I'm here with Camille and I have the guys from Expel with me today.
I have James and I have Steve and Chris is here as well.
So thank you for joining us.
This should be an interesting show.
We are going to talk about some car news and Camille has done some race car things
and tested an electric pickup to see whether electric pickups are what the automakers hope
they are or whether that's a false hope.
And then we're going to talk about some PPF and Tinson whatnot.
So first things first, let's just get it out of the way.
The Lexus LS is dead after 30 some odd years.
So another sedan has bit the dust.
Anybody owned or driven an LS in recent years?
I've driven the first of this current generation that just put to bed and it was powered with
the V6 engine that I think it was the turbo V6 engine.
But it didn't make me jump out and say, I need this or this is revolutionary or this
is special.
It was sort of like a genesis.
It was just another sort of generic luxury car, which is a damn shame because they came out
of when they introduced it, it was really a game changer.
And now it was needed.
Neither the technology nor the price was there.
Maybe the quality was there, but the competition has stepped up and I think people stopped
caring really if the car can go 500,000 miles.
That is true.
So I think it kind of, you know, Lexus got what they needed out of it.
They got their money's worth out of every single one of them.
It built the brand.
The Lexus brand would not exist as what we know today without the LS.
And it's a shame that it's dead, but it is what it is.
Cars come and go and we move on.
You know, they got really expensive, which is kind of the bane of everybody's existence
in the auto world these days, but it happens.
And they got new competition.
I mean, Genesis is a really strong contender in the luxury.
I think people underestimate both how good these cars are and what a thread they are
to just about every other automaker.
I don't disagree.
I think I've driven all of them by now and each one of them is more impressive
than the previous.
Yep.
Speaking of impressive, the only other tidbit of auto news I wanted to touch on this week
is the Lucid Sapphire Motor Trend Test Times.
I don't know if anybody saw this.
There's a new special package you can get on the Lucid Sapphire, which is the, you
know, high performance, ultra performance sedan with 1,234 horsepower in three motors.
And this new package is basically just the best grippiest tires you can get and still
drive on the street.
Motor Trend got their hands on one and they brought it to their test trip.
And it did a 1.881 seconds zero to 60.
And it did a 9.03 second quarter mile.
And this is a car, you know, that costs a quarter of a million dollars, but you
can literally walk into a dealership.
And if you have the means, you can walk out with a car.
You know, that'll...
That is just stupid.
Make you and everybody in it sick.
I'm driving the other day.
I'm doing like 80 and a 65 and I'm getting passed left and right by CRVs and Nissan
Rogues and whatnot.
And I think cars have just gotten too fast.
I remember having a 90s Integra that I was so happy when it broke 49 and a quarter
of a mile.
I was thrilled, you know, and what the hell?
It's great.
I love the technology.
I love everything, but it's unsafe for most people.
It's, yeah.
Camille, I just had the opposite.
I was driving the MX-5 and the Miata and it's like the opposite.
You feel like you're going 100 when you're going 60, but that's the best.
That's the fun part.
You know, I'm going to mention the Mustang Mach-E Rally later on, but it was the same thing.
It's got 480 horsepower, 700 pound-feet of torque, all-wheel drive, just grips.
The torque is instant and it just goes and it weighs 5,000 pounds and you completely
isolate it from it.
So you just strap it in the box and it goes and there is no emotion with it.
You just, you're not involved with it, you know?
So those times are meaningless to me.
I don't mean to sound pessimistic or the whole part, but it's like cool.
Number of cell cars, that's the reality.
And it's amazing.
I don't have a particular interest in going that fast to 60 or the quarter mile in a
street car.
But like the fastest that I've probably ever done in a street car is like the high twos,
maybe three-second, zero to 60 and that's plenty fast.
I'm good, you know?
Everybody, everybody's got their own prerogative, but for the masses it's just silly, but
goddamn is it impressive.
So speaking of race cars, Camille, you did race car things.
Tell us about it.
I did some race car things.
I'll do more of them.
All right, let's go with the Geneta.
Geneta is a British brand name in Europe and in UK.
They have something called the Geneta Academy, which basically, because they offer four power
and grades, four power levels and grades of track-only race cars or track-only cars
that are not street legal, it allows driver development, driver training and racer development.
We had some F1, current F1 drivers that went through this academy because it's in one way
it's affordable because it's not a street chassis, so any damage can be repaired much
faster than on your typical car where if you bend the front subframe, you basically
shut out a block and you got to replace the whole chassis.
They're very modular cars and three years ago they started coming to America, started
racing in SCCA and some other sanctioning bodies and a year ago the Geneta Challenge
was developed in the United States and this year I was at Watkins Glen with them in
July just observing because a good friend of mine is like a brand ambassador for this.
It doesn't matter.
It goes with them.
So there was a field of 22 cars, identical cars, identical spec.
The representative from Geneta was there to make sure there was no one was cheating.
They had a huge truck and a trailer filled with parts with enough parts to rebuild completely
any of the two cars.
So the factory support is there and their idea is to provide a competitive cars
made to spec and ones that are sort of budget driven.
Now when we say racing budget, it's still not exactly 24 hours of lemons, but it's, you
know, even if running a spec mayada isn't cheap and certainly not only need to be an
amazing driver, but it's an amazing mechanic to be competitive in spec mayada.
So the existing Geneta cars called the GTA-class cars were powered by a Ford's 3.7 liter V6 that
was making ballpark 300 horsepower.
It's going to a sequential transmission through a limited slip-through differential and now
they bring to the United States the GP8 car, which is a GR four-level kind of a car
and it's powered by an LS smallback 6.2 liter tuned to only about 400 horsepower, which allows
you to, you know, increase service and intervals and further reduced costs.
It doesn't have a transmission, it's got a trans axle in the back, so the design
is rather different and that just changed the whole car and obviously that's not going
to race with the GTA cars.
They have some more news coming up on that, but that can, that's going to be competitive
in many of the other classes of race cars and they had a big event on it over the
weekend.
I'm going to write about that in the future, but yeah, the GTP V8 power Geneta is here
and it's, you know, it's difficult to talk about race cars because people are more
impressed with the Lucid doing 0-16 in 2.8 seconds than a dedicated race track that will
just destroy it on, you know, on the track and make it look easy, but this, this, this
vehicle is going to be really impressive and it's going to create some, some exciting
racing in the new future.
Other than that, next month I am going to the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta.
I am going to be there with Michelin who is not telling me why they invited me, but they're,
they're saying they're introducing a new line of race tires that are more sustainable.
