To Black Out or Not? How does this look? 2010 Fusion

[nautica2o3]

Originally Posted by Stealth Stalker

Wow, I'm surprised that everyone thinks the black looks good. I love a blacked out car, but the look just fails for me on a silver car. I think it looks horribly cheap and totally takes away from the lines of the car.

I'm with you, blacked out on that car looks cheap. Putting a chicken fence type mesh grill on there would make it look even tackier.

[sequoiasoon]

I like the blacked out look but I don't think it will help with the laser from all I've learned here. The Silver color on the bumper is just WAY too big of a target even if you veil the lights. I've got a bright silver Sonata and a silver Sequoia. I thought about veil but after all the threads here can't see wasting the money and losing light output as well as risking ticket for tinted lights. Options for the paint could also include matte black vinyl from a graphics shop or the spray on/roll on bedliner material from Pepboys.

[kpatz]

I say do it. Those "Gillette Fusion" grills are fugly IMHO, and notice how just about every Ford model has them now??

And going black in front can only help with laser. I almost wonder if Ford designed that grill at the request of laser gun manufacturers. "Hey, what do you think of this new grill design that's like a mirror on the front of the car?" "Hey, I like it! Let's put them on all our cars!!"

[904nm]

Actually mine is white but the silver picture was the closest color I could quickly find to white with a clean shot of the grill... I guess white and silver are about the same when it comes to laser reflection.

At 1000' the IR bean from a gun is about 3' wide so it is not scattering a lot. Now if you have a chrome / mirror finish grill that is angled up or down would that not reflect most of the IR that hits it away from the source? The slats on the Fusion are raked back 20-30 degrees. So it would appear to me that laster light hitting them would be reflected into the sky and not back to the source. I'm pretty rusty with geometry / trig but the height of the reflected IR even as close as 100 feet at 20 degrees would still be will over the top of the LEO. Maybe I oversimplified this. Any engineers here to point out my errors? We are just talking about the reflections from the grill for now.

[TSi+WRX]

Your local auto-parts retail store should have vinyl, non-permanent, clean-release "chrome black out tape."

The look won't be clean, when you do it, but it will give you a good idea of what to expect when/if you do the blackout, and it'll release clean. I've had it on for a month at a time, with the hot Georgia summer sun baking it on for about a week, and it still came off clean.

Personally, I like the blacked-out look a lot, on this vehicle - at least just one the front end.

I wonder how the side and rear profiles would match, aesthetically, to such a revision.....

[904nm]

Excellent idea. We have one of those rice rocket customization super stores about 5 miles from me. I was thinking about trying black electrical tape to test the look but using black out tape is a better idea. Didn't realize they sold it for that purpose.

[TSi+WRX]

^ That place will definitely have something for you to try out. Definitely get the vinyl tape that's specific for this purpose, as it won't leave the nasty residue.

With electrical tape, that's gonna be yucky!

[904nm]

No black vinyl at the custom shop! PepBoys had some but too narrow. So I used $3 in elect tape to get a preview. (Goo comes off pretty easy with gum and tar remover.) The tape lines are distracting but gives a good idea how it will look. I blurred one image to mask the lines for a litter better idea on final look.

I'm kind of neutral at the moment. It will look better when the grill is sprayed but still deciding. Wadda ya think?

[JDS]

I LOVE it!

[supercowpowers]

Originally Posted by JDS

I LOVE it!

X2! The whole front end looks complete now, and not at all like it was designed to be a giant razor.