GOLD BMW M5 from Moscow- Is it Plated or Vinyl?

[lino]

Does anyone know if this is car is gold plated or if it's vinyl? Some sites say it's plated, while one person claims he's a friend of the owner and says that it's vinyl. I'm not interested in the color, I just would like to know how vinyl is applied?

[elwesso]

i suppose it could be an overlay like people do for headlights and tailights.. but I dont know if its possible to tell by those pictures.. Regardless, they did a pretty good job..

[BLACKonBLACK98]

vinyl is a big a** sticker basically. a lot of exotics run vinyl these days (particularly flat black) and it has trickled down. not much cheaper than paint from what i understand but reversable.

*edit - the roll of vinyl on the windshield in the one pic is a dead giveaway.
Modified by BLACKonBLACK98 at 7:51 PM 6/30/2009

[AZhitman]

Neither.

It's an aluminum coating developed by Alsa Corp.

It's applied like a paint, with a lot of metal in it, which is then polished (like metal) after curing.

They have a yellow clear coat, which, when applied over silver, looks like gold.

EDIT: Alsa also makes an adhesive film like that, but I still think it's the polished coating. The adhesive film would be near impossible to apply on some of the sharper curves.

[BLACKonBLACK98]

[AZhitman]

Couldn't see the pics, but once I got them, it looks like you're right - NICE catch!

Which begs the question - Why paint a car in this day and age?

I have a buddy who does vinyl, and he can actually incorporate a photograph into it... it's as glossy as paint, and virtually indistinguishable from a good paint job.

[Q451990]

Wow... I would love to see this in "black chrome"

Heath

[AZhitman]

Could be this:

http://alsacorp.com/products/m...o.htm

Or this:

http://www.alsacorp.com/produc...o.htm

But I don't see anything that looks like a gold laminate. And if ANY company makes it, it's Alsa.

I'm gonna go back to my original position that it's a sprayed-on process.

[maxnix]

I would guess reflective film applied with a heat gun. Isn't there a roll visible in one of the pictures in the garage?

But Jeezus, how awful can one get?
Modified by maxnix at 3:53 AM 7/1/2009

[MinisterofDOOM]

Definitely looks like yellow clear over aluminum coating like Greg said. Look at the bottom picture showing the rear of the car; you can see the clear has chipped away in a couple spots, revealing reflective silver beneath. Basically the same way they do those horrible dealer gold packages: yellow varnish over the chrome.

I'm not sure what the cylindrical thing is...

Those pictures make me dry heave. As if the Bangle 5 series wasn't eyebleedingly ugly enough already, we have to make it gold, the single ugliest color in the history of ugly colors? If the guy needs attention THAT bad, there are plenty of optically-safe means he could pursue.

[maxnix]

I don't think you could use an ealstomer with the metalicized paint and get it not to crack on the polyurethane (or whatever non-metal is used) parts.

But the film would work, until it got rock chips.

You all decide. It hurts my eyes and it comes under the life is too short category to spend any more time on it.

[lino]

Found this:

http://jalopnik.com/399961/bmw...-tape

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ibR9MoKYg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0xGjFhTAGUCar was painted by Chrome it!. In Toronto, Not using Alsa's paint.