I don't know what that means.
Sustainable environmentally or?
I don't know.
Longevity.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Interesting.
They just, the key term is sustainable.
However you choose to interpret that, that is, that is up to you.
Does performance fall off after a certain point?
I guess we'll, we'll find out.
Yes.
Um, so, so that's going to be good and I'm going to be there with our former news guy
Greg because he lives in Atlanta and he's all into that racing.
So I'm excited for that, for that out of the way.
I think we can speak with our guests because they want to do is listen to me talk
about it.
Tell, tell Greg I say hi and if Greg get listening hi, it's been a minute since
we spoke.
So.
All right.
Camille, just on that, on that note, I'll note that just this week, so expel does a lot
of racing.
It swanters a lot of different race teams, but just had an ounce with this week for
the first time, they're going to be with IMSA next year with the fast motorsports
team doing the Lamborghinis.
So it will protect those vehicles.
Yeah.
So is a lime rock on the schedule for next year?
I don't know.
Usually IMSA gets to limer.
Usually.
Yeah.
I don't see what they wouldn't be.
Yeah.
Cool.
That's right in your backyard.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We could have a little get together there.
I've been meaning to go there every year for the past 20 years and dude, it's the
best.
This is your year.
Lime rock is the best.
So.
All right.
Oh, I've been in lime rock just the second track I've ever driven on.
Oh, really?
So that's cool.
So you guys are sponsoring that car.
What number is that car?
Do you recall?
No.
Cool.
But I might look really quickly.
I don't know if they have nine maybe.
But you know something that is so funny thing is and we'll get to your product line of raps
and tints and everything like that.
But the Geneta people actually ask me if I know of a company that can do those pull-offs
for the windshields.
So they do them.
The expel does that for the Indy cars.
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
Excellent.
So if I sent you a windshield, you guys can make some cuts for them.
That's a Chris question, James question.
Hey, with laser scanners, you can probably do anything these days.
So speaking of expel, they are actively looking for this.
So you may have a new market that you don't even know about.
We don't technically do the tear-offs, per se.
We do the windshield protection film for the vehicles and they do put them on the race vehicles
sometimes.
But it would be more of a put it on, leave it on for the race and take it off and leave
your Lexan or Plexiglas windshield in perfect condition.
And then reapply it for the next race.
And I think that's the key most of the time, too, because replacing those windshields is
inexpensive and takes time.
And nobody wants to deal with it if they don't have to and it's important for safety, too.
So Chris, I can put you in touch with them.
And if you guys figure something out, we can take that offline if you want to.
Absolutely.
Okay.
Where were we with the expel products?
Yeah.
So let's run down your list of products.
Now, how we started was because I got one of your press releases and instantly something
came with me and I had a million and one questions, 99% of which I kind of forgot.
But let's start with your window.
I copied and pasted them into our show notes so you didn't have to remember them
on the fly.
So what is, the term ceramic is being thrown around left and right.
We got ceramic brakes.
We got ceramic, you know, car waxes.
We got ceramic, I don't know, probably water bottles.
It's a good buzzword for media these days.
What is a ceramic thing versus a non-ceramic thing?
So a ceramic tent is actually these nanoceramic particles that are impregnated into the film.
And the big thing is, you know, they're non-metallic, they're non-conductive and
they're non-reflective.
They have, you know, so instead of absorbing the heat, they reflect and refract the heat in
different directions so there's no absorption at all.
And if you remember with some of the old tents, a lot of them had metals in there.
And what happens is, you know, when your car is completely surrounded with a metalized
product or a conductive product, you have, to your point, radio, cell phone, you
know, any kind of connectivity issues outside of the car.
So the ceramics really kind of, they actually gave you better performance and they gave
you better attributes for your everyday, you know, driving when people want to listen
to their radio, XM radio, cell phones, etc.
Now when you say better performance, do you mean the car interior temperatures or
what do you mean by performance?
Yeah, no, really all around.
So the nano ceramics really stepped up the game and, you know, it can block up to 96% of
IR, it can block up to 99% of UV and, you know, really the key term when you look at
window films is teaser which stands for the total solar energy rejection.
And, you know, a premium film is typically, you know, in that 60 to 80% teaser range and
if you look at, you know, your typical old school deep died or, you know, some of the
older technologies, those are typically in the, you know, the 30 to 50% teasers where
those ceramics, you know, they're anywhere 50 and above is really considered a premium
film and, you know, the really good premium films are in that 60 to 80 range on the teaser.
That's really the key terminology that people are looking at now instead of IR, UV, you know,
it kind of combines all of them into, you know, one category.
So how would your typical customer notice?
Because most of us just say, hey, I want my car tinted, I'm going to take it to
Joe Schmoe and Tints down the street.
I'm going to say I want 20% and Joe is going to put it on.
But how do we know what makes your product better or comparable to others?
Like, how would you, is there anything that you guys can do to educate your potential
customers on this or how will we find this out?
Well, we do a really good job marketing and, you know, we have banners and, you know,
lamb boxes where you're able to put the films on and there's a heating element in there and
you can go from a deep dyed to a ceramic and you can feel the heat rejection, you know,
and with the 99% UV, et cetera.
But unfortunately, Camille, you know, one of the big things when people come in for a tint,
they're asking for the VLT and at a specific price range.
And the nano ceramics are typically a little bit more expensive.
So it's all around the value prop, if you will.
Mm-hmm.
Got you.
And to add to that, I mean, I don't know if you guys have ever experienced it for yourselves,
but if you, you know, you're in the driver's seat, that sun is beaming through that driver window
and you have the, you know, the windows down and your, your, your arm is on fire
because you have it rested there.
When you roll up that window with ceramic tint, it's like, whoa.
Like it's, that is the wow factor that people will experience that are like,
okay, that's why I paid extra for ceramic tint.
I can feel that heat rejection.
It's pretty incredible.
And you don't think it, you know, unless you really start to experience it,
it's pretty special.
Do you get any like commercial trucking type interest from this?
Is it something that 18-wheeler drivers, long haul drivers consider were used?
Seems like that would be kind of a no-brainer.
Yeah.
I mean, 100%.
Yeah.
Black, black UV, black IR, 100%, especially for those guys for sure.
Let me, let me ask you this is somewhat more advanced question.
The biggest window on any car is the windshield.
Most states have no, no tint on a windshield rule, except if you have like a medical
something or other.
I've seen people get their windshield tinted, which I think is the dumbest letter.
Yes, but it is the dumbest thing I can think of.
