Snakeskin Green!
 

As long as I've owned my Insight I've also known that the stock silverstone metallic was the wrong colour. While I won't ever say the car didn't wear it well, it seems every second car in the world is some sort of silver and the Insight deserved better. Of course if I had my choice on the initial purchase I would have gone for citrus yellow, but with so few citrus yellow Insights produced, any Insight purchaser knows it is sometimes a case of accepting what's available.

So for 10 years I've been talking about repainting the car. For the last three years I've been deep into the total restoration of my '76 Mazda Cosmo but at the same time, thinking more and more repainting the Insight. It was a minor collision outside of Dundas Ontario this past spring which made the decision. Apparently I'm crazy enough to take on a total colour change on the daily driver while knee deep in the restoration of my Cosmo.

http://www.aaroncake.net/insight/Sna..._Passenger.jpg

It took some time to find the perfect green (about 10 years!) but I have found it in the colour "snakeskin green" as used on a limited number of 2008 Vipers. It's a wonderful iridescent lime green with an undertone of subtle gold/yellow. Quite honestly I think it's the perfect colour for an Insight.

http://www.aaroncake.net/insight/Sna..._Passenger.jpg

I took a 3 day weekend at the end of September to prep the car before it went off to the body shop. In that time I did as much work as I could. The entire car was wet sanded with 600 grit, with Scotch Brite used on all the curved panels, edges and areas like the door sills. All the exterior trim (think A pillar trim above the doors, wheel skirts, rockers, etc.) was removed and areas underneath prepped. The headliner and most of that area of the interior was removed (needed to remove the antenna and rear window squirter). All the door seals, door panels and other bits as well. A few dents and dings were filled and smoothed with glazing compound. It was a LOT of work for a weekend. I then delivered the car to the body shop the following Monday.

http://www.aaroncake.net/insight/Sna..._Passenger.jpg

This was a proper colour change in that all visible areas of the car were prepped and painted. Bumpers and fenders were removed and painted, under the hood was painted, hatch removed and painted. The only compromise I made was to leave the rear quarter windows and windshield installed. The rubber seals were pulled away from th body and taped to the windows, then the glass was masked. Additionally, the engine bay remains silver as pulling the drivetrain was a bit beyond what I wanted to do. The shop (Fine Touch Collision in London Ontario) did a superb job in the final prep and spraying of such a challenging colour. The metallic is even without any hit of blotches nor tiger striping.

http://www.aaroncake.net/insight/Sna...ing_Damage.jpg

Compared to the silverstone metallic (note the damage to the drivers door which started this whole adventure) I couldn't be more happy! It's a beautiful colour, ready to show off all its variation and shading as the light changes. There's a depth to the car now that just sucks your eyeballs in. The Insight has always attracted plenty of attention. Now however, people driving by stop to look and pedestrians swivel their heads as I go by.

Much better suited to the car. Nice!

Looks great Aaron, good choice on the colour.

Jon

That looks great I have to say. Well done, and nice to see it done as close to properly (not pulling the drivetrain) as possible.

I like it!

Thank you!

It was a thrash of a weekend to get it prepped as much as I could. And sometime halfway through Sunday I remembered saying to myself after I did the RX-7 "I will never do this again!". Except, not only the Insight roped me into it, but the Cosmo will need to be bodyworked, primed, blocked and prepped as well! No rest for the crazy I guess.

Still a few minor issues. Drivers door needs adjustment as water is getting in, interior needs to be cleaned up a bit from body shop dust. Totally worth it now that I see the result.

I've always liked Insights.

-Geoff

Very cool colour, suits the Insight's unique look well - and I agree about white/silver being lowest common denominator colours - I'd add, followed closely by black. Grey-scale "colours" in a Kodachrome world.

Even looking into the background of the picture, almost all the cars in the parking lot are silver and black.

Even before you mentioned it was the green off a viper, I said "oh. He went with the mazda2 green". Lol ;)

The green looks great! Definitely makes the car pop more.

Can't believe you still have the rx4 to prep. Have you said what colour you're making it?

The Mazda 2 green was actually one I considered but was a bit too pale. There is also a Honda green but again, too pale. In fact all the common lime greens seen (Ford, Hyundai) are all very pale except in the perfect light. I resisted the urge to change the colour from the stock snakeskin green at all due to the difficulty in touchups and repairs. After going through that pain twice on the RX-7 I knew better this time than to make my own colour on a daily driver.

Actually the original colour I wanted for so many years was PPG "anti-freeze green". This spring when I finally got around to look it up I saw on the website it was a true candy. Immediately was disappointed as I was not about to shoot the car with a candy. It would be an easy $8,000 job and be faded within a year or two. Not to mention the lack of repairability. After some intense searching I found the snakeskin green, had the body shop shoot me a test panel, and the decision was made.

The Insight was far more complicated to prep than I thought owing to many parts of the body (rockers, a pillars) actually being removable urethane panels. I broke about a zillion plastic clips removing them (my plastic clip bill was nearly $200) and it added a lot of time to the prep. The Cosmo on the other hand is "old iron". The body is all steel and any trim is stainless/chrome. Plus I'll be sanding it down to bare steel and priming in my shop, so I can work each panel gradually instead of a 3 day marathon. My plan is to deliver it to the body shop primed, blocked and ready to spray.

