Since early in the planning process, we knew that we would be taking Lola to Whitby's in Greensboro to be painted once we were done building her. They are an autoshop that specializes in FFR's and actually build and sell them as well, and have an excellent reputation as being the best in the area. We've been to visit them a number of times at the big car shows and had planned to go some day just to visit the shop. A few days after Lola was delivered, we found out that my cousin's husband, Jeff Collins, is actually the owner of Whitby's. It's good to know we've got a resource outside of the network of FFR owners that Jim has found through the internet.
After the aluminum had been removed, we initially had planned to clean all the panels, brush the metal and then clear coat them ourselves, but after starting the job, it became clear to Jim that this was going to be extremely time consuming. So, we decided to outsource this to Whitby's and have them powder coat the aluminum panels instead with a silver metallic powder coating and a clear coat of paint which will protect the aluminum from rust and heat.
On 10/9/2010, we drove up to Whitby's with both of our cars loaded up since neither of them would hold all of them aluminum. In addition to being a practical trip, we got to look around at all of the cars being painted and pick Jeff's brain a bit about various paint schemes and ideas for Lola. Our initial plan for Lola of indigo blue with titanium stripes and orange fender stripes on the driver's side is rapidly changing...