The "TWO TONE" Project

I love white cars, even more when they show high contrast black parts. Therefore, I have came up with a list of things I would like to customize on my Versa in order to get that look. Here is the list of what I've done so far and what's left to do, in what I believe is an order of difficulty. There's also a small description of what I need to achieve these tasks:

Remove dealer's rear and front stickers (Done on 13/05/2007)

I expected this to be difficult, using some kind a chemical product or heat, but it turned out to be really easy using a regular plastic wall scraper bought at Wall-Mart for 97 cents. Just use this to lift a corner of the sticker and slowly pull it. My dealer is using individual decals and since it's on a brand new car, it hardly left any glue, which could be "rolled off" with the tip of a finger.

Install black licence plate frame (Done on 14/05/2007)

Again, pretty basic stuff. Bought a pair of black plastic licence plate holders/frames at the local hardware store (Two for 4,99$ at Canadian Tire). I only had to paint the silver screws black to match the frame and install it. Too easy :-P !

Darken the deflectors (Done on 15/07/2007)

Alright, this is my first painting project, so I played it on the safe side... litterarly ! Since the deflector had a brownish tint over the white of my car, I decided to paint it black. But, to keep it clean, I painted the under side of the deflector. It turned out pretty well and the Krylon plastic paint does the job.

Install door edge molding (Done on 15/07/2007)

This wasn't planned, but I found this product at Canadian Tire and thought it would be useful to protect other cars from when I (or someone else) open my car doors. It cost abour 5$ for two lines which, sadly, don't cover a whole door edge. I put them on all four doors, the hatch and on the sides of the hood.

Black out the door handles (Done on 15/07/2007, productive day)

This turned out to be easier than I first thought. To remove the handles, you just have to open the door and remove the small black rubber filler to reveal a hexa screw. By unsrewing it, you free the smallest part of the handle. Then, slide the handle itself and pull it gently to bring it out of the door. You'll be able to see the paint marks on the plastic. The empty slots should look like that. Since this is just a tryout to see how it looked, I didn't prime or sand it. I washed the handles with windows cleaner and let it dry. I used the paint and clear coat shown above. The handles have a small hole in them to hang them, making it easier to paint.

I must admit that it looks pretty cool. Even better, Bob @ versaspeed.com found four door handles and shipped them to me. Therefore, I now have some OEM black handles. Thanks Bob ! Everyone, visit his shop at VersaSpeed.

More mods on next page...