Applying these was harder than I thought especially around that highly curved rear lower bumper. All in all I like the way it came out (just dont look too closely ).

Chuck

 

Great Job!

-J

(Signature deleted by heavy-handed admin)

 

That thing got a HEMI?


Looks great.

 

Looks good man! Hmmm, Dark Silver w/ black viper stripes? That would look sooooooo evil.

 

Thanks all, you probably cant see it in the pics but I've also got a perforated sunroof cover that continues the look all the way across the car.

 

Sweeet.

 

Didi you get those from cooper flags? That is what I am looking to do too mine, which is dark silver with black stripes... oh yeah that is very nice looking, i think that just made up my mind about my viper stripes that I have been contemplating on.

 

I did and overall I'm pleased but let me throw out a word of caution.

I think I remember on they website that they stuff is "laser cut" which I have no doubt that it is but the material I got was just two 120 inch stripes. I was kinda hoping that they would cut out individual pieces. I shouldnt be that difficult.
And the sunroof decal is a dry install, so no adjustments are really possible after you start.

The parts of the mini that give the most trouble are the rear bumper and the cavity below the bumper (but I have the aero kit thats all painted body colour and I didnt use the grill decals so to some extent my mess is my own making).

or just shell out to have 'em professionally installed.

 

I will definetly be having it professionally installed, there is no way I could handle doing that hahaha. I also have to take off my old stripes or the people who put them on have to take them off, one of the two.

 

Hey Chuck,

That looks awesome. I wanted to do something similar but I went with DS/DS because the IB wasn't available when I ordered mine(early '02). I was wondering, have you gone on any of the NorCalMINIs runs? I would love to see your car up close. Come to one of our events and show off your car! Hope to see you around.

 

Wow! great job! I have an IB/w that I am going to be painting the whole aero kit and trim as well...I have been trying to find pics of what it would look like for sometime just to stare at...lol...looks awsome! PLUS I LOVE THE VIPER STRIPES WITH THE IB/IB!

GREAT JOB LOOKS AWSOME!

 

Beautiful! One of the best striped MINIs yet:smile:

 

oh stop, you're embarassing me

(just kidding :smile: thanks all you're too kind)

 

Looks really good to me. :smile:

I put on my own traditional stripes, but I think they are much easier than any of the stripes that go down the middle of the bonnet.

 

My submission is....

 

They definitely are. Centered stripes have a lot more lumps, bumps, and contours to deal with and are a lot harder to do. I'll try to attach a couple of pics of my stripes. Since I've basically got five stripes, all edge to edge, it drove the striper nuts. Better him than me.
MININose.JPG MINIButt.JPG

 

We have 2003 IB/IB S almost just like your's, except ours has Silver viper stripes and we always get the best compliments. I would post pictures, but i have to wait for my husband to do it...not good at that stuff. We couldn't find anyone to do the ones for the sunroof though, do you have someone local or a number for the person who did yours? Around the curves you don't want to really look too closely either..our stripe guy had to "do-over" about 10 times.

 

well I bought all the material from cooper flags (check sponsor directory) and I did the application myself. CF should have no prob making a sunroof cover for you provided they can match the silver (if you have color code or piece of leftover material you could send them I think it would help).

 

Thanks for responding, I will contact them and see what they can do...again..your mini looks great!!

 

cdconsor, Any thought to striping the boot lid handle?

 

well that was what I had originally did but I found that I liked the asthetic of the boot handle better unstriped. So to make the striping easier on myself, I removed the handle and applied the material underneath. Worked pretty well.

Really (and I know this wasnt part of your question but I'm going to expouse anyway) the only difficult part was the rear bumper cover, and especially the lower part. The upper part could easily be solved if CF would cut a curved piece to fit. The lower part is just ugly.

 

How wide are those stripes? 6"? How did you get them under the rear MINI logo? I'm looking to do this also.

How did you get the stripe to curve on the rear aero bumper without looking too skinny? I have the aero as well.

Looks good in photos, are you happy with it close up?

 

7 inches, 3.5 inch gap between them. I'm happy with the look at a range of about 5 feet away, any closer than that and you have to see the surgery I performed on the rear bumper (again upper is ok, lower is ... somewhat less so).

eventually I'll probably give it another go, but its fine for now (other fish to fry).
As far a placement goes, I used really low stick masking tape to track where the outer edges of the stripes should be as it wrapped around the curves. Best guess measurements of gap and outer edge to outer edge helped keep them straight. Then, I used same tape to make a template of the the curve. Peel it away from the car and you have a 3-D shape. Strategically cut the shape so that it lies flat on the stripe material. If you have to err, make sure its on the side of overlap otherwise you'll end up with a nice Indy Blue (insert your own colour here) wedge in the stripe.

The bumper itself isnt that bad because its crudely convex. This implies that you have too much material in the stripe and you can cut some away to the make it fit and have no gaps (a friend suggested heating and stretching but that seemed even riskier to me). The lower part however is pretty much a saddle point which roughly means that it curves in two opposing different directions. There is no way to lay out the pattern so that there will not be any gaps. Thus I needed at least two pieces and the result is that you can see where the overlap occured. But its really not noticable unless you're up close know what to look for (which you all now do).

good luck. lemme know if you find a better way

 

Well, I went ahead and did it. $45 (bought a 14' strip of black car vinyl from a sign shop) and 6 hours later I have completed striping the MINI. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good. There's just a few small spots that bug me. Mostly when it comes to trimming the edges. Oh well...looks like I wanted, except I actually ran out of striping for double stripes down the back and just did the single bottom part. Actually that's probably better because the compound curves next to the reverse light would have been next to impossible.

These are 7" stripes like the topic starter reccommended, but I now believe his are 8". Not too much of a difference, it's just that instead of a 3 1/2" gap between stripes, I went with a 4 3/4" gap to clear the rear emblem.

Here it is...

 

It's VERY GOOD!!

Good on you:smile: