Saturday, November 26, 2011

Blue on Black: Goodbye Red R/T

First off let me say that I am an avid Mopar person.  I know the R/T emblem has always been red.  I should also say that I know most people won't do this and probably won't like it...the fact of the matter is I don't care.

With my Mopar '10 being a blue-striped version the red R/T really stood out...too much for my liking in fact.  I honestly thought that as the first "Mopar branded vehicle" they might have replaced the R/T badge with a custom "Mopar '10" badge...it would have been pretty simple and about the length of the old script style "Challenger" logos.  (Total side note, I thought "M O P A R" across the back of the tail-light panel would have been nice too...Nothing against Dodge and the R/T, but I like to refer to this as the Mopar '10, not the Challenger R/T Mopar '10).

The red R/T just bothered me...it didn't go with the car in my opinion.  I like black and blue and there is no room for red in the equation.  So, I opted to keep the R/T, but make it blue.

As with everything I do to the Mopar '10...no factory parts were harmed!  I ordered in a replacement logo (not cheap btw) and used it to paint.

My logic was to use the G2 Brake Caliper Paint so it would be a perfect match to the brakes...bad idea...this came out more purple (yeah I know, red+blue=purple), but I have done this before and had the top color simply take over.

The G2 Blue R/T emblem didn't look horrible, it actually looked deent on its own...but it wasn't good enough for the car.  So with that in mind I made one of my 2-3 annual trips to a craft store.  Nothing I'm proud of, but they have the best selection of paints.  I found a nice acrylic blue that looked like it would match pretty well.

I applied it over the "purple" R/T and got a very nice result.  If you stick your head in the grille you can see brush strokes and imperfections, but from a distance this looks awesome! 

I know vinyl is an option, but generally my hands, small spaces, and xacto knives don't mix well.  I never did stroke the brush across the plated portions for what it is worth.  This is a simple mod, and adds a lot to the car.  For red-striped M10 owners this is kind of moot...I think if I had silver I'd try a dark silver out to accent the plated edges, but hey that is just me.

Maybe, just maybe if the Registry takes off we can make a group buy on "Mopar '10" emblems that will snap in place.  I think it would be a nice afterthought that we could tweak.

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