So what's with the "Flat Black" paint jobs. See it on Caymans, Tim Allen's Roadrunner, etc. Stealth cars? Unpainted carbon fiber I get.

If you ask me it's not a very original idea!

But I love it! When I finished 'flat-blackie' here I parked it in the driveway at the end of my walkway outside my house. When I walked out of the house that night and ran right into the side of 'flat-blackie' - didn't even see it there!

Oh! I think beer helped 'cause the collision!
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daytime shot!
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That's awesome.

Flat black is _THE_ timeless hod-rodders paint job. It dates back to the 30's, and guys rodding sedans to run booze during prohibition.

Flat black has way more history then unpainted CF.

Zach

I love a flat black paint job,it to me , brings out a sinister look in certain cars.That 914 is no exception.Great looking car

A Flat Black paint job will truly test the body work skills of those that will do it.

Guys like me who have limited body work skills will stick to paint.That way, after the paint is laid, you can go back and color sand out most imperfections and end up looking like a hero when your done.

Not so w/Fl.Blk.

It has to be laid and perfect the first time.That is the only way all 4 corners of the car will match.Get one imperfection in it and color sand it out,and you have one shiny panel versus the rest in flat.No good there.Have to re paint.

You know your good,when a Flat Black job looks great.

Good job.


Ron

Very much digging Blackie. Thanks for sharing.

I love it. No other color says "all business bad boy" like satin black.

Once you go black.....

It is "played out" unfortunately. Somehow it has become the in thing... at SEMA anything from a lifted truck to ricer junk was painted flat black with red and white pin striping. All black including the wheels is "murdered out" so that will tell you why I don't even want to be lumped in with that.

I personally had made a mistake when I was about 7yrs old and accidentally bought matte black paint for a Pantera model I was building. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with the paint until my dad educated me what matte/flat colors were. After that every other car model was flat or satin! I just dig it and always wanted to do it to my car. but the latest craze... I just don't want to be lumped in, so I went satin (aka semi-flat) on mine and buffed it. I may shoot it satin white... we'll see how the winter goes. But I am even seeing cars painted flat or satin silver, flat olive drab (unfortunately as I was going to do that to mine so I just threw the paint away after SEMA).

Old-school rods and anything 50s and prior look awesome in flat or satin and fits the era of when a WIP was a WIP, not a "whip". Just another ghetto'd piece of hot rod history. The teeners look great in flat and satin as seen above as well. A Honda of any year/make/model... no.

do I sound jaded?

forgot the pic of my car in satin for reference - a little shinier than flat but doesn't have the deep, wet look of gloss. I like the lo-fi look. I like how the satins and flat remove glare - I haven't painted the hood but satin was chosen for that reason as well. Rattle canned 9 layers (3 then sand, 3 and sand finer, 3 and buff) for just over $100 in materials, so don't look too closely
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I love the flat paint jobs. I really liked black, but I also wanted something more than the "different just like everyone else" black. I must say that blackie above is quite cool. I'm in the middle of painting mine flat "primer red". It has a similar rat rod look. It's not quite so sinister, but I guess that's ok. (see image below for the concept)

House of Kolor has a whole line of Flatz...
http://www.tcpglobal.com/kustomshop/ksflatz.aspx

Now you can get any color flat or satin -

They have flat or satin clear coats available! The guy who is doing my race car has an orange pickup (signal) that looks flat 'cause he used the right clear coat. looks hot! Don't know how it would look on a teener, tho...

BTW - this guy does nice work! Check out June's Excellence and the red 911!

Without going into great detail, you could always get flat as you simply add a flattening agent. So you can one step with flattening in the paint, or 2-step by flattening the clear coat. You can even get varying levels of "flat" by adding more or less agent.

for the true rat rod look, you would primer black rather thick and just wash the car with water and scotch-brite. For a modern rat look the guys tend to flatten and single step paint to get close to the milky color of the primer. To make it look really even and loose the milky-ness, the modern show cars tend to 2 step with a color and flattened clear. As stated, I like the color with satin clear look and that is what I was going to paint my car over the winter - a darkish military green with a satin finish. Then I saw an Audi in Boulder painted that way about a month ago and another poser-mobile at SEMA.

