The Top 10 Strangest Paint Jobs I Have Ever Seen

So it seems to be all the range at the moment with people getting cars wrapped. As a result, we're seeing more unique supercars on the road every day. I've listed the top 10 craziest, strangest and coolest looking paint jobs I have found on supercars.

10. McLaren 675LT Test Car
Okay, this first one isn't strictly a paintjob that someone's put on their car for the road, this one's to stop the carparzzi taking pictures of the car before it's even been released. These images are of the new McLaren Sports Series, the rumoured P13 car going to Geneva for the Motor Show this year.

Normally, test cars are painted in to camo, however this McLaren was painted a little differently, covered in different classic McLaren F1 cars making it's wrap a little different.

9. Sharpie Lamborghini Gallardo

There's a story behind this one. The car was the idea of Brett David, who, at the time his father had just passed away, leaving Brett to be the CEO of a Lamborghini dealership. Being 19 at the time, Brett wanted to show everyone that he was capable of the role.

The young CEO hired Miami graffiti artist Jona Cerwinske. The result was this incredible paintjob on the Gallardo, all completed with a sharpie!

8. Chinese McLaren P1

When I first saw this P1, I thought it was a joke, but it turns out the Chinese owner thought it looked like a thing of beauty. I'm afraid I can't say that I agree. It looks like something out of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Rumour has it that the owner paid an extra $139,000 for the paintjob, that's on top of the $1.2 Million price tag. Whatever floats your boat I suppose!

7. Black Flame Chrome Mercedes SLR McLaren

This one was spotted in London, and was all over my Instagram and Facebook for a while. I've seen chrome paintjobs, but this is something else. The owner clearly decided he wanted to stand out, and boy did he succeed!

After taking a few glances, this car isn't actually that bad looking, I don't think I could live with it every day though!

6. Deadmau5 Purrari 458

Deadmau5, also known as Joel Zimmerman had this Ferrari 458 Spyder wrapped in a Nyan Cat theme for the Gumball 3000 last year. He drove it all the way through Europe as part of the rally, and even got banned from driving in France as a result of the new speed laws over there!

When the DJ came to sell the car after the rally for $380,000, Deadmau5 received a letter from Ferrari asking him to Cease and Desist, as the car was not inline with the Ferrari brand. Deadmau5 had to have the Ferrari unwrapped to prevent a legal battle with the automotive manufacturer.

Nissan later tweeted Deadmau5 with a rendered Nissan GTR with the same paint job, offering their GTR as a replacement, a cracking bit of PR!

5. Mario Balotelli Bentley Continental GT

Mario Balotelli, known for his attitude and his luxurious cars, and even linked to the Italian mafia at one point. This one was a while ago now, but the footballer decided to wrap his Bentley Continental GT in a camouflage colour.

Rumour has it that the footballer has now sold the car, however it was a bold move to get the car in this colour, no doubt attracting a lot of attention to himself!

4. Duiav Lamborghini

Getting into Lamborghini territory now, this special Aventador is one of a kind. Lamborghini Miami makes a return in this post, by teaming up with French musician and painter Duiav, who put together this multicoloured wrap on the Lamborghini, making it really stand out.

The car is currently listed on Lamborghini Miami's website, unfortunately, the price is on application! Imagine driving round in an automotive masterpiece! Lamborghini Miami added their contribution by fitting a Novitech spoiler to the car.

3. Chris Brown's Aventador

Yes, another Aventador, seems to be the car to make stand out! As if Lamborghini's didn't stand out enough anyway.

Around the same time that Balotelli got his Bentley wrapped, Chris Brown did this to his Aventador. In my opinion, this made it look gorgeous. The paint job rumoured to cost $15,000 and took a month to complete. The red and white camoflauge paint job was to make Chris Browns new Nike trainers. Sadly, Chris decided to rewrap the Aventador with a new baby blue paint job a few months after having it camouflaged. Personally, I prefer the camouflage wrap!

2. Tron Lamborghini Aventador

What is it with the Lamborghinis? I swear i'm not biased here, although I wouldn't turn down a Lamborghini, everyone seems to be wrapping these cars in crazy paint jobs!

The Aventador has what looks like a DMC body kit and spoiler package, painted in purple with orange tron lines to make it glow in the dark. - I know, right?! The Lamborghini was spotted driving around London last Summer as part of the Arab Supercar invasion.

The supercar is rumoured to be owned by a 24 year old descendant of Quatar's ruling family. The Aventador was infamously pulled over by police in London for not having a front numberplate. It also transpired that the Aventador driver had no license or valid insurace, so the car was seized by police and impounded.

