Sniper by Troy Trepanier - Removing Swirls for a show car finish

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Sniper by Troy Trepanier - Removing Swirls for a show car finish


This is a car called Sniper built by custom car builder Troy Trepanier.

When I got to it there were holograms or rotary buffer swirls in the finish. Someone finished out using only a rotary buffer.

I used a simple Porter Cable, some Meguiar's foam pads and a light cleaner/polish, M80 if I remember correctly, to remove the swirls and restore a clear, high gloss finish.

Sniper
Designed by Chip Foose and built by Troy Trepanier
2SniperAfter2.jpg


2SniperAfter1.jpg



I buffed this car out somewhere around 2006 or so and then the owner at that time sold it. Todd Helme says he saw it in the Peterson Museum and it's back to being swirled out.

I machine buffed Scrape right before it sold for $275,000.00 at the R&M Auction in Monterey, California to the Peterson Museum back in 1998.


Boyd was inspired by Terry Cook’s Lincoln-Zephyr coupe, better known as “Scrape,” which sold for $275,000 at an RM Monterey Auction in 1998. Boyd called that car, “an especially high quality ride that caught my eye from far away. I had to go over and look at it.”
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I haven't seen Sniper in person since I buffed it out but in 2004 I took a group of forum members from Autopia to the Petersen Museum and Jay Leno's Garage for tours and they let us go down to the basement at the Petersen Museum and I did see and take some pictures of Scrape that day. I was told I couldn't share the pictures of the cars I took pictures of in the basement so I didn't but I still have them somewhere on an old hard drive.

Man time flies when you're having fun... here's a few pictures from that tour...


Mike Phillips said:
Our guests flew in Wednesday afternoon and evening so that we could get an early start on Thursday Morning! First thing in the morning, a Chauffeured Limousine picks us up as we head to Jay Leno's Garage for a private tour!

Pictured from left to right,

Jimamary, Rjstaff, Scottwax, Mike Phillips, Rdarwa, SqkyKln, Superior Shine, and Aurora4O

My guests from Autopia...
2AutopiawithLimo.jpg


First stop, Jay Leno's Garage for a private tour of his car collection. We were asked to not take photos of his collection, which we honored, that said; here we are for a photo outside of one of his garages. Yes... that's really his garage, you should see the really cool cars on the other side! (We did!)

Outside Jay's Garage
2AutopiaatJayLenos.jpg



After an exciting tour through Jay's car and motorcycle collection, we then went to the Petersen Museum...

The Petersen Museum
2AutopiaAtPetersens1.jpg


Holy coolest car of all time Bat Fans, it's one of the original Batmobiles created by George Barris!

2Batmobile1.jpg
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Anyone ever seen Sniper or Scrape?



:xyxthumbs:
 
Re: Sniper

Mike.Phillips@Autogeek said:
Anyone ever seen Sniper or Scrape?

:xyxthumbs:
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Yep, I'd recognize either one in a crowd anywhere.
Sniper, IMO, represents the absolute best conversion job I've ever seen on one of the stodgiest looking cars from the 50's, the pre-55 Plymouths.

Scrape, IMO is the ultimate fat-fender era tail-dragger.
Definitely a couple of benchmarks. I hope you kept some pictures of the master and his polisher practicing his craft on some automotive icons.

Bill
 
Re: Sniper

BillyJack said:
Yep, I'd recognize either one in a crowd anywhere.
Sniper, IMO, represents the absolute best conversion job I've ever seen on one of the stodgiest looking cars from the 50's, the pre-55 Plymouths.

Scrape, IMO is the ultimate fat-fender era tail-dragger.
Definitely a couple of benchmarks. I hope you kept some pictures of the master and his polisher practicing his craft on some automotive icons.

Bill
Click to expand...




Here's a stock 1954 Plymouth Savoy
1954PlymouthSavoy.jpg


Here's Sniper on display at the Peterson Museum
sniperatPetersen.jpg




Here's Scrape...
scrape003.jpg



scrape004.jpg




They were both pretty cool cars to work on. I have lots of pictures of both when I worked on them, I have swirl shots in the sun for Sniper. At the time I buffed out Sniper I was not sharing all my detailing work online per an agreement with Meguiar's.


:)
 
Re: Sniper

Thanks for sharing the pics, Mike!
Your shots only serve to reinforce what I wrote in my previous post. Whoever thought up the original concept for Sniper, whether it was Troy or someone else, must have been a genius of automotive design. To look at that stock Plymouth and visualize the final product is way beyond my imagination. And Scrape is just the consummate 40's era Kustom, taken to the Nth power and executed in superb taste.

Bill
 
Re: Sniper

I see Joe has hair in those pictures. Is that why they're so memorable? :props:
 
Re: Sniper

Works of ART............If I remember correctly not much if any of the original sheet metal was retained in Sniper.
 
Re: Sniper

WOW 8 years ago!! I had a blast that day! I remember seeing Jay Lenos famous Toronado that was completely taken apart then.

