How to wrap a car: the art of transforming cars with wrapping

Each year, the world’s best wrappers compete in the Fespa World Wrap Masters Series. Jonas Sjöström scooped this year’s title and a cheque for £2500. Part of his challenge was to wrap both a Formula 4 racing car and one side of a speedboat in 60 minutes. 

Davis’s installers take a bit longer: depending on the job, about three days to do one car. Working alone or together, they will wrap six this week. Last week, they worked Monday to Sunday, 8am till 8pm. Alongside the S5 is a Mazda MX-5 RF undergoing a vivid green, satin wrap. It is called Sheer Luck Green and, like Nardo Grey, is very popular. It’s being applied by installations assistant Stuart Roberts, under the watchful gaze of his manager, Tony Cook. 

I’m amazed that to wrap the MX-5, Roberts has removed the door handles, wing mirrors and front and rear bumpers – but, says Tony, it’s the only way to guarantee proper coverage and a perfect fit. It also means the wrap can be cut discreetly between the panel gaps and on the soft panel seams hidden from view, rather than on the bodywork. 

Where cutting like this is not possible, they use knifeless cutting tape, as Cook demonstrates on a Lamborghini HuracaÃn he has been partially wrapping. He has wrapped part way up the door to where the angle changes. Cutting here will mark the paint but there’s a thread extending from the wrap. Cook pulls it and, like a cheese cutter, it slices cleanly through the vinyl for a perfect finish. 

MX-5, S5, HuracaÃn – you’d be forgiven for thinking vinyl wrapping was invented for the amusement of attention seekers. In fact, it started in Germany in the early 1990s as a way of satisfying an old law that demanded all taxis be beige coloured. Before vinyl came along, the taxis were sprayed beige, only to be resprayed a more attractive colour when it was time to sell them on. 

The arrival of wrapping avoided all that hassle because now you could order the taxi in an appealing colour from the factory and then give it a beige wrap. At the end of the car’s working life, you simply peeled it off. 

If a Stuttgart taxi driver can do it... I interrupt Roberts to ask him if I can wrap the MX-5’s rear wing. He hands me a roll of vinyl, a squeegee and a bottle of surface cleaner. Summoning up my best pinstriping skills, I deftly work the vinyl onto the car’s surface, stroking away air bubbles with the squeegee. Things are going well until I notice a crease developing that, if corrected, will leave me short at the wheel arch. Is that my phone ringing? 

Roberts says he enjoys the sense of satisfaction when a difficult wrap comes good. You’ve got to be supple, though. Over by the HuracaÃn, Cook has been lying flat on the floor for 15 minutes, patiently wrapping the inside of one of its rear air ducts.