illusions that it will be beaten to death and ready for the junkyard by the time I get rid of it.

 

[James Hilger]

I didn't notice a difference in mpg. With q either vehicle. I still get over 30. Not sure exactly how thick it is. There's 3 coats everything, then probably 5-6 coats on the top, hood, and fenders. Finished off what I had left on the vulnerable areas. It's not invincible, but I let elementary kids hit it. Never had a panel cave in, but would be would be easy to fix. Obviously wouldn't have to worry about cracking anything obviously. The Raptor is made to absorb.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[Todd Lemery]

I also have the Raptor coating on mine. The one thing that really surprised me was how dirt really doesn’t stick to it. With the surface being rough I thought clay would end up being a permanent fixture on it, but it comes right off in the rain. I’ve had it for a couple of years and have never washed it. You can’t even tell.
The other thing is, I’ve had it in baseball sized hail and without a mark to show from it. For the couple of hundred bucks to do it, plus a few hours, I couldn’t be happier with it.

 

[B. Dean Berry]

This site. Man, I used to stare at this site for hours back in my senior year of high school in 1999. Just chomping at the bit to build something as nice myself.

I may save these photos and transpose them over to this thread for safekeeping. No telling how long this will stay there.

https://www.stormeyes.org/tornado/vehicles/

 

[Marc R. O'Leary]

This site. Man, I used to stare at this site for hours back in my senior year of high school in 1999. Just chomping at the bit to build something as nice myself.

I may save these photos and transpose them over to this thread for safekeeping. No telling how long this will stay there.

https://www.stormeyes.org/tornado/vehicles/

You need to add Hank Schyma's T.I.T. to that list. If for anything it's designation.

 

[B. Dean Berry]

Now thinking about it, there are pushbars with wraparound brush guards made for my car. Of course, they're police model, but I'm trying to think of ways to make it not look like a police model. Maybe a set of KC HiLiTES 57 series fog lights? The car needs actual fog lights anyway, as those factory things are more like accent lights.

I'm also thinking of having something like Hilger's rear guard custom-made for my car. I really like this guard.

 

[Marc R. O'Leary]

Question is...is the rear guard necessary, or is it just weight?

 

[B. Dean Berry]

Front/rear guards help ever-so-slightly with collisions, if it's at a slow enough speed, but they really shine when you need to shove something. The front guards are also super-helpful to protect your car in the event of a collision with an object made of meat. Around here, that's deer strikes.

 

[Kevin Bowman]

I'm curious about these coating...I mean if you really hit it hard with a baseball bat/big hail, wouldn't the metal substrate panel just deform?

And I suppose kiss any resale value goodbye. But I guess if it's a chase vehicle, it'll be beat to s$%t anyway and smell like cheetos and swass after a few years chasing.

I saw this video and thought it might be interesting considering the conversation.

 

[B. Dean Berry]

The only negatives I hear about spray-on liner is that it's ugly, or it destroys resale value, or that it's just "stupid" in a nondescript way. I think it's more ~ a e s t h e t i c ~ than hail dents and scratched-up paint, which pretty much every chase vehicle gets after enough time in-service. Any chase vehicle that gets to the point of having high miles on it will also have such damage, so there goes the resale value as well. There's really not much reason not to do it anymore, except for looking like an extra from a Mad Max movie, but they make it so you can tint it any color now.

 

[Mikayla Norris]

These photos are located on my phone and not my work computer. So I'm going to just post them and then edit the post with the information a little later this morning.

EDIT:
This was my 2000 Jeep Cherokee 4.0. It was mainly used back in 2008-2010 while I was still in college. It went all over AL, FL panhandle, GA, and MS. It doesn't look like much, but is still my most extensive set up to date. We weren't very experienced being just freshman and sophomores, so not much luck aside from a single funnel cloud, but it was always fun.


This was kind of a neat rig my buddy made so we could get the wall to wall severe coverage of local news stations on his laptop. Made with a digital TV antenna rigged up on a camera tripod




This was my 2008 Toyota Camry with a 5 speed manual. It saw sporadic use from 2008 up until 2013. At this point in my life I had goofed off too much to still be in college unfortunately. Despite that I always took what chances I had to see what I could see. Mostly lightning and hail though
And my current vehicle is a 2004 Subaru Forester XT with the 5 speed manual. Also has a small 2 inch lift and slightly larger than stock tires. It's loads of fun. So far not much chasing in this with the exception of marginally severe hail cores around San Angelo. It has actually seen more action sitting in the parking lot than it has out on the road. I hope to change that soon though