But, but with something, it's something like the ceramic tint that brings down your
temperature potentially limits the sun damage to your vehicle.
Is this available with basically 0% VLT?
VLT is the help me out here.
What does VLT stand for?
Visible light transmission.
Yes.
So, so 100% would be basically black and zero would basically be super clear,
right?
So when you look at the clear films and you know, you're really getting down into the
technical aspects, all nano ceramic has a slight blue hue to it.
So the clearest you can get is 90.
So the typical clear films, and I got to put that in the air quotes because they're,
they're not typically clear.
When you put it on your windshield and you're looking through it,
they look completely clear.
When you take the film and you're looking at it off of a vehicle, you can see a very,
very faint blue hue.
And you know, the clear films that they put on windshields are typically either 80 or 90%.
So you mean 10 or 20% VLT at this point?
Well, it's the opposite.
Oh, yes.
Yes.
Sorry.
It's the amount of light that it lets through.
Yep, yep, yep, yep.
I got you.
So none of them are true 100% because you are adding a layer of something.
And do you have with, with like the accident avoidance sensors that are mounted in a lot of
the cars windshields, would you cut around those or would they be transparent to that?
It's a loaded question and it really is OEM specific and it's kind of trial by fire.
So you know, you'll put it on a Tesla and you know,
you'll find out that it's blocking that sensor and then yes, you do have to cut around it.
But honestly, Camille, the majority of those films go on the inside and where the sensors are,
it's mounted somehow.
So it's, you have to go around them.
Yeah, you have to go around them anyways.
It's more the exterior films, which are also getting, you know, VLTs in them,
where you would see, you know, more of an issue with the sensor,
the films being mounted on the inside that you're referring to with the automotive tint
versus the windshield protection film.
It's not an issue because you have to go around them anyways where they're mounted to the glass.
Okay.
I mean, do you also, so, so that, that with the tint on the inside and you said you also
do the protection for the outside, like Jeep Wranglers are known to have cracked windshields
because the damn thing is vertical or like all the FJ cruisers or something.
And you guys do those as well?
We do.
That's our exterior windshield protection film.
Yep.
Okay.
Oh, careful.
And what, what, what is something like that run?
Yeah.
That's a Massachusetts company.
Gorilla glasses?
Oh, wow.
Yeah, they, they were, uh, Gorilla Glass was actually invented in Westboro Mass.
Had no idea.
So much in the venture.
They got themselves a good contract there with Jeep.
Well, no.
The original contract that, that resurrected Gorilla Glass was actually the original iPhone.
Yep.
I knew that.
It's pretty crazy.
Okay.
So this pretty much covers, uh, any, what else do you want to add about tint?
I don't know what else to do.
Can I ask a question, Camille, because you made me think of something.
Chris, even with the 80 to 90% VLT, you still get the heat rejection and the
IR protection and all that, right?
The UV protection.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think, and I think that's the important thing, right?
It's like, if you have, you know, whatever it is, the Rolls-Royce Ghost,
and it just has crazy leather on that dashboard and you really want to, you
know, prevent it from, from weathering over time and you still want that heat rejection,
you could go come almost near completely clear, get the performance without
making it like we just talked about.
We don't want to make it pitch black and have it look terrible.
You know, we were just talking about.
So if you do want to perform its attributes, but don't want that super dark appearance,
that's still achievable, you know, with products like that, which is great.
Does it also have any acoustic properties?
Which brand is it?
I think it's Range Rovers or BMWs.
You can specify glass that keeps the cars quieter.
Well, there's acoustic glass on a lot of automakers.
But is that just completely different glass or is that something on top of the glass?
That is a great question.
That's a good question.
I don't know if it's like thicker or extra pain or something, but...
I would imagine that's with the glass itself more than what they're applying to it,
but I think I could be wrong.
You get three ways to do that.
You know, you get absorption and then you get reflection and you get refraction.
I don't know how they're doing the sound attenuation or the sound dampening on the
glass with that technology.
There are many, many companies over the years, more on the architectural side for houses and
commercial buildings that have tried to do some type of sound attenuation
and no one has come up with a commercially available film product at this point.
A lot of it has what's called aerogel technology and the issue with the aerogels is
no one has figured out how to get them completely clear.
Gotcha.
All right.
I have one more question.
Just about everybody's driving SUVs these days.
They come tinted from the factory with the back three quarters,
except the driver and passenger side windows.
I am guessing that a lot of people come in and say, yes, I want tits,
but I want them too much.
Exactly what it is in the back.
How do you deal with something like that?
Chris, you want to go or you want to go?
You can take that one.
You get more of a from the shop perspective and trying to try to do that on a daily basis.
For a long time in Massachusetts and that you are 100 percent right.
That's the literally the first question, right?
Especially if it's an SUV or a pickup truck or whatever.
The short answer is you can read the factory glass and get a reading
and then match that to a VLT that you're looking for.
20 percent is kind of in the range of what most SUV glasses in the back.
So it's never going to be a 100 percent perfect, perfect match.
If anything, I want to be slightly later than the back, just a tint.
Just kind of like this gradual effect versus like the two front windows are
darker than the back.
That almost looks worse.
So you do a little homework.
You test the back, the back glass.
You see where that's reading the match of VLT.
But I would say in 15 years doing it, I would say nine times out of 10,
a 20 percent VLT was going to get us very close to what the OEM was doing in the back.
But you don't have like a library of, hey, the Jeep Wagonier from 2019 through 2021
uses this color, this VLT or anything like that?
No, no, it gets a little more complicated, Camille, because you get the backs that are
dyed, right?
So they're dark and they're aesthetic, but they don't have like UV and things like that.
So you actually have to read that.
And the other thing that people don't realize is your front windows do come with a VLT
already, typically anywhere from the three to seven percent,
depending on what the manufacturer is.
So you have to subtract that.
You have to take the back reading, then you have to take the front reading
and then figure out which film you're going to use on that
to get the combination of the VLT that's already innately in that class,
in combination with the film that you're going to use.
I think the darkest factory tint on the front window, I should say the most
noticeable one I've seen was on Lexus cars, speaking of the LS that we had before.
I mean, there's visibly different color on that window, it's not clear.
What about like, if you get a really good tint meter,
you know, like an all day, every day really good tint meter,
not the one that has the two piece, but the one that slides over,
it's about a hundred hundred hundred, yeah, it's a hundred and fifty dollars.
And any reputable tint shop will have a tint meter,
and they can give you a reading off the back glass in the front
and give you the best recommendation so that they match.
What about, okay, two things.
