Matt paint/wraps - what do we think?

[Ari]

Generally I don't like them, they make the car look unfinished, like they forgot to put the lacquer on.

But must admit, this looks rather tasty...

[ajprice]

Matte metallic colours look good, matte flat colours, especially black as its been done to death now, not so much.

[crocodile tears]

Very much depends on the car..

I think they will soon go 'out of fashion' though

Things like recession white and matte black will have soon be done to death


There is someone who posted in readers cars with a very nice matte red gtr

[Captain Muppet]

I like it, I've had four matte/satin cars now, and as a cheap paint job on a cheap car it's made me happy. I wouldn't argue it's ever looked good though, just better than the dreadful paint I've covered up.

Matte is a pain to look after, satin is much easier. I wouldn't use either on a car I cared about, or that was worth money. I even took the satin black paint off my RX7 to return it to OE shiny red (I bought it half painted).

[jesta1865]

Ari said:

Generally I don't like them, they make the car look unfinished, like they forgot to put the lacquer on.

But must admit, this looks rather tasty...

lets be honest, that would look great if your 4 yr old had used finger paints on it.

I'll be honest I like the finishes, but its dependant on the car.

near me there is a range rover with a carbon fibre finish which looks great, but also a dodge nitro in matt / satin black that just looks like the paints faded.

maybe its the Essex boy in me

[DanDC5]

Purely car dependant. Some cars it can look brilliant on others it can look terrible.

[George H]

They look ste

I can't comprehend why anyone would do it, looks almost as bad as chrome.

[LuS1fer]

Horrific IMHO. Looks like a lazy paint job. Ruins an otherwise nice car.

[Parsnip]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I know what you mean - matte paint on a high end supercar gives it a stealth bomber type coolness. Matte paint on a run of the mill car looks unfinished and, well, st.

[Scuderia2112]

Some colour/car combinations I like, some I don't, when it's a wrap though it doesn't bother me.

[Captain Muppet]

George H said:

I can't comprehend why anyone would do it, looks almost as bad as chrome.

This is why I did it. My car looked like this when I bought it:



So after a few months of being followed home by the police I decided a more sublte paint job was needed. So I drove to Halfords, bought some satin black paint, stopped in a field, masked up the windows and lights and painted the car.

Yes, a normal paint job would have looked better, but I couldn't have done that for twenty quid in a field, and the car isn't worth spraying properly.

Yes I know that adding the stickers totally undermined the subtlety, but I was being paid to have them on the car at the time.



My first matte black car was white with huge patches of pink filler when I bought it (at night in an unlit trading estate). It was better when it looked like this:



Better, but still not good, obv.

Other people may have painted their car because they liked it. Personally I'd rather have satin black than nice shiny gold, or beige, or pink, or that horrible greeny-yellow they did M3s in, or any of the terrible colour changing paints TVR used. People are different.

[ajprice]

Matte metallic green was a colour for the Smart last year


This year they've changed it to matte metallic grey


Looks fine to me, it's not a supercar by any means, but its not a normal or run of the mill car either (IMO, and yes I may be biased )

[Alfanatic]

I think it takes a good car to pull it off. The merc in the OP and the Smarts posted above both work well to my eyes. I've also seen a matte black Fiat 500 which wears it quite well, though not enough to make me think it looks better than most of the gloss colours I've seen on the car.

Also, matte black has been overdone. Originally it was awesome, now the world and its dog is wearing matte black it just loses the appeal of being special and gets judged simply on how it looks on the shape. It's everywhere now. Even my guitar is matte black..

[loose cannon]

How do you polish a scratch out of a matt finish car...........

[skene]

loose cannon said:

How do you polish a scratch out of a matt finish car...........

My bonnet got badly scratched so I painted it matte black until i could afford a new one (looked ste) just if i got a scratch or stone chip etc I just sprayed that bit again, don't have to worry about blending with matte IIRC

[pidsy]

Isnt there a version of the m3 which has an oem matte finish?

And i did hear that you have to sign a disclaimer so you cannot take it back to bmw when the paintwork gets ruined (which it will) if not looked after in strict guidelines written by bmw.

[Killer2005]

As with other posts, really depends on the car. I've seen a matte black LP670 SV and to me it didn't work as I think Lamborghinis should be bright silly colours not a dull matte black.

[ajprice]

pidsy said:

Isnt there a version of the m3 which has an oem matte finish?

And i did hear that you have to sign a disclaimer so you cannot take it back to bmw when the paintwork gets ruined (which it will) if not looked after in strict guidelines written by bmw.

Yes, the Frozen Grey colour. At least according to Top Gear you cannot wax the car and if a bird craps on it the offending substance must be removed immediately, or it will damage the paint. A £££ option for more inconvenience.

[Blowfish]

I have a frozen grey M3 and in terms of cleaning it is by far the easiest car I have ever had to keep clean. I have to use a swisswax special matt shampoo that's a bit pricey but the dirt cleans off really easy and after 9k mileage the paint still beads as if it had been polished the day before!

[Blowfish]