Creation of Lighting McKing

Paul works his magic creating the stickers necessary to create Lighting McKing. I know the name, Lighting McKing, it was changed to protect the innocent. In all Paul created 19 stickers to bring Lighting McKing to life. The side lightning bolts and number were a composite of three stickers.

The Rusteze graphic was created from scratch so it could be scaled to any size needed. Rusteze stickers were placed on the rear fenders and front hood.

This whole project started when Paul asked me what number did I want on my car for the Painter Turtle Pine wood Derby run. Paul wanted all the corvettes to look like race cars. Phil wanted 22, Brent wanted 10, Chris 120, Danny 07, Paul 349 and I wanted 95. Paul asked what does 95 stand for. "Lighting Mcking" I said and the flood gates of creativity started to flow. First is was just a small lighting bolt behind the number 95. That quickly grew to more lighting bolts, the Rusteze sticker, Larger door graphics and the eyes.

Phil lays out the eyes and eyebrows. One detail is the reflection in the eyes. It needs to be aligned correctly to give the car a more lifelike appearance. We also experimented with several patterns befor deciding the placement of the eyebrows. We were all amazed at how low they need to be to get the proper look.

At first we tried to find a commercially produced windshade that resembled the eyes and eyebrows we need to create the look. We found on version of the eyes that was done for State Farm Insurance. It was a free promotional gift that agents gave to clients. Lucky me, I’m a state Farm customer, so it should be easy to get one. Wrong, The State Farm promotion was over, the agent and the warehouse were all out, none were available. So I checked Ebay and a guy want $50.00 for one. So we were back to square one.

Sue and Phil showing off their labor of love. The windsheld shade is finished and ready to go.

Sue and I had a tough time finding the base material to create the eyes. The first thought was the original cardboard accordion window shades that we all used years ago. Try and find one now. After shopping around and looking at all kinds of silver window shades, I picked one up and noticed that the back of the silver window shade was white. That’s perfect, just what we need. So I purchased the biggest one they had. It is easier to cut the window shade down to size and imposable to make a window shade that is too small fit a bigger window.

Paul and Charlie start to apply the three part door stickers.

When Paul printer out the door stickers they were almost six feet long, a little much for one person to apply. The tough part with the door stickers is the side molding. The sticker needs to go over the molding. Unfortunately the molding has a double profile, it tapers in height and width. So to our surprise and Paul planning, the three piece sticker worked great. Paul designed the bottom of sticker and the top of the other sticker to meet on the molding. Making it easer to compensate for the tapered side molding.

Application of the Rusteze hood stickers takes a careful eye. Phil provides sighting, to position the sticker, Charlie keep the surface moist, and Paul applies the sticker and works out the bubbles.

The whole car was a team effort. From the start, with paul making all the stickers and Phil and Charlie detailing the entire car. Phil wanted to make sure that Greg's every day driver was Car Show ready. The Group spent four hours cleaning and polishing the 2003 ZO6. Phil took the lead and made sure that every inch was cleaned and polished. From the wheel wells, wheels, tail pipes, too the spaces between the body panels, everything was cleaned, polished, and hand buffed. When we were done cleaning and polishing, we could not believe the corvette paint was seven years old. It looked really good,car show ready.

After driving up to the Painted Turtle camp, I drove the car for two weeks with the stickers on. The most fun, during that two weeks, was on the freeway in route to the camp. We watched as cars would approach from the rear and suddenly slow down as they came up alongside of Lighting McKing. Then we would notice that they had their camera phones out and were taking photos of us as we were speeding down the freeway.

On our Painted Turtle trip we were walking back to the car after diner. A little boy and his mom were looking at the car. The mother came up to us and asked if she could take a picture of her son with Lighting McKing. That was one happy little boy.