1. Lamborghini Aventador Blue Camo

I know, I know, too many Lamborghini's in one post! But this Aventador is the most gorgeous i've ever seen. I'm absolutely in love with the paint job, the blue camouflage is just amazing on it.

This Lamborghini was designed by A Bathing Ape, a Japanese clothing brand, recently sold to Hong Kong fashion conglomerate I.T. Professional free-skier John Olsson asked the company to design a wrap for his Aventador and they came back with this artic blue camouflage, both fitting and gorgeous! And even a matching roof box to hold his skis too!

Gumball 3000 2015 Route Announced

So the 2015 route for the Gumball 3000 has finally been announced. Next years rally will take place between 23rd to 30th May, covering just over 5000 miles between Stockholm and finishing in Las Vegas! No doubt the wealthy participators will have a good night to end with!

The rally will pass through Oslo, Copenhagen and Amsterdam, before crossing to American where it will pass through San Francisco, LA and finally finishing in Las Vegas. The entry fee is £40k, with any additional team members will cost an extra £20k, which covers all transport and accommodation costs. Sadly this fee doesn't cover fuel costs, and with one team planning to enter a Mercedes 6x6 next year.

Teams are expected to raise money through donations and sponsorships. See entered teams and sponsor them here:

https://www.gumball3000.com/rally/entry_grid

Supercar Capitals of the world

I've always been torn on where is the best place to see the most exotic supercars. Nowadays you've got many different budding automotive photographers, with Youtube pages and websites. These guys, 'carparazzi' as they are known, are everywhere. All over capital cities or anywhere where's likely to be a sighting of a super or hypercar. So this post is to look at the supercar capitals of the world.

London:
Starting off,  one of the biggest supercar cities is right here in the UK. London is all over Youtube, with entire channels based on the hot cars that kick about in the city. What's more, during a few months in the Summer each year, an event as what's been infamously known as the Ramadan Rush, where very wealthy men and women from the Middle East flock to London with their expensive supercars to enjoy the cooler weather during the Summer months.

Hotspots for supercars:
Sloane Street
Knightsbridge
Mayfair
Park Lane
The Berkeley Hotel

Dubai

Dubai comes into a league of it's own when it comes to supercars. And what happens when these hot cars break the law? Well, naturally, the police drive the likes of Aventadors and Ferrari FFs to keep up with them. Dubai even set a Guinness World Record for having more supercars participating in a parade during UAE National Day that went on last week. Dubai set the record for having 58 luxury cars participating in a parade over 3.2km. 

Lets also not forget about the Top Gear episode that featured the Mercedes 6x6 in Dubai. The episode showed some of the most outrageous cars i've ever seen! Dubai is full of oil wealthy Sheikhs, amongst luxury hotels that have fleets of Rolls Royces and Bentleys.

Hotspots for supercars:

Outside Dubai Mall

Outside expensive hotels

Monaco

Monaco has got to be on every car enthusiasts bucket list. Filled with the wealthy, some of them even F1 drivers, and combined with the Yachts and weather, Monaco certainly has the luxury lifestyle, and with this lifestyle come some gorgeous supercars.

Hotspots for supercars:

Casino Square

Fairmont Hotel

Either entrance to the tunnel

Marbella

Almost like a smaller Monaco, Marbella has recently become a hotspot for supercars, with even top gear driving three supercars through the port during one of the episodes during last season. Marbella has more supercar rental companies than any other place that i've ever been to. 

Hotspots for supercars:

Puerto Banus

Zurich

Perhaps the least likely candidate to be full of supercars, being no way near the sea, but Zurich in one of the major financial powerhouses and of course has the salaries that come with it. Naturally, the men and women of Zurich feel it necessary to purchase a fine supercar to drive to work in. Zurich is named to be one of the best supercar spotting cities in the world. Certainly on my list of places to go to see the cars. There are no specific places to spot supercars however, as they are all over the place!

Hybrid Supercars

So my last post concentrated on fully electric supercars that are currently on the market. It occurred to me that there are no supercar manufacturers that currently manufacture a fully electric car. The likes of McLaren, Ferrari, Lamborghini and even Porsche best attempts are only hybrids. Maybe this is the way forward until better technologies emerge to product better electric vehicles.