First of all, I had an X5 press car recently that was like full fishbowl,
just clear all the way around.
And it was so just strange because it felt like from a bygone era.
But what about, you know, the higher end Range Rovers in the Mybox,
they all have like a colored tinted windshield.
And some cars have, you know, the heating elements in the windshields.
What's the story with that in terms of dealing with it on the tint front?
It's a very good question.
Yeah, you know, just as I was alluded to before,
where you're doing your homework, there's a lot of, you know,
especially as new cars come out, new technology,
whether it be the way that the frosted lines are or whatever technology
they're packing into the glass itself, there's a bit of homework.
You know, when every new model here is like,
okay, what is this manufacturing do?
What do we need to look out for?
How do we, you know, make sure we maximize safety?
I mean, remember when the Model 3 came out, everyone was worried about,
or I shouldn't say everyone was worried, things happened, right?
Like, tinctures got water in behind electronics, and we're, you know,
think, you know, we're shortening certain computers out, right?
That was the thing that just happened, because we had never,
you know, come across that vehicle before.
So there is a lot of kind of homework to be done,
you know, before you approach a job and kind of figure out
what the canvas is, what you're working through.
That's interesting.
Okay, I'm totally honest.
I think this is the longest I've ever spent talking about window tints in my life.
So let's move on just because I know we're all on the clock here.
But what I really want to talk about is new color PPF.
And I mean, everybody who's even tangentially in cars these days
knows about PPF, you know, paint protection film and basically adding a physical layer
of film of, you know, like a wrap of sorts.
But in most cases, it's clear.
And there, you know, there's the clear PPF.
And then there's kind of the wrap side of things,
which has just changed the color of your car.
And you guys have, or X-Bell has concocted a color PPF,
which, I mean, I don't know if that existed before.
But I mean, you know, for people like myself who
destroys the paint on my truck on a somewhat regular basis,
and also hates the color of it, this is like an ideal circumstance.
So tell us about that.
To give some background story, he's got a GX, Alexis GX460,
actually both though, but that's a whole different story.
Yours is a 470.
Yeah, it's 10 better.
Alexis and Disney.
That he offroads all the time.
He offroads all the time.
And that's why that's why it's all beaten up.
That's why the pain is killed.
And yeah, I mean, is that the car I just got rid of, James?
What's that?
Is that the car I just got rid of?
What do you mean?
The GX.
You had a GX.
Yes.
So yeah.
Yes.
Yeah, you did.
Yes.
Yes.
They're the best.
They're the best.
You should know.
You should know.
You should know.
But black paint.
I mean, mine's black and Camille, yours is black too.
And I mean, that much black paint northeast on a summer day,
and it's freaking all of it.
But OK, color PPF, I mean, the sample pictures
is that we're sent over GT3RS isn't exactly a bad thing
to look at.
But tell us about it.
It doesn't work.
Yes.
I mean, color, in essence, color PPF is combining two worlds
that we've historically had, right?
We've historically had clear paint protection film
that stops rocks, prevents scratches,
is like the ultimate sacrificial barrier
so we can drive more and worry less, right?
That's kind of like what PPF has always done.
Yep.
And then we have the vinyl world, which is always like,
I want whatever blue, you know, this crazy wild blue.
I want that color.
I want to rent my car because I've always wanted that color,
right?
And vinyl allowed us to geek out on colors.
But where vinyl kind of let us down a little bit
is on the protective side, right?
It's not going to be a product that's
going to last 10 plus years and beyond forever.
It's going to be more of a short-term solution.
It can be chipped just like paint,
like being in New England and doing vinyl wraps.
I can attest that it is not a protective product.
I mean, it is in essence, I guess,
but in terms of will it get chipped like paint 100%, right?
Will it get scratched?
Will it fade?
Will like paint 100%?
So it was always kind of a, you know,
more of the show car solution, you know, garage queen,
or just I'm okay with it only lasting a couple years, right?
Now, this is something where it's like 10 plus years
looks like paint, a verse vinyl.
So when I mean looks like paint,
I mean like almost no orange peel,
really, really low texture, crazy clarity,
vibrant gloss just look like it looks
like it came out of the body shop.
A good body shop.
So kind of a girl thing.
Okay, so million questions from me,
I'm sure Ross has some too.
So thickness wise, is your protective film thinner
or about the same as vinyl?
Because my experience, I used to have a Land Cruiser
that I had partially wrapped and actually was nothing,
and actually my Lexus is partially wrapped
and they're sort of, both were sort of problematic.
Is it?
Yep.
I have bubbles on both of them
and the Land Cruiser started peeling in places.
Yeah, so very shortly after the installation.
Your typical wrap vinyl Camille is about 3.2 mils or microns
and your typical colored PPF is 8 mils or microns.
So it's more than double
and you have substantial differences
in the materials that are being used.
So your vinyl is PVC,
whereas the color PPF is a TPU
and with that additional body
and then the innate properties of the differences in the films,
it gives you that extra energy absorption
to take that impact of the rock.
And the other really nice thing with the color PPF is
you'll have the adhesive,
then you'll have the color layer,
and then you'll have the clear.
So it's very similar to the way that they paint your vehicle
and that's where you're able to kind of get that deep,
shiny body where you're looking into the paint
like you would in a good paint job
versus the vinyl which is color.
And then if it's got some metallic or anything,
it's just right on there.
You're not looking, there's no depth to it.
And I'll let James take it
because he was really the guy that put it together
and had 75, 80% say on the color, the story, the why.
This has been his baby for about 18 months
and did a fantastic job.
So I'm going to let him take this one.
No, yeah, yeah.
I mean, 100%.
I mean, I think a good way to describe it is
we've all seen like,
how many times have we all seen bad roof wraps
like in gloss black, right?
How many, everybody, you know, faded
or peeling up on edges or whatever it may be.
And it also just has that distinctive like vinyl look, right?
We've always wanted it to be paint
but it just always lets us down a little bit, right?
Color PPF really has that look of paint work
which is, you know, and when you pair
really cool, vibrant colors that have some,
that we can kind of be an ode
to some really special OEM colors,
I think that's when it's like,
okay, we get the protection that we want.
We get the look that we want.
We get the durability we want.
And now we can choose colors that we've always wanted
but maybe we don't want to do the, you know,
the 13,000 PTS.
You know, maybe we just,
because if you get the paint the sample car, right,
you get your Viper green or whatever you want,
your Ruby Star, you still then have to protect it, right?
You still don't want rock chips and scratches.