1966-Oldsmobile-Toronado-Jay-Leno-FA-1024x768.jpg
 
Re: Sniper

Here are a few pics I took at the Petersen in 2011.

I wasn't into detailing as much so I don't have any upclose shots of the paint.


IMG_27441.JPG


IMG_27451.JPG


IMG_27512.JPG



Cool cars for sure....


:)
 
Re: Sniper

Joe@Superior Shine said:
WOW 8 years ago!! I had a blast that day!
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I agree, it was a lot of fun going with a group of forum friends to both Jay's Leno's Garage and the Petersen Museum. I remember while we were at Jay Leno's Garage there was a guy their giving a lady directions on how to use a spray detailer to wipe down the cars and bikes in his collection. My thoughts were,

"This person is not qualified for this job"

But then after seeing the finish quality on most of his collection I could tell finish quality was not a big deal to anyone.

I had a guy attend one of my detailing classes back in 2008 or 2009, he somehow was giving the job of maintaining Jay's cars. He came to my class and told me,

I've been given a big box of buffing pads, a polisher and some products and I need to learn how to use them fast. Will you show me how to buff out a car today?


I told him "yes", but first we would be meeting in the classroom to go through a Power Point Presentation because the we always focus on "head knowledge" first followed by re-enforcing the head knowledge with hands-on training.

He got all mad because all he wanted to do was grab a buffer and start buffing. I've met a lot of guys like him in my life, usually older, (this guy was probably in his 60's), and grumpy and impatient. My guess is he didn't last very long working on Jay's collection of cars. I wasn't going to change the format of the class for one guy though and he left after lunch in tizzy fit.


:laughing:
 
Re: Sniper

forrest@mothers said:
We saw Sniper being built in 1997. Here's a link to our Power Tour coverage with some pix:

Mothers - Hot Rod Power Tour 1997

Troy is a master. His dad Jack is a great guy, too.
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Yes they are Forrest. You can stop in their shop for the first time and be treated you like an old friend. Troy hasn't let his fame get in the way of being a enthusiast. If you stop in plan on being there longer than you thought. Troy is going to show you around the shop but don't expect it to look like Leno's on the outside. If you don't know where its at you'll drive right past it. I think there's a reason behind that once you see whats inside. I have the fortune of living about 15 minutes from the shop.
 
Re: Sniper

Mike.Phillips@Autogeek said:
I had a guy attend one of my detailing classes back in 2008 or 2009, he somehow was giving the job of maintaining Jay's cars. He came to my class and told me,

I've been given a big box of buffing pads, a polisher and some products and I need to learn how to use them fast. Will you show me how to buff out a car today?


I told him "yes", but first we would be meeting in the classroom to go through a Power Point Presentation because the we always focus on "head knowledge" first followed by re-enforcing the head knowledge with hands-on training.

He got all mad because all he wanted to do was grab a buffer and start buffing. I've met a lot of guys like him in my life, usually older, (this guy was probably in his 60's), and grumpy and impatient. My guess is he didn't last very long working on Jay's collection of cars. I wasn't going to change the format of the class for one guy though and he left after lunch in tizzy fit.


:laughing:
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Geez Mike you were wasting his time, no wonder he got mad. How long can it really take to learn how to run a buffer......:laughing: He had paint to burn not time!
 
Re: Sniper

rzatch said:
Geez Mike you were wasting his time, no wonder he got mad. How long can it really take to learn how to run a buffer......:laughing: He had paint to burn not time!
Click to expand...


I taught classes from 2002 to 2009 at Meguiar's in Irvine, California and most of the car clubs went through my classes multiple times because,

A. New products introduced so past students wanted to be brought up to date
B. HUGE clubs in which not all club members can attend on the same day


Out of all the people in all the clubs there were usually a couple of guys about my Dad's age that all they wanted to do was get into the garage and fire up the wheel and start buffing on a car.

I would explain very nicely that the first part of the class would be to have a donut and go through a power point presentation in a classroom setting and learn a little bit about paint, products and process BEFORE firing up the wheel. After the classes were over, the most common thing I would hear would go like this,

"I learned today I've been doing things wrong for the last 20/30 years"

The older the guy the larger the number of years he would state he'd been doing things wrong. And then they would be all excited to put into practice the new things they learned. Every class, every time.


And for those of you that's don't know... the words, wheel or wheeling are old school terms for using a rotary buffer. Anytime I hear a guy use these terms I have a pretty good idea of his mindset and experience.


I had another guy attend my classes because he was hired to work for Chip Foose. Now this guy was actually a "Detailer" and a heck of a nice guy and his goal was to simply make sure he was up to speed with all the new products and techniques at that time. I met him again at this year's Detail Fest, he's no longer working on Chip's cars and has gotten out of detailing.

Chip had me down to his shop 3-4 times and talked to me about working for him at the time I was working for Meguiar's, just nothing ever panned out.


It's all good though...


:)
 
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