If you know a thing or two about colors you may know who Leatrice Eiseman is. If you don’t, the lady is the executive director of the Pantone Color Institute and considered to be one of the foremost experts in the world on the subject. Every January everyone from fashion designers to car manufacturers pays attention to what she happens to feel are the ‘hot’ colors for the coming year. And she has had a thing or two to say about car paint color in general as well. 

According to Ms. Eiseman, people, when shopping for a new ride, are drawn to car colors that reflect their personality. The following, she says, is how car colors and car owners usually match up: 

Silver: Elegant, cool, loves futuristic things. 
White: Fastidious
Red: Sexy, speedy, high-energy and dynamic
Light to Mid-Blue: Cool, calm, faithful, quiet
Dark Blue: Credible, confident, dependable
Taupe/Light Brown: Timeless, basic and simple tastes
Black: Empowered, not easily manipulated, loves elegance, appreciates classics
Neutral Gray: Sober, corporate, practical, pragmatic
Dark Green: Traditional, trustworthy, well-balanced
Bright Yellow-Green: Trendy, whimsical, lively
Yellow Gold: Intelligent, warm, comfort food lover. 
Sunshine Yellow: Sunny disposition, joyful, young at heart
Deep Brown: Down-to-earth, no-nonsense
Orange: Fun loving, talkative, fickle and trendy
Deep Purple: Creative, individualistic, original

So how well does your car’s color reflect who you really are? Whatever it is though any car’s paint finish, if not properly protected, will fade over time, so that sleek, sexy red may eventually become a lot less appealing. Classic Touch of South Florida’s Invisibra Paint Protection system can help prevent car paint from fading, cracking, peeling and from the everyday hazards a car faces every day on the roads, preventing a sexy, speedy, high-energy and dynamic ride from becoming a washed out, sad old mess. 

As we age most of us find that our vision is not quite what it used to be. The same actually also holds true of a car’s headlights. 

The vast majority of the cars and trucks manufactured over the last two decades leave the assembly line with a plastic cover over the headlamp fixture. In the old days it used to actually be made of glass, but most vehicle makers have made a wholesale switch to plastic, citing safety (broken glass at the scene of an accident is more dangerous than plastic) and cost issues. 

There is nothing really wrong with this, except for the fact that over the years unprotected plastic headlight covers tend to become cloudy, however much you clean them. This is because of the lens coating that was applied when the car was made. Initially it is there to help protect the headlights from scratching but as it ages it also oxidizes, resulting in a permanently cloudy appearance that reduces the effectiveness of the headlamps themselves. Which is a real safety hazard. 

Minor headlight fogging is not that hard to fix, as the vast majority of common car polishes will remove most the oxidation, with a bit of effort and a little elbow grease. It is only a temporary fix though and eventually the oxidation will eat through the plastic itself, leaving you with an expensive bill for headlight replacement on your hands. 

There is a way to prevent all of this though, active headlight protection. A part of Classic Touch of South Florida’s Invisibra system is headlight protection using XPEL’s Ultimate Paint Protection Film. Precision cut film, matched perfectly to your car’s headlights, is applied that then provides protection from oxidation, fogging and scratching for eight years and or even longer, guaranteed. 

Learn more about Invisibra and our XPEL Ultimate Paint Protection headlight protection system. 

Everyone knows that keeping the paint on your vehicle in the best possible shape is important to its appearance and its potential resale value, but it also is the only barrier between the sheet metal and the elements, so damaged car paint can also damage the car in general. 

Some things can obviously easily damage car paint – gravel roads, parking lot dings, an angry ex with a key – but some of the thing that regularly damage car paint are less than obvious. 

Tree Sap – Do you ever park your vehicle under a tree, or several trees? If so then it is at risk for damage from tree sap. Wiping it off usually does not work very well either as it tends to just smear and get rubbed even deeper into the porous paint where it will slowly eat away at it. 

Bugs – Florida has bugs, lots of bugs and many of them meet their end by crashing into a car. The nasty mess that is left behind after a bug/vehicle collision is more than just ugly though. Bug guts, for want of a better description, are acidic, so will begin eating into your paint right away. 

Sprinklers – Do your lawn sprinklers reach as far the driveway where you park your car, even if the spray is very light? If so you are damaging your car’s paint this way as well. How could plain water cause car paint damage? Because standard household water is chock full of minerals, many of which are not at all paint friendly. 

Jokers – Have you ever let your car get dirty enough that some joker has written ‘Wash me’ in the dirt? Or your kids have figured out that the dirty surface makes a great drawing board? Such things seem easy enough to wipe off, but dirt acts a lot like sandpaper when it’s dragged across car paint, which can make the marks last long after the dirt is gone.

Regular waxing can help protect your car paint from these – and all of the other – hazards that it faces every day, but that is a temporary, time consuming and ultimately expensive solution. Car paint protection in the form of Invisbra obviously involves a higher initial investment than a can of wax, but it lasts an awful lot longer and provides far more comprehensive protection. You can even still wax your car occasionally if you like, but whether you chose to or not Invisibra is there at all times, defending your car’s paint for years. Guaranteed. 

