Hot on the heels of wrapping a Bugatti Veyron in a chrome silver finish, Raccoon have just completed the transformation of a McLaren SLR for Premiership Footballer El Hadji Diouf.

The supercar was originally finished in a normal silver paintwork. Once the award winning Raccoon vehicle wrapping team had worked their magic, it was finished in a jaw dropping highly polished chrome ‘bodywrap’.

On his first appearance in public with the car, Diouf was snapped entering a bar in Manchester. The story was featured in the national press, including The Sun newspaper.

Raccoon are the UK’s leading vehicle wrapping company, with application centres located nationally.

Theo Paphitis leads Ryman Stationery drive for Comic Relief. 

Following his support of Sport Relief last year, the straight talking but warm hearted owner of Ryman Stationery has challenged his team of 2,500 to help raise over £500,000 in aid of Red Nose Day that takes place on Friday March 13.
 
Ryman stores nationwide are selling quirky Red Nose Day pens, fun sticky notes, pencils, handy notebooks and large erasers for £1 each that will raise smiles as well as funds.  Ryman will donate £1 for each pen sold and 50p for each of the other items.

The stationer’s employees are raising cash from friends and family through sponsored walks, runs, hops and even vehicle dragging.
 
Not to be outdone by his colleagues, in order to Do Something Funny for Money, Theo Paphitis has turned his gunmetal grey Maybach 62 – one of the world’s most luxurious saloons – into an eye-popping colourful red and white splattered automobile.  The car will be on the road up until Red Nose Day.
 
The star of BBC Two’s Dragons’ Den programme said, “The car usually turns heads but for the next six weeks it is transformed into one of the most unusual and most expensive mobile billboards.  It has been ‘wrapped’ in new livery and is the most valuable saloon car to receive this special treatment, usually reserved for Formula One cars or commercial vehicles.”
 
The vehicle’s transformation was masterminded by Raccoon, the UK’s leading vehicle wrapping specialist and took place in the high tech workshop at Mercedes-Benz World in Weybridge, Surrey.  The memorable number plate, RYM4N, remains.
 
Theo Paphitis adds, “The car is so unusual we’ve been invited to have it on show during half term week (Monday February 16 to Friday February 20) so that children and their families can see it close up.”  

“The team at Raccoon did an amazing job in transforming my Maybach into a fantastic rolling advert and will be a great help in raising charity funds and promoting this year’s Red Nose Day. Well done!”

“I hope that people can see the funny side of our fundraising that is for serious reasons.  I visited Comic Relief funded projects in Ethiopia last year and saw street children benefit from Comic Relief cash.  People shouldn’t forget that 40 per cent of the charity’s funds are spent on projects around the UK.“

Raccoon (Hampshire) were thrilled to get the call from their Council to say, “you’ve got the deal!”

After paying a visit, and seeing our work first hand the Principal Road Safety Officer at Hampshire County Council couldn’t wait to get started on the re-brand of two of their vehicles.

The quality of our work and dedication to service left him relieved he had found a company capable of wrapping his vehicles to their same incredibly high standards.

The brand new Audi A3’s looked fantastic with their completely individual designs, and with a number of Transit Connects to follow it’s clear our incredible wraps are being recognised throughout Hampshire and beyond.

The official Magazine of the British Army were thrilled when Raccoon (Hampshire) agreed to launch this Vauxhall Vivaro into Military status. 

A standard white van was transformed into this camouflaged war machine, incorporating both the awesome Chinook chopper and fierce Tank. 

Soldier Magazine attends numerous shows across the county and wanted something that would proudly represent them and the British Army. 

Raccoon’s design and application skills more than stood up to the challenge. Expect to see this fantastic wrap on patrol near you!

‘If only I could all drive one of these!’.

That’s what the entire Raccoon team were thinking as this incredible car pulled into our vehicle wrapping centre in Durley, Hampshire. 

Martin & Co, one of the UK’s No1 Letting Agents, asked Raccoon to wrap this beautiful machine in their company’s familiar branding and colours.

Our graphic application team jumped at the chance to once again prove their skills and push the boundaries of vehicle wrapping one step further. A huge amount of focus and poise was needed, especially when you consider that the vehicle was worth over £100,000! 

Martin & Co have been amazed by the amount of attention the wrap is getting throughout the country, whilst we look forward to the next challenge…..

As part of the launch of the Npower Home Team division, Raccoon were successfully awarded the contract to re-brand Npower’s entire domestic service vehicle fleet, with the new livery design. Alongside other extensive marketing activity, the newly branded fleet of vehicles are a key part of reinforcing the Npower ‘Home Team’ brand to the general public.

Raccoon were awarded the contract due to the company’s ability to handle a nationwide fleet re-brand. We arranged collection of the vehicles from within the field, removed the existing livery, and fully valeted each vehicle before applying the new graphics and returning it to its driver. All of Raccoon’s regional application centres were utilised during the project, providing an efficient and cost effective solution for the client, with each individual vehicle re-brand being completed inside 48 hours.

The new livery design incorporated the Npower ‘Orbs’, the metallic silver ‘Home Team’ logo and very effective brushed metal chevrons. 

