Ok, I’ve been interested in hearing opinions on this for a while, but I’m in sort of an odd situation with my Cayman.
BACKGROUND: I have a 2014 Cayman S that I originally bought as my only car: daily driver, road trips, winter, autocross. Well, I started doing track days last year, and therefore I have different tires and brakes and brake fluid and even a tune and exhaust now. It’s still entirely daily-driveable (other than the SQUEAKING BRAKE PADS though only in for track season) and since it was the only car I had, I have a set of winter tires on 4 wheels. It’s modern with ABS, and TC, and safety weight/design/materials etc etc but, I have a 99 Miata now for my daily driving fun and light cruising. It’s a weird fleet to be sure. An expensive car to flog on the track and drive in the rain and snow and thousands of miles, and a cheapo car to drive to work and around town.
MAIN TOPIC SETUP: I’m obviously dumb and paying a ton of money financing this Cayman, I get it. However, I plan to keep it a LONG LONG time and have it eventually be a track-only car or similar. So I’m going to keep modding it, I’m going to keep driving it harder and faster and behind other cars with slick tires driving hard and fast. I’m absolutely comfortable with this car never again looking pristine, but I do still like it to be aesthetically pleasing from like 10 feet away.
QUESTION: When and how should I attend to the exterior aesthetics?
It has clear wrap on the entire front end and the side mirrors, but I imagine it’s been on all 6 years of the car’s life so it is old, and there are tons of scratches through it from rocks and such at 100+ mph. There’s other scratches, and chips, etc all over the car if you look really closely so a wrap would need paint/body fixing first anyway. So, should I just wait until I can’t stand the sight of it anymore and then get it fully repaired and clear wrap replaced? (large one time cost) Should I just get a cheap MAACO style paint job every couple of years just to keep it somewhat acceptable and protected? (medium cost a few times) Should I just replace the worst exterior parts piece meal? (moderate cost with possibly mismatched paint shades). No matter what, should I replace the clear wrap or just let it be shit?
Or send it and just rattle can? I mean it will be a track-only car but I still have like 2.5 years of payments (lol) and if it was in good aesthetic condition it would be worth a lot lot more in case, for some reason, I decide to get rid of it eventually....
Some track video for fun:
My personal best!