One of the items on the Jag’s TODO list was to get the “R” badges looking factory fresh. As it stood they were crusty and gross. Time, sun, and weather had not been kind to whatever Jaguar used to color the badges and as a result they were mostly crusty glue with a little sun faded color here and there.
It wasn’t a good look.
Unfortunately, researching my options I came up with surprisingly few. I figured, like the Alfa, there would be a lot of sticker kits on eBay. But there weren’t.
My options were, in fact, singular: Buy new ones for $80 each.
Now, I’m all about spending money on stupid stuff... but $240+ on a minor cosmetic issue seemed... silly.
However that listing did have a small illustration of what the badge looked like in line art. I also happen to own a vinyl cutter whose software is surprisingly good at turning images into something the printer can cut out....
So I ordered some Oracal 951 vinyl, which is rated for up to 10 years of outdoor use and got to work.
First step was to clean off the older sticker, which didn’t go without a fight. Much goo gone was used before I declared it “good enough” and moved on.
I took the image and separated out the components I needed.
I figured the easiest way to recreate the original would be to cover the entire colored area with red, then apply the green over that.
Shockingly my first attempt was pretty good!
After A LOT of tweaking, I had the red down. The green was much easier and was done in about half the time (and revisions).
That was it. Job done. I’m super happy with the results!
