I am getting ready to put W30 stripes on my car and would like your opinions on paint vs decals. The original cars were decals and looked great. Ok they cracked after a few years but this car will probably never sit outside in the direct sun that much, so, is it better to take it back to the paint shop or use a repo decal kit? I would like to hear of any first hand experiences in installing a decal kit. Here is the car as it sits now

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The originals were painted on, not decals. I had mine painted on.

 

Decals...nooooo

 

Painted on

 

Painted

 

Why do you think the originals were decals? I've seen aftermarket paint templates, but not decals for the 70-72 cars.

 

Maybe OP meant the original ones on his car were decals.

But...... the W30 stripes were painted on from the factory as already mentioned. You can get stencils to help with the paint job but they need to be tweaked, especially around the wheel arches.

 

I bought my stripe template from Fusick's years ago, and when my painter went to use them, he was surprised at how awful they were. He had to customize all the arches over the wheel well openings, some more than others. Here's a pic of him doing it. The orange was what he had to make, and i believe this was one of the arches that fit "good". A lot of the white template he had to cut and do it by hand as well.

 

Looks like it is unanimous that paint is the way to go. My bad on thinking they were decals on the originals. I thought I could remember seeing them cracking up after they got a little age on them. I plan to get the stencils and am talking to a shop that seems to know what they are talking about. He is aware of some of the alignment mistakes that are common with W30 Stripes such as being too high on the fenders and not aligned parallel with the markers. Thanks for the input.

 

You probably did see them cracking with age - the originals were lacquer.

 

The Rallye 350 and many of the H/O were decals. Maybe that is what you seen cracking. They do make a decal set for the W-30 but it is not correct.

https://www.stencilsandstripes.com/pr_olds.asp

 

I opted for decals on my car simply because they weren't costly and I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep them. Company that did them is called Supergraphics. Nowadays they do much better work as the technology for materials and cutting has improved.

Steve - from the factory the stripes were painted. Here's a reference. (its from 1970 showing 442 stripes being painted on using factory 'template')

 

Thanks again for the input guys. Estimate to paint the stripes came in today @ $1500.00 + stencils. I don't think this sounds out of line for a good job. It is a lot of prep to do it right. Does this sound in line with what others have cost?

Alan, you never cease to amaze me with your photo archives. Thanks for sharing. One of the reasons I believed the stripes were decals from the factory was trying to picture the time consuming process of painting them on an assembly line. This picture really helped put that in perspective.

 

Nice picture Allan, always thought they were stickers/decals, still learning.

 

Gave the shop a deposit on new top and painting the stripes today. car goes into the shop next week. Thanks for the suggestions. I will post some pics when it is done.