Are these Vloggers just a scam? SOL or Shmee etc? (Vol. 3)

[ro250]

SL22 said:

Will be good to see how this looks in video and in real life when Shmee posts the final video.

The colour change certainly hasn't gone down well in the comments section. I have to agree as seems odd to buy a car of that nature, price and pedigree and paint it a colour it never came in from the factory. On the flip side, unless it is an April Fools, then I admire you doing it because you that's what you want to do as taking the originality will surely reduce it's market appeal should it ever need to be sold.

[VerySideways]

ro250 said:

The colour change certainly hasn't gone down well in the comments section. I have to agree as seems odd to buy a car of that nature, price and pedigree and paint it a colour it never came in from the factory. On the flip side, unless it is an April Fools, then I admire you doing it because you that's what you want to do as taking the originality will surely reduce it's market appeal should it ever need to be sold.

Didn't Tim mention that he'd already seen another SLS BS in that colour in the Middle East? So surely that colour was available from the factory?

And i don't think that will dent any future market value significantly - there are plenty of wealthy people out there who will pay for a famous car (look at a certain "aubergine" Macca F1 as an example)... although Tim has plans to keep this one long enough that the future value isn't really a high priority.

[AngryPartsBloke]

ro250 said:

The colour change certainly hasn't gone down well in the comments section. I have to agree as seems odd to buy a car of that nature, price and pedigree and paint it a colour it never came in from the factory. On the flip side, unless it is an April Fools, then I admire you doing it because you that's what you want to do as taking the originality will surely reduce it's market appeal should it ever need to be sold.

Surely it's not that odd to respray a car into a colour it never came in , surely that's the main driver or most?

[Beefmeister]

ro250 said:

SL22 said:

Will be good to see how this looks in video and in real life when Shmee posts the final video.

The colour change certainly hasn't gone down well in the comments section. I have to agree as seems odd to buy a car of that nature, price and pedigree and paint it a colour it never came in from the factory. On the flip side, unless it is an April Fools, then I admire you doing it because you that's what you want to do as taking the originality will surely reduce it's market appeal should it ever need to be sold.

There’s literally a Mystic Blue one in the link you quoted. Factory car.

[ro250]

Beefmeister said:

There’s literally a Mystic Blue one in the link you quoted. Factory car.

Tim said in the video it's an AMG colour but you couldn't order the SLS Black Series in it from factory.

[waynecyclist]

I fully understand Tim's reason but to me that car should be as the factory, I liked it in the grey / silver.

Going to hurt it's value

[Truckosaurus]

Value Shmalue! That blue SLS looks excellent.

The only SLS I've seen in real life was in a muddy car park on Dartmoor. I was just admiring the car when the chap who owned it turned up, followed by his wife and dog. The dog clambered into the passenger footwell and off they went.

[Shmee]

Having done this a few times over the last decade I'm very familiar with audience reaction to colour changes or big modifications to a car, it goes through a cycle. I don't know exactly how many times I've done wraps, Skin, changed wheels, or added bits and pieces but it has always been the same.

First comes a bit of shock, lots of defence for the original colour and disbelief that you'd want to change it. Then as it's happening there will be a stage of "oh, that's actually quite nice" as people realise it's not as stupid as it seems. And then when it is seen in full the top comment will be along the lines of "I thought it was an awful idea to do this but they've smashed it, this looks amazing". Feel free to quote this back to me in a month and let's see.

One interesting thing is the platform differences. On Instagram and YouTube initially the messages were pretty negative, until I posted a photo in my stories of the car that's Mystic Blue from factory. From that point everything became unbelievably positive, so I'm fully expecting exactly the same on YouTube.

I actually told Chartwell all of this well in advance, so they wouldn't be surprised by the initial backlash and would be ready for a change in attitudes as it gets nearer.





One thing a lot of people haven't worked out yet is that I bought an ex show car that has been sat for sale for over 6 months because absolutely no collector wanted it despite the price being right, that made it the perfect subject for this without doing any value damage. If I were ever to sell it, which I really doubt in the next decade unless I have a serious problem or need, the only person who's going to buy a car that's done track days, been at shows, driven the Ring, been flown around the world, taken on Gumball, plenty of donuts, and is already a LHD import... Is not going to care that it's been resprayed. It was the cheapest SLS Bl Series, and it'll stay that way, this isn't a problem to me because I don't buy a car to preserve it for the next owner, I want to drive it.

[AlexNJ89]

Fair response, and good for you!

Hope you enjoy the car

[Beefmeister]

ro250 said:

Beefmeister said:

There’s literally a Mystic Blue one in the link you quoted. Factory car.

Tim said in the video it's an AMG colour but you couldn't order the SLS Black Series in it from factory.

Read his post ^^^ The Mystic Blue one was from the factory.

[adsl3897]

The original colour of your SLS I loved as its one of my favourite colours on a car, so with bias I didn't fully see the need to change it. Now I've seen the blue though, I'd much prefer it over the grey. Looks amazing instead of just nice and suits the car so well. Beautiful.

[Ben Jk]

Shmee said:

Having done this a few times over the last decade I'm very familiar with audience reaction to colour changes or big modifications to a car, it goes through a cycle. I don't know exactly how many times I've done wraps, Skin, changed wheels, or added bits and pieces but it has always been the same.

First comes a bit of shock, lots of defence for the original colour and disbelief that you'd want to change it. Then as it's happening there will be a stage of "oh, that's actually quite nice" as people realise it's not as stupid as it seems. And then when it is seen in full the top comment will be along the lines of "I thought it was an awful idea to do this but they've smashed it, this looks amazing". Feel free to quote this back to me in a month and let's see.