So you might have to do, you know,
clear PPF on that car, which will be great.
If that's what you want, you want to go,
but maybe you only got the allocation for a black one.
You know, you don't want to wait another two years
but you do want the Miami blue
or the gray black or something crazy
and you combine in both those worlds.
So let me ask you this.
And I have about 15 questions in my head right now
and I'm gonna try to streamline through this.
My Land Cruiser was a Japanese right-hand drive 1996 Land Cruiser
where it came from Japan.
It was living somewhere near the ocean in the sun
and the whole room was basically faded.
And I was too cheap to actually have it properly paint.
Well, I could have done a lousy paint job
but I chose to have it wrapped
and then the guy just sanded the roof a little bit
and he said that the wrap will protect it and it did.
So my first question for you is
going with vehicles that are several years old,
what is the prep that has to be done
before you put your PPF film on?
Yeah, great question.
So I mean, just like any PPF, clear, satin, color, no, no.
The prep is always the same.
So, and I always say the installation
will only look as good as the canvas.
So if you have chips and imperfections
or peeling clear coat or anything like that,
it will show through.
Now color does do a better job because it's not clear
at kind of masking older imperfections.
So color PPF might be like our first PPF.
If you do have a car that's got a little bit of miles,
it's got some road rash,
like the rockers are a little beat up
and they're a little rough.
You might not get as good of a bond
to those types of surfaces because the clear coat
has literally been smashed
to a point where you now have roughness.
But it will mask and kind of wash out
some of that more minor wear on cars.
Like if you have a giant gouge,
you're still going to see it through.
But if you have just,
I got a couple of chips there that I filled in
that were never perfect.
Now if I put clear PPF over that,
you're going to see that perfect little circle
of where you filled in that chip.
Now if you put color PPF over that same little spot,
it's not as apparent,
which I think is a cool thing because
if you have a 30,000 mile, whatever,
235 and you're all in on it
and you want to change the color,
this is going to be more of an option
that I think then clear would be at that time
with that mileage.
Yeah, I mean, so we just heard
Zach from Smoke and Tire go through this whole thing
with his, you know, E46.
It was like, I don't think it was a color PPF,
but it was definitely a color wrap.
And it was basically that,
you know, the tear down and the prep
is the outcome.
Yeah, yeah.
And going back a little bit,
I didn't really talk about that,
I was just talking about the, you know, the canvas,
but, you know, in terms of prep,
like what does the prep look like?
That, you know, that's a full wash decontamination.
So iron remover, tar remover, clay, rinse, blow dry,
isopropyl alcohol, wipe down.
I mean, the goal is to get it
as sterile clean as possible.
So there is just nothing left on that, right?
It's just pure paint ready to accept
that adhesive, ready to create a really nice bond.
And, you know, so there's not dirt coming out
of all the body seams and stuff like that.
And that's truly what separates a great install
from an average one is, you know,
to your, to that story with the smoke attire.
That, I mean, that's the whole, that's the whole bit.
So that's what the foundation.
So that's my next question.
You know, I worked in the body shop
throughout college for it a little bit.
So I know that the key to a really good paint job
is the prep of the metal
and the prep of the body.
So when you got installers,
where you got, you know, a true professional
versus the guy who, Joe Schmo,
who, who does wraps on the side,
you, you know, at the end of the day,
you want a client that's going to be happy
with your product, but the installation of it
is the key.
So do you select your, your installers
or do you give them training
or how does that work?
Both, right?
So yet there is a selection process
for our installer network.
There is training for our installer network
that we continually do
and there's certain levels to that training.
So we try to stay, you know,
if we partner up with the shop
in a specific area,
we try to work with them throughout,
you know, throughout their journey,
right?
Continually improving because that,
that, you know, just like any industry,
that learning never ends,
you know, especially in automotive,
where the canvas is always changing, right?
So we, we may master, you know,
2012 Honda Accord front bumper,
but guess what?
It's changing next year.
So we got to come up,
we got to keep learning new techniques
and trying.
So that is certainly an important part.
And Ross, can you go back to the picture
of that yellow Jeep Wrangler,
which is not exactly yellow?
Now, how do you,
how do you deal with things
such as, uh, see the hinges
that are over here?
That's what I was going to ask.
Are these like pre-cut templates
or is everything like vehicle by vehicle?
It is vehicle by vehicle.
So that now there's going to be
some shops that, you know,
depending on what vehicle it is,
it's going to be a completely bulk installation,
which is taking bulk material
and applying it to the car.
Most of the time,
it's going to utilize
one of our most important things
that we have,
which is our DAP pattern system,
right?
So that is literally
where we go to every brand new car
and we are digitizing
and creating patterns for our PPF.
Obviously, that was hugely important
for our gloss and our satin films.
With our color films,
we take those patterns
and it's going to be up to the shop
or the installer
to look at the pattern,
see what's there,
and seeing where the event
has to extend it
or modify it to,
because with color PPF,
you have to cover every little
millimeter of paint
versus gloss
where you can maybe get away with it.
So, um,
the Jeep Wrangler is honestly
one of the worst-case scenarios.
It's not a fun car to wrap,
because, you know,
in what's going to help that
is going to be
some parts dismantling as well.
So, for example,
like the grille would come out,
the door handles,
the taillights,
very basic components
that can be safely removed
from an installation facility.
That can sometimes be a key
to a seamless installation.
On those hinges,
so we do have patterns
for each one of those hinges.
In that example,
we actually got,
for this press car,
we did a,
we got gloss black covers,
right,
to make it a little bit more seamless.
So on those particular hinges,
it's their gloss black
painted covers.
But you could do,
you could do the film as well,
but then you wouldn't be able
to do the bolt, right?
So then you'd have to get the bolt painted.
So again,
just like anything,
it says, with color PPF,
it's nuance,
it's the homework.
Okay, what can we wrap?
What can't we wrap?
What's going to stay?
What's not going to stay?
All that is.
There's no,
no, this one had it.
With the,
with the color change.
Nope.
Separate manual.
You have that rule?
You're looking at
worst case scenario right there.
Yeah.
You know,
if you ask any rappers,
they'll tell you
the Wrangler and the G-Wagon
are probably the two
most difficult cars
to,
to color change.
Yeah,
probably the two most
common too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Good thing Jeeps are like this.
No, let's,
so if we go back
to the picture of the Jeep
for a second,
you had that,
well, you don't need to,
we know what a Jeep looks like,
but you had that,
imagine a Jeep.
We had,
you had that,
you had that,
you had that Rubicon
lettering on the side
of the hood.
