Our endurance racing turbo Miata may have had character, or battle scars, or charisma, or whatever you want to call it, but let’s face the facts: It was pretty darn ugly. We painted the car our signature yellow color with Eastwood ElastiWrap before we started racing it.
In the years since, our backyard paint job hasn’t aged particularly well. A fender-bender on track left the driver’s side front fender bashed up, and we took a Sawzall to the hood at Daytona in a last-ditch effort to prevent another underhood fire. Plus, it was just plain filthy, and had started peeling in a few places. It was time for a change.
So, we went with the cheapest, easiest option availalbe: The blue paint that came on the car. We’d already replaced the Sawzalled hood with a white one, so we also grabbed a used fender from Treasure Coast Miata and sent both panels to a local paint shop. For a few hundred bucks, they painted the hood, roof and fender to match the rest of the car. Then, we peeled the ElastiWrap and vinyl off of the old paint. In spots where we’d sprayed it too thin to peel easily, we dissolved it by liberally applying Goo Gone.
Just like that, our Miata was shiny and straight once again.
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