The current top choice for Cosmo colour is Mazda Strato Blue Mica, with maroon interior.

Be easy to find you car in the parking lot now:) Nice.

The number one selling car colour in North America is silver.

-Geoff

Are those the FEED fenders? lol

Looks fantastic!

That's true. It was always so hard to find. You know, with all the other Insights typically found in parking losts. ;)

That is truly sad. While there's nothing wrong with silver, does the world really need another silver Civic? I guess it's an easy colour to keep clean. Yet not so easy to touch up.

Hahaha...Everything on the Insight is done in the name of aerodynamics (or weight savings). So the scallops on the front fenders catch the air coming off of the tire and direct it down the body under the door mirrors. In fact if you look at the car from the rear, you can see how inboard the front tires are. It's about 2" inside the fender yet the rear of the wheel is even with the leading edge of the scallops. You can also see the little diffusers on the bumper designed to form a smooth air channel, splitting the air around the front of the tire so that it can pass over the flat wheel and under the bumper.

Still the 2nd most aerodynamic production car ever built with a CoD of 0.25. The first was the GM EV1 with a CoD of 0.19. If you could consider that a production car.

Somehow, this ugly thing has a better cD than our beloved insights at .22

The car looks excellent in green, aaron. I'm intending on painting mine this winter to the aquamarine blue that some of them came in.

What is that?

Mercedes CLA - their new, melty-butt FWD sedan (sorry, four-door coupe - showing MB's new-found dedication to making up new meanings for old words), intended to go head to head with the Audi A3. Which doubtless gets its melted ass kicked around by a Focus ST, in terms of both performance and utility, but will cost substantially more.

Do you have any of that paint left over? Or what did it cost to have mixed? Identical colour I will be painting my FC's bay in :)

EV1 I assumed you watched Who Killed The Electric Car, man I'd love to know the truth. So many years later and we still haven't made much progression. The Volt is a pathetic attempt in my opinion.

Cool color btw.

Any feedback from the Viper community yet?
I want to be there when you pull up beside one...in green of course.
Can you imagine the double-take???

Looking at the frontal area I'd be shocked if it had a CoD so low. Maybe it was a typo in the literature? To see what the Insight has to do to accomplish it's low CoD makes it unlikely we'll see such low CoDs on "normal" vehicles.

I remember at an EV show last year, the GM reps tried to tell me that the Volt has a lower CoD than the Insight.

It was mixed by the body shop according to the formula. Any paint shop should be able to mix you up some in a quart can. Issue of course is that you also need all the other related chemicals. I know that Dodge sells it in a rattle can.

I know, or I think used to know, several people who both worked and were featured in the film. Yes, I've seen it. The truth seems fairly evident. The leases ended, GM had no interest in supporting the cars, so they recalled and crushed them. As sad as it is to say, any owner who thought they had a snowball's chance in hell of keeping the car after the lease period ended were delusional.

We've made leaps and bounds of progression since the EV1. Fact is, nearly every major manufacturer is now selling affordable EVs off the showroom floor. And then look at the vehicles from Tesla, offering ranges and performance that the primitive (though awesome) EV1 couldn't dream of. It's shocking, but I see EVs almost daily now. It was only a few years ago that if you wanted an EV you would have to pay for a high dollar conversion of some crappy economy car, or you'd have to build it yourself.

The Volt is a dichotomy in my opinion. In one sense, it serves the daily needs of many people operating purely as an electric and allows them to drive further when necessary (eliminating the need for two cars). But it is very expensive, the interior is typical plastic GM, the mileage on the gas engine is lower than most hybrids and one can't option a larger battery pack for more electric range. I'm quite surprised it's selling much at all and expect the plug in Prius to sell orders of magnitude more.

I've not actually poked at the Viper community. Now that you mention it, it could be amusing to register on a Viper forum and post up the car. Though I did have a customer sneer when I said the colour was from the Viper, because apparently her favourite car is the Viper. One day I'll take her for a ride in the RX-7...

I don't want to derail your post but I meant we haven't come far because the EV was pure electric, and the Tesla is really the only pure EV. Sure there are lots of hybrids around but not pure EV. But in approximately 15 yrs we haven't come very far.

I actually saw my first Tesla out on the streets a couple of weeks ago. I've seen them at auto shows but not driving around.

There are many pure EVs on the market from many manufacturers. Nissan Leaf, Mitsubishi iMeive, Ford Focus Electric, obviously Tesla (multiple models), Honda Fit EV, Chevy Spark, Toyota Rav4 EV, Zero Motorcycles, Renault Zoe and probably a bunch I am forgetting are OEM Evs for sale right now. As someone who has been involved with EVs since the mid 90s, I can say for sure that what we have now is absolutely leaps and bounds above even the mid 2000s.

I was just remarking to someone over BBM earlier today how many EVs I see around London every week. Multiple Teslas, plug in hybrids like modded Prius and the Volt, Ford Focus EVs, Leafs and iMieves. A year ago, the only EVs I saw were at auto and EV shows.

(Posted from my Playbook)