How do you deal with that?
Do you just reapply
the OEM stickers
on top of your?
Yeah.
You gotta,
you gotta,
you gotta rebuy the stickers
and,
and reapply them.
Yeah.
Gotcha.
Amazon has everything you need
for Jeep stickers.
And so does, you know.
No, my first experience
with this film was,
I have a new Bronco
in addition to the,
to the GX
and a guy down the street
got exactly the same color,
the gray that was originally,
you know, popular
when the first came out
in 22.
And I look at it,
I'm like, wait,
why is this car so damn dirty?
And I took a closer look.
I'm like,
oh, it's just matte.
So he had the clear film
applied everywhere
and I'm like,
yeah.
So this,
this was quite cool
and quite mind blowing to me.
Yeah.
How, and, and, and,
you know,
the holiday that I mentioned earlier
that I'm driving right now,
it's mud blue,
but that's paint.
And this brings me to my next question
is the owner's manual says,
do not drive this car
through the car wash
because it will come out
without the paint.
So what is the,
the, the maintenance
and cleaning procedure
of this wrap?
I'm sorry,
this colored PPF to be.
Yeah.
So I mean,
ideally, you know,
paint protection film
is designed to reduce
the amount of time
it takes to clean the car,
right?
Because of the surface energy
it releases dirt easier.
That doesn't, you know,
I think the biggest misconception
is that it nullifies
the cleaning process, right?
And that's not true.
So I think, you know,
I always say,
I treat color PPF,
I treat paint protection film
on the whole gloss,
satin, whatever it is,
just like paint.
So it's going to be washed
like paint.
It's going to,
you know,
we're going to seal it
and add,
you know,
whether it be, you know,
ceramic coatings to it
or ceramic spray wax
is what have you.
We're going to treat it
the same way.
It's just something
that's going to probably
stay cleaner longer.
And if you do have an issue,
or like,
let's say you do have build-up
or let's say you have like
a road paint,
right?
That falls on the side of the car.
You have more time
to deal with it
before it becomes a major issue.
I think that's,
that's the big thing.
So if you're on the road trip
and, you know,
you just get blasted
with sand and salt
or whatever it is,
you know, you're not,
you're not freaking out, right?
You're like,
okay, I'll make it home.
We're cool.
I got PPF.
You know, we're all right.
Yeah.
But,
but maintenance
being the wash process
is still an absolutely vital
like cornerstone of,
of maintaining it
over the long term.
Okay.
And let's say
five years go by,
you want to sell the car,
your PPF is pitted and whatnot.
You want to take it off.
What is involved with that?
And is there any chance
of having the paint damage
as you're taking it off
or is there procedures for that?
Chris, you want to get that one?
There's always potential
for damage Camille.
It all depends on,
you know, again,
like anything else,
the level of care that they take.
So if you have an OEM paint job
and you are picking at the edges
and, you know,
you use a steamer
and, you know,
the proper angle
to remove the film,
you're going to get it off
and relatively cleanly.
If you're trying to
kind of haphazardly go through it
and not follow best practices
and you're pulling at the wrong angle
and it's been on there
for five years,
the bond is going to be
very, very, very intact
with that clear coat
and you could potentially damage it.
So it, again,
it all comes down to care
and best practices.
And, you know,
we highly recommend
using a steam heat assist.
Some people use heat guns.
Heat guns are equally as good as steam.
They're just a little bit harder to control.
You know, so,
you know,
if you're using a steamer
and you get steam on your hand,
it, you know,
it hurts a little bit.
If you get a little too close
to your fingers with a heat gun,
you could really burn yourself.
The other thing is with heat guns,
some of them go up to around 1400 degrees.
So as you're peeling that film away
at the right angle
and somebody, you know,
heats it up too much,
what'll happen is you'll get tearing
and you're always going to get a cleaner removal
the less you have to stop,
you know,
because you'll get a little bit
of a ratcheting in effect.
One of the things that people don't realize is
that film has a lot of elasticity to it,
which gives it its durability.
So as you're going to pull away,
if you extend it too much,
what's going to happen
is you're going to break the bond
between the film
and the adhesive
and the adhesive is going to stay
on the clear coat,
which doesn't damage anything.
It just makes it a little bit more
of a cleanup after the fact
when you get the film off.
You know, James as a perfectionist
has a room of more film than I have
and has it down to a science.
He still tends to lose the skin
on his fingers, but...
You know what I mean?
See you at the end of the day, Camille,
and we're being honest.
It's not rocket science.
There are best practices to follow,
but it's a pain in the ass.
Yeah, I...
Most good things.
The Land Cruiser that I mentioned before,
it had, you know,
20-year-old Japanese metallic tint on it
that was all faded and stuck to it.
I was just cursing, taking that thing off.
I ended up finding someone
just paying someone to do it.
And he had it done in an hour
after I was struggled with it for, you know,
for many hours and cut myself
and had all kinds of drama going on with it.
So, yeah.
I guess Steam was the answer in that one.
So the listeners at this point
are probably wondering the same thing
that I'm wondering, which is,
what is the ballpark price to do a color PPF?
And how does that differ from a wrap
or just a standard expel PPF?
And I know you're going to say, you know,
it's all situational and vehicle-dependent
and market-dependent and everything,
but let's just say you have a Wrangler Unlimited,
you come in and you want, you know,
like we were looking at before,
you want your, you know,
your Sarge Green Wrangler to be hella yellow
or whatever the expel equivalent of bright yellow is.
What can somebody expect to pay?
So it will be variable,
but, you know, it's down to the expectation
and how the shop is doing it, right?
So for example, there are going to be shops
that are going to dismantle the whole vehicle
to the nth degree.
And that's why color PPF on the whole
is going to be more expensive,
then clear, then satin PPF,
obviously way more so than vinyl,
because of the level of knowledge
and obviously of, you know,
liability that the shop is going to include
by having to dismantle so much.
So that'll be one element.
You know, again, like the Model 3,
there's really not much to take apart.
Emblems, window trim, maybe a real tail light,
and you could wrap the whole car
to a really, really high level,
unlike the Jeep Wrangler.
I'll do a better job putting it back together
after you take those couple things apart
than Tesla does.
Well, yeah, you're not wrong.
You're not wrong.
So we just have to say for the listeners,
Tesla is a very good partner to X-Pel.
Yes.
Yeah.
My comment has nothing to do
with X-Pel's actual professionalism.
So, yeah.
