KUHL Racing’s Custom Carved GT-R

KUHL Racing is known for their nutty paintjobs and over-the-top aggressive body stylings.

Words by Micky Slinger. Photos by 7Tune

KUHL’s GT86, which was shown off at last year’s Tokyo Auto Salon, sported a silver metallic paint with engraving from ARTIS.

This “3D Ultimate Engraving Metal Paint” technique was used on an R35 GT-R for 2015’s iteration of the TAS. This time, things got wilder. The Love Lark “Aero Monster” kit was patterned with scales, crisscrosses, stripes, and even a floral design was worked onto the bulging front fenders.

It’s not paint and it’s not carving. So, what is it? Intaglio printing. A surface, shaped to the curvature of the car’s panel to be “engraved”, is carved with the pattern that will be shown. The carved surface, which is pretty much a stamp at this point, is pressed into the panel on the car while it’s painted and gives this effect.

This same technique is used on money and those fancy business cars with embossed fonts, just on a much smaller scale. ARTIS has this down to a fine art.

And you thought getting your grandmother custom engraving on her iPad she doesn’t know how to work was impressive…

Photos by 7Tune

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