Owning a supercar is expensive at the best of time, but then restoring, painting, and protecting a supercar adds a mammoth amount to the cost of ownership, as Paul Wallace – SupercarsOfLondon – explains in his latest video.
The process of buying and owning a supercar is a ‘bucket list’ item for almost any petrolhead, but few realize the additional costs of restoring and protecting their pride-and-joy. Fresh from a thorough restoration, Paul’s Lamborghini Murcielago enters the final stage of its factory-fresh overhaul at NVN London.
Taking us behind the scenes of this high-end facility in London; Paul gives us an inside look at how the super-rich keep their supercars looking their best and how they protect them from everyday dirt, damage, and weather.
So clean you could eat your dinner off it
Despite being fresh from its $32,000 respray, the paintwork on the Lamborghini needed a full decontamination wash and detail before laying the Paint Protection Film (PPF) over the top of the paintwork.
Paul explained the need for this meticulous attention to detail by using an analogy many of us will be familiar with: “Imagine having a speck of dust on your iPhone as you lay a screen protector on; You get this little air bubble [from the dust]” – Should the car have any dirt left on it, it would poke up and cause imperfections in the PPF film.
The PPF film is then cut from a custom-made template, before being laid onto the car. With the edges specifically made to ‘tuck’ underneath each panel, the result is a flawless high-gloss finish that improves the paintwork and protects the car.
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on Esports, Gaming and more.
Over 11 months in the making
Breaking down the cost in the video, Paul explains that the paintwork alone cost $32,000. Initially starting out as a ‘paint restoration’ he now considers the car to have had so much work done, it qualifies as a full-on restoration project to bring the Murcielago back to factory-fresh spec.
Alongside the paintwork, the ‘Murcie’ also received over $15,700 on upgrade and replacement parts, including a whopping 250 man-hours of work. This is in addition to the 500 man-hours of work on the paint alone, bringing the project to a total of around 750 hours of labor.
With the total cost hovering around the $50,000 mark, Paul reveals that he may now be looking to sell the Murcielago to fund his next project, stating it is the “right time” to do so.
After so many hours and with so much money invested in the car, hopefully, it will be an easy sale for him when the time comes.