So, you know, it'll depend on the canvas,
but I think on a safe range
would be anywhere from that, you know,
as little as, you know,
6 grand as high as 15 grand, right?
You know, for those G-Wagons and stuff
that you're completely disassembling
and reassembling.
So it's, you know, it is car to car.
So the hourly rate of the shop aside,
what is about the percentage difference
in cost between the materials,
between a vinyl wrap and between your colored PPF
and the regular PPF?
In terms of just the cost of the material itself?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes.
It is a bit more expensive than vinyl.
So, yeah, I mean, you are,
the material cost is certainly going to be higher.
Your labor cost is certainly going to be higher.
20%, 30%, just from the material.
TPU versus vinyl is significantly more expensive
and it is double the thickness.
And one of the things that, you know,
you don't realize as a consumer
is the manufacturing process of a TPU versus a PVZ,
the machinery, as well as the raw materials
and the length of the runs is substantially longer.
So it's a, the cost difference in vinyl and PPF
is, and I'm ballparking it, but it's almost double.
Yeah, I literally, I just ran,
I just did some numbers right here.
It's about double.
It's about double.
I mean, that's hard to say,
but people just want to know.
So, you know.
No, I mean,
Yeah, it's not even the politically correct answer.
It's, it's about double.
Okay.
We're all about being politically incorrect.
Chris, do you want to mention the warranty?
You want to mention the warranty on color PPF?
Well, you know, and one of the big differences,
you know, to Steve's point, you know,
if you look at vinyl, you know,
depending on the manufacturer, you know,
you'll have horizontal warranties
versus vertical warranties.
And then if the car is in Massachusetts
versus California versus Texas,
versus, you know, Florida, you know,
some, some of those warranties on the vinyls,
and I'm not even kidding,
our six and eight pages long, you know,
some, some vinyl warranties are as low as two years.
One of the really beautiful things with color PPF
is all the constructions are exactly the same.
And our warranty, no matter what the color is,
no matter where you are in the world,
it's a 10 year warranty.
That makes sense.
I mean, just because you have a car in Massachusetts
doesn't mean stays in Massachusetts, you know?
Well, and not only that though, Ross,
I mean, the value prop is really there.
If you're talking about a five, six thousand dollar,
you know, vinyl wrap job,
which some of the higher end shops are going to charge,
you can get one as low as three.
But most, most vinyl wraps with disassembly,
they're keeping the car for probably four days,
some five, and it's typically right around five K.
And you're looking at a three year warranty
versus, you know, an eight thousand dollar,
just a ballparkic color PPF color change
with the 10 year warranty.
That value proposition is really there, in my opinion.
Makes sense.
Yeah, and you also said that the color PPF
is slightly thicker than a clear one, right?
No, no, no.
The clear and the color are,
they have slightly different constructions,
but it's very similar to the same thicknesses.
Okay, all right.
And adding that thin layer all over the vehicle,
when you're reassembling the trim,
that doesn't give anybody any trouble
in terms of putting like the defends back in
or some kind of stuff, or is it just, you just roll with it?
I would scan the whole no,
but there are obviously, there are certain areas
where you maybe could get a little bit tighter with vinyl
because it is a thinner construction.
So the first example I'm thinking of
is if you take the front bumper off
and you wrap the front bumper into like inside,
and then you take the bumper and wrap inside
and then you have these two pieces,
you know, eight mil material, eight mil material,
we're rubbing up against each other
as that front bumper moves over time as you drive,
with a thicker product, you're more prone to bunching.
So there are certain areas where you just have to be mindful
of those types of situations
and maybe you can't go all the way in.
You'll go right up to the point
or have to make some modifications
in order to achieve the look you're going for.
Gotcha.
Okay, my last question,
and then I think we're probably gonna start wrapping things up.
How durable exactly, and I mean exact
is an impossible question,
but you know, showcasing a Wrangler
or talking about, you know, a vehicle
that gets caught behind a salt truck in the winter
or you know, like my case on my GX,
I have trail rash, which is basically
you're driving down narrow trails
and the tree branches just rush and scrape the sides.
Like is this stuff, what does it withstand?
I mean, is it, you know, truly
more than a meat can handle?
Yes, for sure.
Yes, yes, big time, big time.
Yeah, so when you're talking about
sacrificial scratches, swirl marks,
I mean, that's probably, I mean, for me,
that's always been the thing I've loved
about paint protection film
is just the swirl mark resistance.
So, you know, the car guys,
we're always loving on our cars.
Well, you know, we, how many times have we seen
the guys, you know, with the California Duster
at the car show just absolutely going to town, right?
On soft paint.
And that's scratching away.
Scratching away.
Yeah, scratching away, right?
And you're like, oh, man, it's tough to watch.
But, you know, with paint protection film,
you have so much more resistance to that.
But there is a threshold, you know,
just like anything, right?
And that threshold, you know,
could be a variety of different things.
But, you know, is a, you know, a shopping cart,
you know, gouge going to be completely
self-healing and preventable?
No, but I think the thought process
has always been that PPF
is the ultimate sacrificial barrier.
Once it's taken its hits, it's done its job,
it's saved your paint.
You know, Chris alluded to how easily it comes off with steam,
take it off, put a new panel on,
and keep the cycle going, right?
I think that's always been the kind of the mantra
that we go by.
James, you mentioned self-healing, though,
but I think most people don't know how that works.
Can you explain that?
I was actually going to ask about that
because it's such a, it's like descriptive,
but, you know, vague at the same time.
Yeah, so our top coat for Color PPF
is a little bit different than our standard products.
It's a hydrophilic self-healing top coat.
So hydrophilic refers to water sheeting,
so it does a really great job at not
keeping water stagnant on the panel
and beating up really nicely.
We want it to kind of flow off,
which nullifies water spots,
keeps everything kind of flowing off the paint,
which is a good thing.
It's also, the self-healing part relates to
minute minor scratching that can be eliminated
through the introduction of heat,
and that might be hot water, that might be just the sun.
So if we do by accident,
put a little towel mark in the film,
or we scratch it with the California Duster by accident,
we can utilize that self-healing top coat
to kind of reflow the top coat to a point
where you no longer see those swirls and scratches.
So my bronca was keyed by someone who I know,
but that's a long different story,
and I dropped it off to a detailing place,
and they didn't ama-
Don't ask.
Tell me that story off there.
It's not, it's okay, fine.
But regardless, I dropped it off to a local
detailing place over here, a well-known one,
and they did an amazing job of hiding that scratch.