When HoK comes out with a whole series with a z in place of an s, starts to remind me of glam music and the early 90s - it's all over folks

Ahhhhhhh...

Flat black stealth mode.....

It just says "HIT ME CAUSE YA CAN"T SEE ME IN THE DARK"

I've been run off the road in small cars more than enough because people just don't see them. Adding a bright color to the car really helped.

KennywithoutanightimeDEATHWISH

You just don't get it Bro! Everyone knows that kustom is spelled with a K and multiples of cool things end in Z. I mean, I've seen so many Kustom rodz painted in flatz that it's crazy.

more pics!!!
flat black/primer gray cars turn me on!!!

that first 914 looks sick!

It's called defensive driving

For rear-end attacks check this out!
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I love the look of a 914 in any black. However, I don't think I would like one for a street car. I have almost been run over in my Orange car as it is. It would be very cool for a track car though. I like the pics of the satin track car. Looks very nice.

Hey root,
Is that center stop light inside the rear window? can people still see it form SUV height when they are close enough to RAM you? Give us some details on how you mounted it, source etc.
END

I think you meant to say it's krazy

Blood red - thanks for the compliment... just don't get too close to it. My idea of sanding smooth is if the dent is bigger than a quarter, slap some putty in there. Otherwise, it is ready for paint

Here is another angle from a pic at the track a few weeks ago to show roughly how shiny the satin is. Interestingly enough, I got lucky doing black anodized centers as the finish comes out very close.

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Do tell. I've been bugging Babydoll to get one of these...

i saw a satin black audi tt, w/matte black 5-spokes with brushed silver lips.







kinda like mixed martial arts without the homoerotic overtones.

Took this picture with the lights out in the lab!
I cut the light out of a rear spoiler from a Nissan 240SX.
Mounted it with a couple screws inside the rear window on the bottom of the targa frame. Click to view attachment

Crazy cool looking 914 Root!

Hey Root!

Your car is awesome!! I love it and I also think thats a great idea about the extra brake car especially in such small cars like the 14's. I too was thinking about doing something like this with LED lights next year. It would be awesome to see how you went about doing the installation if you have some time. Thanks and cheers

Jamie

Root's car looks even better in person. At the ECC, DR Evil's woman looked into roots car and saw his inner door handles. She called then,"OOOOH SHIT handels." That was funny. I would paint my car flat black cuz I likes my carz likes how I likes my womenz..

That is one sickly nasty sexy car there homeskillet.

i've heard it was used to cut glare? sounds good

mike

I think that the more likely reason is simpler. The fords that they started modding were all painted black to start, and the paint would loose its shine. Also, in days before radar and night vision, a flat black car would dissapear at night. Quite the advantage when you've got a trunk full of shine, and have to evade the G-man.

From that, it just became the cool thing to do, until the mid-fifties and the candies came into vogue.

Shot of Blackie's passenger side "HOLY SHIT!" handle for ya JPB!
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is that an Deffi gauge i see or am I wrong?

Root, thanks for the info-- I assume this unit is LED? Has anyone else found a wide, skinny LED strip that's available without buying a spoiler?

quote name='root' date='Nov 14 2007, 04:26 PM' post='966785']
Took this picture with the lights out in the lab!
I cut the light out of a rear spoiler from a Nissan 240SX.
Mounted it with a couple screws inside the rear window on the bottom of the targa frame. Click to view attachment
[/quote]

Nope! It's a cheapo glo shift A/F to display my LM-1 data!
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im pretty sure they sell entire led lightbars.
i was looking at a lightbar brake for my chevy blazer and they (www.summitracing.com) had one for the underside of the gate

that would be neat to see if that would fit inside the interior and span the entire width of the car just underneath the targa like his

ill try to find a pic..

somethin like im talkin about:
http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.a...mp;autoview=sku

Here is some flat black from another thread. Yes i like this one and yes I stole the pic.

Looks even better with a tale IMHO