Design, Preparation & Paint
We had contacted good friend Darren West of Power Race Graphics and asked him to come up with a design for the new car that was unmistakably Firestorm using its original colours. The Hairy Glass carbon fibre body has been painted to Darren’s design and we were really pleased with the outcome. The design has worked well to show off the sleek lines of the Mustang body, there was a massive amount of preparation to get an even shape on both sides of the car whilst also working on retaining the shaping on the air intakes which is needed to achieve maximum air flow. All this hard work has culminated in the shape and features on the body being enhanced, giving the body its final sexy shape. When you look at the amount of work that has gone into the alterations to the body you can fully appreciate the massive amount of work that had also gone into the preparation to get the body ready for paint.
We had already spoken to Andy and Tom Scott of Custom Painthouse, about possibly airbrushing the grill and front and rear lights. We thought it might be a tall order but how wrong we were. Both Andy and Tom were adamant that the Firestorm name would also be airbrushed on because in their words “we don’t do stickers”! They’d picked up that the road car had an additional centre brake light which they put on, this turned out to be the perfect place for their signature as well. Their attention to detail is phenomenal, words don’t do it justice and it is truly the icing on the cake. Andy and Tom are award winning airbrush artists and by sheer good luck they are also from our home town of Rotherham. Not only are they both superb artists they are also really knowledgeable with regards to design and preparation work so worked with everyone to get the very best from the design and also achieve a stunning final finish. We cannot thank them enough for all their hard work and contributions to the Firestorm cause.
Andy Scott had put us in touch with Mick from The Spray Shop in Barnsley where the car was taken for final paint and lacquer. It came from there looking absolutely gorgeous and good enough to go to a custom car show never mind to the race track!
We had been shopping round to have a windscreen manufactured for the car. With the old car we had been able to do them ourselves as the screen area on the old body was much smaller so the screen could be flat. It is a different matter now, the screen has to have a double curvature. We took a mould of the windscreen area so we didn’t have to take the body anywhere, this was delivered to a company near Telford who let us down badly. We were then pointed in the direction of a Company in Bolton called Plastics 4 Performance who we now know are the world leading manufacturer in preformed Motorsport lexan window kits and also offer a bespoke service for anything not listed in their catalogue which covers both historic and modern cars. Roger spoke to Paul at Plastics 4 Performance who assured us we were now in the right place and he was really keen to help. Once they heard about all the problems we’d had they pulled out all the stops for us and we picked up our new screen one week later! We could not thank them enough. It is an absolutely perfect fit and looks stunning on the car.
This is a very very condensed version of the construction of the next generation Firestorm. There is much more to this story but we felt that we should concentrate this report on these key areas!
When we finally started to assemble the car for the last time in the workshop we really could not believe how well everything worked together, from all the engineering components to the carbon fibre parts and the shape of the modified body – it turned out (and we hope you agree) to be an absolutely stunning race car. All the hard work and determination had paid off, we had a vision and the new Firestorm has truly exceeded that vision.
PAINT GALLERY