Kurt R

Sterling Doc's post about running the Hawk got me thinking - I'd like to redo the Firehawk 944 in its original livery, and I know there's guys with vinyl cutters who could recreate the single color decals, but what about multicolor ones, or even some of the single color ones that were originally printed on white backgrounds? For instance, this IMSA decal, I'd need one like it but with "S" where the "GT" is.

cannon1000

Ask Van on Rennlist

https://rennlist.com/forums/members/10346-van.html

KaiB

Van, or our own Jupy. Dr. Juperman here in this forum.

Matt Romanowski

I've cut decals like that before. Made lots of Lola stickers two color from cut vinyl. If the demand was there, I can have printed, but that takes a bigger order.

DrJupeman

We can do those, even in layered vinyl they will look nice. Shoot Katie (Food Angel) a note: katie@twojokersgraphics.com

Kein_Ersatz

If you get a pro to do it for you at a price that makes you satisfied, that would be best for a better color match and weather durability.

If you have access to original high res art, a computer, and a color laser printer, I have had some luck printing out decals with this product:

http://www.papilio.com/


No affiliation, just a happy customer for laser vinyl paper. It may take a few tries with laser vinyl paper to get the right temp setting (by trying different paper type setting on the laser printer) as low heat is the key. These laser vinyl stickers have held up to track, hand washes, and mid west weather conditions for a year so far.

Not sure ink jet would hold up under wet weather conditions.

Dwane

I may be interested in a couple.

Plavan

Contact www.harrisdecals.com They made all my vintage decals off of .jpgs, .bmp, .eps and more files. They even made a few custom for me. Price was not at all bad either.

Van

Sky's the limit... comes down to budget and what you're looking for.

Kurt R

At what point would I be better off buying a 24" cutter? I can find files for most of the decals online.
I'd need 3 sets of numbers 14" or 15" high, and several other decals.
Some, like the Bilstein, Bosch, and Quaker State decals are available online. Others aren't, like the "Firestone" and the Firehawk decals. Anyone have any idea how big they are? I can guess from photos, but it would be nice to know exactly. I think a couple of people on here have ex-Firehawk cars.
One problem I have is I have no photos of the rear of the car. Several photos of the front and sides, but they're all out of magazines and not the clearest.

I did manage to score a Firehawk windshield banner off eBay a couple of years ago.

Matt Romanowski

As someone who made the decision to buy the cutter, that is the easy part. You really need Illustrator to do the graphics work (and be good at it). You also need cutting software, which is easier to learn than the others. By the time you buy the cutter, vinyl, software, make plenty of screwups, you'll be in it for $1k +.

ktrgroup

Hi Kurt!
If you are still looking for original decals from that era IMSA Classes.

Please let me know, I have quite a bit of inventory.

Brian
Ebay seller: ktrgroup

93 FireHawk 968

Contact Will at Precision Motorsports Racing in Califon NJ. He has a few Firehawks amongst his customer base. We restored my 968 a few years ago with all the proper graphics.

JackOlsen

If you're a frugal guy and your decal needs are modest, you can get a cutter, tools and the vinyl you'll need for under $300. I recently bought a Silhouette Cameo cutter. It comes with its own software (with a version for Mac, even) and can cut 12" x any length. To try it out, I did a couple of simple decals for the race car and even a t-shirt (using heat-transfer vinyl which you iron on). So far, I've been very happy with it.

One of the decals:



A shirt:



I used to have a guy who would cut anything I wanted for $10 a decal. So it's not going to pay for itself overnight. But say there's a video about your car that goes out on the web, and then some guy in Portugal is commenting on it on a Portugese car forum... If Google translates his compliment to 'Dude is beast!', well, you can have a t-shirt that says that a few minutes later. So the convenience factor is very high.

Kurt R

I sent you an email through eBay.


Progress so far:
I got some photos of the car from 1985 Sears Point and Watkins Glen.
I figured out the font for the lettering on the car.
Found period correct Bilstein, Bosch and Quaker State logos. A friend of mine sent me a high res picture of the Firehawk on his garage wall, both versions, with measurements.

Things to do:
Co-sponsor decals are tough - I found a small scan of the correct Kendall Oil sticker, but there's also an ET wheels one that I've been unable to locate. It doesn't help that the wheel brand has been sold. I tried emailing the current owner of the brand, but no response.