How the Auto Artisan Group linked up with one of the world’s biggest Formula 1 sponsors…
When the folks at Sydney-based Australian company Auto Artisan Group (AAG) decided to create one of their awesome wrap designs, patterned on the Petronas Mercedes AMG F1 team, they never imagined they would capture the attention of a major worldwide company and sponsor of one of the largest Formula 1 teams. Using a Mercedes AMG GTS Edition 1 as their canvas the AAG crew went to work on brainstorming ideas on how to go about their incredible creation.
This entire wrap idea started as an inspiration from one of the company’s previous projects — their very first fade wrap on a Lamborghini Aventador. It features a candy red colour at the front and fades to black at the back. But clearly, they were thinking this was the start of something much bigger. “We held a mini meeting and decided there are a lot of different creative ways we can go about this project,” explains Chief Development Officer Bora Bright. “So, why not combine them all into one project and showcase another point of difference.”
Starting from the basics, AAG played with different types of fades, such as front to back, top to bottom and diagonally top down. Having such a low car with a small roof line, they decided the front to back fade was the best option. Colour was the next issue. Working with different colours, starting with purples, they made their way over to green — to be more specific, they came across the teal colour. It had a different impact, certainly not a usual colour you see on the road.
The decision was unanimous but if it was to be teal it should be the Petronas F1 stripe colour — which is the same colour of the wing on their F1 cars. This led to a complete change in perspective and they decided to incorporate a full F1 Mercedes AMG inspired race design. “We like to be loud, make noise and stand out above the crowd,” says Director Michael Palladino. “There was no chance we could keep an AMG GTS as a straight clean fade — we needed to add more ‘Artisan’.”
More ideas came together for this project very quickly — after all we are attempting to create the Mercedes-AMG F1 W11 with Petronas as the major sponsor and colour choice. Concepts brought into the wrap ranged from fade of the wrap but reversed, colour scheme from the stripes but more prominent, stars on the back of the car in print and embossed and the entire print to be reflective. “Our first lot of designs were crude, it was all internal, so we didn’t go to extravagant efforts to make sure they presented well,” explains Bright. “This all changed as soon as the project became official — it was straight to proper 3D renders and we wanted to showcase the vehicle as close as possible to how it would look in real life.”
“Let’s be honest here, we created this entire design with a lot of love and passion,” adds Palladino. “Just out of sheer luck, as the design was almost settled, we decided to approach Petronas Australia. This was a very exciting moment for us at Auto Artisan.” After making the initial contact, things progressed rapidly and within two days Petronas Australia representatives showed up at their shop for a meeting. They brought several commercial products such as their Mercedes specific lubricant range “synthium” as well as several booklets and other samples, which AAG used to ensure the colour of the print was matching the actual Petronas Teal. This was the start of a very real collaboration.
Soon after other brands and their products joined the party. The entire project was printed on Arlon IllumiNITE, then Driving Solutions came on board with track time as well as skid pan time and Meguiars Australia also came in to showcase their cleaning products. After making sure the scale and colours were going to perfect the AAG team decided to have even more fun — but it took a lot of careful planning. The idea? To replicate a Formula 1 pit stop crew while installing the wrap.
Setting up their five-man crew — in the pits, wheels off, wheels on and out of the pits — team AAG prepared all of the materials, erected barricades to replicate a pit stop within their shop and gave themselves four hours to dismantle, wrap and reassemble the entire car. It was ambitious, especially because this was not a simple colour change and there were many different layers and components involved, but needless to say it’s certainly one hell of a finished product. ■
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