Going back to the hybrids currently on the market. Manufacturers are almost taking the mickey with hybrid engines. The McLaren P1, an electric and petrol hybrid, has a range of only 10km. With that said, the biggest problem non-enthusiasts have with supercars are their loud engines. The 10km range of the electric engine inside a P1 will get through some inner cities, therefore reducing the amount of noise and nuisance caused to residents, so in a way you can almost understand the reason why the electric engine has such a small range. But still, 10km? Really McLaren?

Next up, we have the Porsche 918 Spyder. Slightly similar looking to the P1, but I know i'd far sooner have a British hybrid supercar. The Porsche comes with a 4.6L V8, with an electric motor that is capable of a range of a measly 19km (About 12 miles). Like the P1, I feel that this is partly to give driver the ease of driving peacefully through inner cities and then allowing them to enjoy the sweet sound of that V8 while out on the open road. 

Ferrari's answer to these hybrid vehicles (that aren't really hybrids) is the LaFerrari (pictured below). Different to the other too, Ferrari has given this monster a V12 engine, capable of producing 227MPH. It does come with a hefty price tag of £1 million though, but worth it in my opinion for a vehicle that can out power an Enzo. Unlike the other hyper-hybrids, the Ferrari uses it's electric motor to power the rear axle only, giving the car higher torque at lower revs, meaning the Ferrari has power on tap when going slow or fast. 

Lamborghini are yet to properly respond to this move towards hybrid engines. The company did announce the concept of their new model the Asterion, last month at the Geneva motor show. The company have since announced that the Asterion will simply stay as a concept and will not yet be going into production. The vehicle rumoured to have 3 separate electric generators, producing an extra 300bhp on an already 607bhp V12 petrol engine. The company did acknowledge however that the automotive industry is trending towards hybrid and alternatively fuelled vehicles, due to popular demand. Many customers now are focussing on saving money and protecting the environment. Consumers are sharper and know more about the technology involved in developing alternatively fuelled vehicles. Thanks to Tesla and other research, this technology is practically open source, allowing anyone to develop it, hence why hybrid and other alternatively fuelled engines are developing so rapidly. 

This trend in the market however, is to go against the many petrol heads like myself out there, that enjoy the sound of a V8 or V12 roaring past them. This arguement will be forever ongoing in my opinion, but who's to say in 10, or even 5 years time, we'll all be driving hybrid, or electric cars with V8 sounds coming through the interior speakers to make us all feel better.

E-Supercars

With the growing demand of hybrid or electric supercars, and the increasing bad press on petrol and diesel cars, their emissions and being known as 'gas guzzlers', automotive manufacturers seem to be responding. Albeit many of these hybrid or electric supercars are only ever one offs or even just concepts. Is this because of the cost involved of developing an alternatively fuelled vehicle? Or are manufacturers just interested in keeping the green hippies happy while they continued to make great gas guzzling v10s and v12s?

I could write on and on about the effects of manufacturing greener cars, heck I even wrote my Undergraduate dissertation on the subject, but let me focus on the current E-supercars out there on market at the moment.

First of all, I think leading the way is the BMW I8. With a top speed of 155MPH, it's not the quickest out there, but I certainly think BMW are the most successful in terms of premium E-supercars. The I8 will rob you of just short of £95,000. This will however give you 357bhp and 134.5mpg. I'm not genius when it comes to maths, but i'm fairly sure this will pay for itself in fuel in the long run!

Lotus have rumoured to be building a similar electric vehicle. The Lotus Nemesis. Built on the base of a Lotus Elise, this all-electric vehicle will fetch up to 151MPH, however the price is £1.6 million! Not sure this one will pay for itself in fuel, maybe not in our lifetime anyway. But take a look at that Union Jack draped over it in a ghost stripe sort of finish, i'd still have one.

Finally, no electric car blog could be complete without mentioning the big daddy of electric cars - Tesla. To keep it in line with my e-supercar subject, i'm going to look at the Tesla Roadster. With similar looks to the Lotus Elise and looking like something out of Grand Theft Auto, the Roadster packs 302BHP and has a top speed of 102MPH. This might not be much, but it has a range of 211 miles and a battery life of 7 years or up to 100,000 miles. Not bad for an electric car that'll top a tonne. You can pick a used one up off Autotrader or PistonHeads for around 80k nowadays, and that, in my opinion, completely throws BMW and Lotus well out of the water. Damn you America.

My Blog

So, first post of my blog, and hopefully first of many posts too. All opinions are of my own and I would welcome any comments or other people's opinions. Basically, i'm an automotive addict using this blog to feed my addiction and share my views with you all.