DESIGNER & ART DIRECTOR
CLAYTON W TAYLOR
Client: MAXTRAX America
Role: Design and Project Managment
Above: The MAXTRAX America team sits down for an interview with a documentary team making a film about the tough-as-nails drivers of the "Class 11" vehicles.
The “Class 11” Volkswagens of the Baja 1000 are legendary. These mostly stock Volkswagen Beetles race over a thousand miles of the scorched Baja California peninsula without the multimillion dollar support teams of the higher classes. The only thing tougher than the machine itself are the drivers who must not only be mentally and physically tough, but also be creative mechanics in order to fix their own vehicles on the course.
MAXTRAX America, the North American distribution arm for MAXTRAX Australia approached me to make their 2013 entry into the Baja 1000 look great, and promote the MAXTRAX brand.
When I took control of the project, the vehicle was still in race prep. After being disassembled for retrofitting, the body and core components of the vehicle were being reinstalled and assembled. I employed a local photographer to visit the home of the vehicle owner to take pictures of the vehicle with tape measures and large rulers for scale.
Next, I found a sign shop in the nearest town who was willing to take on the project. The plotter at the shop would not be large enough to cut full size vinyl sheets for the vehicle, so I had to work around that challenge. I had them order the correct vinyl colors from their supplier, and set out into the design process.
The MAXTRAX America team wanted the Beetle to take styling cues from the Rally Fighter vehicle that I had previously designed. But different enough so that the vehicle shined on its own, not a simple cut and paste. In addition, the vehicle had to display sponsor decals on certain parts of the vehicle, per contracts with those sponsors.
The final design featured the MAXTRAX mascot “Spike” in a similar location as the Rally Fighter. Instead of a half-toned sand ripple under-graphic, I chose a cracked Earth pattern, symbolizing the extreme heat and arid conditions that the Baja 1000 is known for. Similar to the Rally Fighter, orange stripes race down either side of the hood, and the Beetle got an extra Spike graphic right in the middle.
I then had the vehicle loaded onto a trailer to be delivered to the sign shop. I held two Skype meeting with the shop's installation and production managers in order to explain to them exactly how the graphics had to be applied to the vehicle. They had installed small graphics on vehicles before, but never a full graphic wrap, and certainly not on a Volkswagen Beetle. In the end, some of the larger sheets of vinyl had to be laid down and physically cut out on the vehicle. It took them 3 days to apply the graphics, so I had the owner complete the race prep at their shop.
The project was completed in time, and the vehicle made its appearance at the 2013 SEMA show and the 2013 Tecate SCORE Baja 1000.
Below: The MAXTRAX America Class 11 on the starting line of the 2013 Baja 1000.