When two Hampshire-based businesses got together on behalf of Harrods, London, they created an unusual showpiece for the world’s most famous retail outlet, a fully wrapped Tuk Tuk. Raccoon Hampshire teamed up with Southampton’s Tukshop to create a visually striking marketing tool for Harrods’ Tailor on a Tuk Tuk campaign. The exclusive promotion sends master tailors to homes and offices around central London to measure up and deliver shirts and suits to customers.

Says Raccoon Sales Director, Sam Williams: “The Harrods job was very high profile and had to be perfect. The Tuk Tuk is the most intricate vehicle we have ever worked on. We’d just wrapped two 40ft articulated lorries in 1 day. They were set to transport the England Rugby team’s excess luggage from the UK to France; we’re talking around 3,200sqft of vehicle, but the tiny tuk tuk took two whole days!”
The tuk tuk, which garnered interest from the national press, and also appeared on ITV3 is currently driving around London.

Steve Webb, founder of the Tukshop, based in Ocean Village, says: “It’s great to see one of London’s premier retailers getting on the tuk tuk vibe. Working with Raccoon has also been great. I used Raccoon when the company was based in Kent, but now there’s a branch in Hampshire all of my business will stay local, saving me time and money.”
Visit www.tukshop.biz

In time for the punishing final between England and South Africa this weekend, Sam Williams completed the ultimate conversion when he got his team of vehicle-wrapping technicians to wrap two 40ft articulated lorries, turning them into shining emblems for the England rugby team, and one of its sponsors.

The lorries, which are 15 feet high, were used to take the England team’s excess baggage from England to France before we battle it out with South Africa in this weekends Word Cup Final.

Gulliver Sports, the sponsors of the England and Ireland rugby teams were delighted at the way the lorries turned out.

Adds Sam: ‘I hope that the hard work my team put in brings a little bit of Hampshire luck to the England team. Who knows, wrap up the final for us and bring home the trophy!’

�

As part of our massive marketing drive we clinched a deal with� The Saint� Radio station to wrap a brand new VW EOS. The car supplied by Breeze VW is worth £35,000 and has had a full rear wrap and text. We managed to design, print and fit the wrap within just 6 days to be ready for its starring role at the Netley Steam show, New Forest Show and Southampton� FC open day to be held� at Saint Mary’s Stadium. The� car looks fantastic with the cloud design and will undoubtedly cause a bit of a stir! In fact, it looks so good The Saint FM are using it as part of a competition to actually win the car for a weekend!

Having been applying graphics to vehicles for over thirteen years, we have come across many varied and interesting requests.However, when we were contacted recently by London creative agency OOTB, we were to take on our most challenging and daunting project yet…

To coincide with a major promotion by ‘Transport For London’ to encourage the public to make greater use of public transport, we were asked the question:-

“Can you make the London Eye capsules look like tube trains and double decker buses?”

Our immediate answer was yes, but then we were given more details regarding the job, which made us doubt our initial enthusiasm.

We were told that the application of the graphics could only be carried out at night, in-situ above the River Thames, and there were very strict health and safety guidelines to be adhered to. Also, we had just eight days to complete the project before London Mayor Ken Livingstone and a whole host of celebrities were due to launch the promotion.

It was time for ‘Team Raccoon’ to spring into action…

A series of site visits were made, all at odd times of the day and night when the attraction was closed, and a plan of action formulated. The capsules were accurately surveyed and measured, and all safety implications discussed and addressed.

Due to the compound curves of the capsule, the materials to be used and the production of the graphics were paramount to the success of the project. We tested a series of materials on-site, and opted for Mactac JT5929, a specialist, highly conformable self-adhesive wrapping film. We were now confident that the capsules could be successfully ‘wrapped’.

The Raccoon Team in Action

Our artwork team set about scaling the supplied photographic images, making sure they would fit the egg shaped capsules. Over a three-day period, all of the images were printed, in-house, using our Grande-X digital print system, and shipped to site ready for application.

To ensure all members of the Raccoon team were not endangered at any time, we employed a specialist rigging company to fit everyone with safety harnesses, all attached to secure lines. Everyone wore lifejackets, and a safety boat was positioned in the Thames below.

On the first night we had a seven-hour window in which to wrap the first capsule, and transform it into a bright red bus. Eight members of our specialist wrapping team got to work, with three suspended from ropes above the capsule, wrapping the glass roof panels, whilst the other five concentrated on the sides.

Working from a small maintenance platform, 40ft above the Thames, at night and with a light wind blowing, the moment of truth was upon us! Six hours of hard work later, at 5am on a Sunday morning, and a capsule had been fully wrapped. Relief all round.

We were all back the following night, transforming the second capsule into an Underground tube train. A second team of fitters also applied full colour imagery to the front glass concourses of the London Eye, to finish the transformation, and provide an eye catching backdrop to the whole promotional event.

The following morning journalists and camera crews from across the UK descended on London’s Southbank, to film and photograph the wrapped capsules. Ken Livingstone, the actor Rob Lowe and a host of performers and celebrities helped to launch TFL’s ‘Everyone’s London’ 2 for 1 promotional campaign.

Heavy press coverage of the event, and fantastic pictures of the wrapped capsules appeared on most news bulletins and made various national papers, including The Times, where it made ‘image of the day’. It even appeared in OK magazine.
Probably the most high profile wrap of all time, and proof once again that Raccoon are the UK’s leading vehicle graphics company. Only this time we wrapped something to make it look like a vehicle!

For more information about our services, please visit www.vanwraps.co.uk