One interesting thing is the platform differences. On Instagram and YouTube initially the messages were pretty negative, until I posted a photo in my stories of the car that's Mystic Blue from factory. From that point everything became unbelievably positive, so I'm fully expecting exactly the same on YouTube.

I actually told Chartwell all of this well in advance, so they wouldn't be surprised by the initial backlash and would be ready for a change in attitudes as it gets nearer.





One thing a lot of people haven't worked out yet is that I bought an ex show car that has been sat for sale for over 6 months because absolutely no collector wanted it despite the price being right, that made it the perfect subject for this without doing any value damage. If I were ever to sell it, which I really doubt in the next decade unless I have a serious problem or need, the only person who's going to buy a car that's done track days, been at shows, driven the Ring, been flown around the world, taken on Gumball, plenty of donuts, and is already a LHD import... Is not going to care that it's been resprayed. It was the cheapest SLS Bl Series, and it'll stay that way, this isn't a problem to me because I don't buy a car to preserve it for the next owner, I want to drive it.

I was sceptical but it looks mega in that colour. IMO the wheels need to stay black though and not go silver as you mentioned in the video.

[ro250]

Beefmeister said:

ro250 said:

Beefmeister said:

There’s literally a Mystic Blue one in the link you quoted. Factory car.

Tim said in the video it's an AMG colour but you couldn't order the SLS Black Series in it from factory.

Read his post ^^^ The Mystic Blue one was from the factory.

Help me out Tim, you said in your video (around the 13.5 min mark) that you couldn't get it in blue from factory - I'm only basing my knowledge on that!

[Shmee]

ro250 said:

Help me out Tim, you said in your video (around the 13.5 min mark) that you couldn't get it in blue from factory - I'm only basing my knowledge on that!

The original order form didn't include a blue, but if you went Performance Studio you could do anything. However, they saved those until the last that were built so most people did the black, silver, white, red or yellow.

This is why there's one Mystic Blue car out there already, plus a Yosemite Blue, and almost certainly another, but no normal blue that lots chose.

[ro250]

Shmee said:

ro250 said:

Help me out Tim, you said in your video (around the 13.5 min mark) that you couldn't get it in blue from factory - I'm only basing my knowledge on that!

The original order form didn't include a blue, but if you went Performance Studio you could do anything. However, they saved those until the last that were built so most people did the black, silver, white, red or yellow.

This is why there's one Mystic Blue car out there already, plus a Yosemite Blue, and almost certainly another, but no normal blue that lots chose.

Gotcha!

[LanceRS]

Shmee said:

ro250 said:

Help me out Tim, you said in your video (around the 13.5 min mark) that you couldn't get it in blue from factory - I'm only basing my knowledge on that!

The original order form didn't include a blue, but if you went Performance Studio you could do anything. However, they saved those until the last that were built so most people did the black, silver, white, red or yellow.

This is why there's one Mystic Blue car out there already, plus a Yosemite Blue, and almost certainly another, but no normal blue that lots chose.

Just out of interest Tim, what made you choose a full paint job rather than the Topaz skin and keeping the original colour underneath?

I was thinking of your GT8 the other day when I found myself disappearing into a Bamford Rose YouTube hole. They did not seem too convinced by the Supercharged route.

[Shmee]

LanceRS said:

Just out of interest Tim, what made you choose a full paint job rather than the Topaz skin and keeping the original colour underneath?

I was thinking of your GT8 the other day when I found myself disappearing into a Bamford Rose YouTube hole. They did not seem too convinced by the Supercharged route.

Here a section of my YouTube video description:

Shmee150 said:

Naturally, I spent a lot of time considering the decision and the various options; from wrapping to a Topaz Skin. The gut instinct screams "don't respray it because you'll destroy the value", however , I did not buy this car to be a collector's garage queen! I will drive it to Vmax top speed, I will do laps of the Nurburgring and track days, it'll be on show stands, I will fly it around the world, and I will drive it with plenty of miles. As such, from a 'value' perspective, it's largely irrelevant as I have absolutely no plans to sell it and will make the story of the car my own.

A wrap was never going to work, typically those last 2-3 years before they start peeling away and looking poor, while never having a paint quality finish from the start. Topaz Skin was heavily considered like on my AMG G63 and in many cases would be the right option, however there's no knowing how that holds up in 10 years, or how it could work with PPF on top - which is absolutely compulsory for the amount and type of usage I have planned. What would even happen with rally stickers over the top of the Skin is totally unknown and plenty of other queries. Ultimately why pay for what is technically a respray, to maybe have to do it again down the line? The decision here is a full respray paint job, and then Topaz PPF on top to protect it in future.

To further that slightly. My G63 has a few chips to the front of it, and I want to avoid that on the SLS BS as you can't really fix it without respraying a panel which then might not match with the rest of the car. There's no knowing at all also if PPF can be removed from Skin without lifting the lower layer too, and if it did the damage would be catastrophic.

As you might expect, I had a long lunch with the Topaz bosses to discuss options completely openly with them, they are good friends now too. In many cases now is the time you might want to "preserve" the colour underneath but as mentioned earlier, nobody had tried to buy this car previously anyway so clearly the original colour was quite undesirable so why preserve it.

[AyBee]

I was sceptical and liked the grey, but that blue looks stunning. The SLS BS is so rare, and the re-painting process will all be documented, so I certainly wouldn't have any issues with buying this car in a non-original colour!

[TheAngryDog]

Shmee said:

That looks awesome.

[CityS]

Shmee said:

Correct.

Did they take out the dash though? Will we see a video of the painting process?

Tim, were you influenced to do this from the US market focus? Usually in the US they do the full repaint where as in Europe they will mostly do a wrap.