The epidemic of unpainted or dark-lacquered carbon-fiber is magnificent to behold from just a few paces. But for the rest of us, from far away, there is little beauty in these dark, cavernous ‘holes’ in the latest hypercar bodywork. Both the Pagani Huayra and the McLaren P1 have liberal amounts of unpainted CF — but must it be this way?
Without a McLaren P1 configurator available to the public — the car is already sold out — we have taken it upon ourselves to visualize the P1 with fully-painted surfaces.
Of course, nothing is simple in the hypercar battle royale of 2014. A large reason for the unpainted areas of the P1 stems from the myriad of air inlets and outlets all over the bodywork. The tail section is basically just a mesh breather for the engine — meaning my painted dreams are moot out back.
But the front and sides clean up nicely with a few licks of paint, to our eyes at least.
These are laid out as original vs completed visual rendering, plus the steps to go between. We are not designers, so these are admittedly really rough — especially versus what TurboSquid teams put together for their CAD-CAM projects!
Just meant to see how it would look, and if some grace and glamour can be restored by painting up these dark visual holes.
Car-Revs-Daily Painted Surface Treatment 1 — McLaren P1
Car-Revs-Daily Painted Surface Treatment 2 — McLaren P1
Tom Burkart is the founder and managing editor of Car-Revs-Daily.com, an innovative and rapidly-expanding automotive news magazine.
He holds a Journalism JBA degree from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Tom currently resides in Charleston, South Carolina with his two amazing dogs, Drake and Tank.
Mr. Burkart is available for all questions and concerns by email Tom(at)car-revs-daily.com.