2009 AUDI R8 – THE $10,000 WRAP PROJECT

The Audi R8 was the companies first mid-engine supercar. It was designed with extreme performance in mind and with other high-end sports cars in its sights. Since 2008, these amazing vehicles have made their way state-side and opened doors to a new budget friendly supercar. Since their debut, some of these cars get driven hard, some tracked, some stowed away in museums never to see the light of day. This unit made its way around North America before landing in Harford County Maryland. With only 24,000 miles on the odometer, it was shocking to see the despairing condition of the paint when she first arrived.

Not all vehicles are maintained the same way, and everyone’s definition of a professional detail is slightly different. Here at A-PLUS TINT + PPF, we look past the quick gimmicks and want nothing more than your paint to be in the most pristine condition possible. We were saddened to see the rough condition of this 11-year-old paint when she rolled off the trailer. After an extremely thorough examination, it appeared the paint was never properly polished and coated with anything. Wearing water spots, scratches and swirls with very little pride, we knew we had a huge project on our hands.

The first plan of action was to remove and replace the window tint with our XPEL PRIME XR+ window tint and install our windshield protection film! After removing the old mystery tint, we can rest assure the R8 now has the highest-grade window tint on the market. Our windshield protection film is also an amazing service we provide to anyone who never wants to deal with the headache of replacing your windshield.

After polishing the paint out to a crystal-clear finish, we decided we wanted to wrap the R8 in an eye-catching new color. The black Is beautiful, but we can always remove the wrap down the road and reveal that beautiful metallic black paint once again. After long consideration, we landed on Porsche Maritime Blue vinyl wrap. We wanted something that flowed with the carbon fiber accents, something that wasn’t too bright (yellow or orange), and something that was easy on the eyes.

After dismantling all the major panels, we started laying down some vinyl! This brand of vinyl is not the easiest to work with, the R8 has some tricky panels such as the front clam/hood and bumpers. The front hood is only difficult because it measures larger than the vinyl is made, which requires a big stretch and a lot of heat! The benefits of this brand vinyl is, super glossy, paint like finish that most other brands don’t offer. Only downside is it doesn’t install like normal vinyl and doesn’t share the same properties as 3M, Avery, Oracal, and other big brands. The adhesive is heat activated and its very important to make sure you go over all edges and corners 2-3 times with your heat gun to make sure everything is sealed up. The results are amazing and if installed correctly, you can fool the average person into thinking you have an actual paint job.

Once we wrapped up our final pieces in blue, a tough, conscious, and expensive decision had to be made. We wanted to fully protect the wrap with our XPEL ULTIMATE PLUS PPF (paint protection film). This is ordinarily a service provided to protect your paint from getting stone chips, scratches, or any medium-light damage. This service can typically range from $6500-8500 to cover an entire vehicle. Most of the time, just protecting the “front clip” will suffice, in this case we wanted all the vinyl to be protected. Fortunately, XPEL makes a 72” wide gloss PPF, we were able to use that on the hood which helped tremendously during install. The entire car was covered in XPEL PPF over top the vinyl wrap, was it an overkill? Absolutely! But it looks incredible and is resilient to any damage to the existing paint underneath, which is a HUGE plus!

Once the XPEL PPF (paint protection film) is fully cured, the finish is unlike any other! On top of the glossiest vinyl, it truly looks like paint. The major benefit of having XPEL PPF is now the entire vehicle has a thick and clear urethane layer that is extremely difficult to puncture and scratch. We fully wrap every edge and corner carefully to ensure the best finish for the long term. We topped the PPF off with our Gtechniq Crystal Serum Ultra Ceramic coating. Adding even more gloss and a super hydrophobic topcoat that helps with cleaning and staining!

Since we completed the most expensive wrap job on this R8, it has undergone a few more modifications such as Air Suspension and Vossen wheels! Don’t forget we are a Vossen wheel distributor and can get any car, truck or SUV set up with the best fitting wheel and tire combination. Enjoy these final photos of the R8 all completed!