So would you use,
so you wouldn't use those same practices
that you would use on a painted metal,
you would use what you just said, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
So I mean, for metal, we're wet sanding,
we're gonna try to fill it in with color,
we're gonna wet sand,
we're gonna try to kind of remove material
in order so that visually we can't see the scratch anymore.
That's how we would repair that scenario.
With Color PPF, it's kind of just a different thought process.
Now there are times where we can do repairs,
so we can polish Color PPF or Gloss PPF.
We can use various cleaners and what have you
to try to remove gouges or paint transfer.
Paint transfer, that's probably like,
that's like the hero shot of PPF,
where it's like you're in a parking lot,
someone hits you with the white car,
and you have this white mark on your PPF,
and you just go over there with isopropyl alcohol
and just completely just take it off.
And you're like, wow, that's cool, that's awesome.
I saved my film and I saved my car
and now I don't have to go to the body shop.
I mean, it's like, wow, that's really cool.
Now they're granted, for every one of those instances,
there's gonna be instances where
someone hits you hard enough or it's hitting the PPF enough,
or you do have to remove it,
but the underlying paint is saved, right?
That's the cool part.
And if you really look at a paint system
and one thing that people don't realize, right?
So when you look at your car,
you're gonna have your substrate,
whether it's the fiberglass, carbon fiber, metal, right?
Then you're gonna have primer,
you're gonna have paint, your actual color,
you're gonna have clear coat.
That's gonna typically mic out at around six and a half mils.
And you know how easy it is to damage that,
to get through the clear
and to actually remove some of that paint,
i.e. a neck or a scratch.
If you look at PPF,
whether it's the stealth, our gloss, or our color,
that's a sacrificial eight-mil layer.
So you're actually putting on a protective layer
that's thicker than the totality
that you have on top of your substrate,
the metal of your actual vehicle.
So that's how much you have for a protective layer
on top of your paint.
And to get to your original question
about the way that the self-healing works,
there's a couple of very simple technologies.
And at the simplest form, you have molecules
in that top coat
that when you introduce heat, they like each other, right?
So they're completely static.
And when you introduce heat,
and the simplest way to explain it is,
if you put hot water in a Keurig cup,
pour just raw water in a Keurig
and dump the water onto the paint from eight inches,
that heat right there will be enough to self-heal.
Anything that didn't get through the self-healing layer,
which is about a quarter of a mil on top of the PPF itself.
So once you get through that,
you will lose the self-healing properties,
but you're still not damaging the paint
to James's earlier point.
With the colored PPF, is there fading over time?
So if I have PPF that's 18 months old
and I have to replace a panel
and I have that Jeep Wrangler
and I put in a new yellow,
is there fading on the audio?
Because you can't blend it.
The only way to do it properly
is to help you replace the whole thing.
Is that one of its properties?
Does the color stay more with it
or is there fade associated with it?
Yeah, so when Chris was kind of alluded
to the construction a little while ago,
there's a lot of things that we've built
into this film to resist that,
resist fading over time,
and we do these crazy weathering studies
and send the film all over the world,
and it's got to be as durable
in the deserts of Dubai as it is in Boston, right?
So there's a lot of checks and balances
that we put in to ensure
that we do get color stability over time.
However, if you have a car in Florida,
on the beach, and it sits outside every day,
will you get fading over time?
Yes, just like we are
with our normal clear-coated paint systems,
we're going to get that same level over time.
So it does depend on where it's stored,
how it's stored, driving conditions,
road conditions, all those kind of variables
coming in how it's done.
Does it vary on what it's applied to?
Sometimes the paint fades faster
on some plastics than on some steel, for instance.
Does that...
The simplest answer, Camille,
is it's not going to be any different
than your standard paint system,
and certain colors are more prone
to that than others.
But if you have your entire car wrapped,
right, and you did have one panel
that got damaged,
then as you know, because you said
you have a body shop background
and there's blending associated with that,
you don't have the ability to do that
with the color PPF.
So if you do, you know, one door on a car
that's in Florida and it's, you know, a black,
you will probably have to replace both doors
to get those to match exactly the same
that you would have to do with a paint system.
It's going to fade exactly the way
that OEM paint would fade.
Got you.
This is the...
But, yeah, and hopefully that's the lower way, right?
You know, it would be the ultimate goal.
This is the perfect opportunity.
Rasko, correct me if I'm wrong,
I think we're running out of time.
Yeah, yeah, we're a bit...
We said we were going to do 45, we've done an hour,
and I was just going to equip that this is a perfect
opportunity for more Volkswagen Harlequins
where, you know, different color panel
of the whole car.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, we did...
The team in Australia did like a GT3
Harlequins style looking thing.
Okay, that's all this thing I was saying.
I mean, it's a Volkswagen, so, you know.
Yes, it is.
So, all right.
Well, I think, you know, we've got all over the place,
and I think we covered quite a lot,
and thank you guys.
James, Chris, Steve, thanks for coordinating.
This was extremely interesting and educational.
I really had a good time,
and I think you guys should come back at some point
because I feel like we could keep going for another hour
because we're geeks and dorks when it comes to these things.
Yeah.
Camille, you get an open invitation.
James spends quite a bit of time at Expel Boston,
which is right in Norwood, right by where Ferrari is on the automobile.
Anytime you want to stop by and James isn't traveling
and you wanted to see some of the stuff we're doing,
you're open invitation.
And Ross, same to you, it'd be about an hour and a half drive,
hour 45, you're more than welcome.
That was good.
I will definitely take you up on this.
I actually have some time maybe later this week.
So no, and if not, we'll probably see you at the Conakor's event
this weekend in Rhode Island.
Yes, sir.
Gentlemen, thank you for having us with the blast.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
About this episode
A deep dive into automotive trends and innovations with Expel's James, Steve, and Chris, covering topics from the demise of the Lexus LS to the blistering performance of the Lucid Sapphire. Camille shares insights from racing events and electric pickup tests. The conversation then shifts to advanced window tinting technologies, emphasizing ceramic tints' heat rejection and UV protection. The highlight is Expel's new color paint protection film (PPF), blending vibrant colors with durable protection, ideal for off-roaders and enthusiasts wanting to refresh or protect their vehicle's paint. Installation, maintenance, and cost considerations are thoroughly explored.
On the latest episode of the Hooniverse Podcast, XPEL’s James Melfi and Steve Janisse join to talk PPF and more than you ever thought you wanted to know about window tint films, the technical details and engineering that goes into them, and of course, what the crew is driving and some recent news items. There’s never a shortage of opinions, and you’ll get smart about PPF; talk about a win-win!