Mitsubishi Lancer Sportback - That's A Wrap! - Tech

Originally we wanted to paint the roof on our Mitsubishi Lancer Sportback black. But if you can't have a carbon roof, you really shouldn't settle on a black painted one. Meguiar's always-expanding car product line has recently incorporated Wraptivo. After being acquired by 3M, they've been able to share resources with their parent company to develop new products like this.

Wraptivo is the ultimate in vinyl wraps. There's all kinds of technology in this product that I completely didn't even understand when they were explaining it to me. But after watching Joshua of Daley Visual wrap our roof, you can tell this isn't your typical vinyl. No water or soap was used on the surface for preparation. The adhesive on the backing allows you to pull it off without harming the vinyl. Even without water, you can push the air bubbles out easier than any other vinyl. This is not like applying the vinyl stickers on your 240SX. Meguiar's recommends only using a certified Wraptivo installer like Daley Visual which has been wrapping cars and trailers for over seven years now. It takes a lot of experience and skill to properly tuck the edges along the weather-stripping and folding the corners. Tackling obstacles like our roof antenna also required precision cutting that I would have definitely FUBAR'd.

Why would anyone want to wrap a car instead of painting it? This isn't a replacement for painting. It's more an alternative to color and graphic aesthetics. You can get textured material like our carbon or choose their aluminum or titanium textures to cover parts that aren't available in those materials. Or you can do some of their flat colors like black, gray, white or drab green. The best thing about Wraptivo is that it comes off with no residue or harm to the paint. So you're not married to the color like a typical paint job. And you will always be able to go back to your high-quality factory paint when you want.