Learn more about Classic Touch of South Florida’s Invisibra car paint protection system. 

No one really thinks ‘Mexico’ when they reel off car manufacturing countries of note, let alone sports car manufacturers, but an intriguing new sports car that is in the final stages of testing is aiming to change that. The Vuhl 05 – pronounced voo-ul – is an almost bare bones but with some tricks up its sleeve sports car that will be hitting the shores of both the UK and the US sometime in early 2014.

The Vuhl 05 is a super car that is the realization of the long held vision of a pair of race car obsessed siblings who call themselves the Echeverria brothers, who are toting the car as the ultimate ‘sports car for the masses’. It is a minimalist affair, no roof, no windshield, and only the most basic of sports style bucket seats, but it is not a car that is being sold based on its comfort level anyway. for comfort. It is instead, the  Echeverrias say, designed for the kind of thrilling speed and real race car experience that most every day drivers have never really experienced before.

At its heart is a 2.0-litre Ford Ecoboost mid mounted in the center of the car. According to one of its creators Iker Echeverria this was not the first engine they considered though. Initially they tested an Audi engine but it turned out to be too heavy and did not have the sound that Iker was looking for. He says that for his car he was hoping emulate the very distinctive engine sounds of the 1970s Cosworths and as it turned out the Ecoboost almost exactly him the effect he was looking for. 

In terms of power the Vuhl can crank out 285bhp and 310lb ft of torque. As it is such a light car, with a featherweight aluminium monocoque chassis it also boasts a  power to weight ratio of 400bhp per tonne. This will translate as a 0-62 time of 3.7 seconds and a top speed of 152mph. Not the fastest thing in the world, but certainly thrilling enough.

Iker also had another classic in mind when it comes to the car’s handling, stating he hoped that it is like the Lotus Elise, a car that handled a lot like a race car but drives did not actually need not actually need years of Formula 1 experience to handle it proficiently. 

Although it is a bare bones car the Vuhl does boost some nifty tech stuff. The primary key for the car not only unlocks the fuel cap holds it open as well, ensuring that your racing whites, should you choose to wear them, remain clean and pristine. 

There is also a rather neat camera – an HD camera at that – mounted on the center console. This allows you to film your laps right up until the second you cross the line, or spin off, depending upon your skill level ,and then auto post your epic run, or embarrassing failure, to YouTube with the press of a button.

There is no word yet about the actual price of this car despite the fact that the Echeverrias say that this is a car for the average driver. What that actually translates as in terms of cash still remains to be seen. 

Although it may not be your biggest consideration if you are thinking about buying a new car (or a new to you used car) have you ever wondered just which cars are the favorite targets of the less friendly sector of the Florida population that prefers to help themselves to someone else’s car rather than actually go out and get their own? 

The following is a breakdown of the top five most stolen cars in Florida in 2012, as complied by the National Insurance Institute and some of them are quite surprising: 

Full Size Ford 4 x 4 Pickup 

The most stolen car in the Sunshine State in 2012 was actually the rather noticeable full sized Ford 4 x 4 pickup, proving that car thieves are not exactly discreet. 

2000 Honda Civic Si

The 2000 version of the Honda Civic Si is light years behind its 2013 counterpart in so many ways – it has a cassette player as standard for gawd’s sake, when did you last even see a cassette tape? – and yet apparently this the Civic that is stolen most often, probably because its standard security features were well, door locks. There is no doubt though that the 2000 Honda Civic Si was a great hot hatch for its time, so if any owner has been careful about regular maintenance and cosmetic details like paint protection maybe it is not so hard to understand why it is a magnet for thieves after all. 

1996 Honda Accord 

This one is a little harder to understand. Hondas are, on the whole, good solid cars and many so seem like they run forever, but they are not exactly the best looking, or even vaguely distinctive cars on the road, but maybe that is the point as far as a car thief would be concerned. 

1997 Nissan Altima 

The appearance of this car next on the list proves one thing – Florida car thieves apparently have a bit of a thing for Japanese cars. Maybe its the longevity that they offer or the fairly decent gas mileage or simply the fact that a car this old, unless it has been upgraded in some way, has zero standard security features. 

2011 Toyota Camry 

And.. its another Japanese car, but a much newer one this time and one that did come with far better security features than the others standard. So does this mean that Floridian car owners who chose Japanese are particularly careless with their vehicles or are these simply easier to break into? We’ll leave to decide that one..

So it’s here, almost. The all electric BMW i3 BMW’s first production car venture into the world of the EV was debuted to the world last week and, as expected, it caused quite a stir, with the love/hate being expressed on Twitter coming fast and furious as the live event unfolded (start the video above at 12.00 minutes, there is nothing of note before then) 

If you cannot spare the time to watch the video right now though here are some of the basic facts and specs: 

The BMW i3 will start at $41,350. The BMW i3 with Range Extender will start at $45,200 and both will be available in the US in early 2014. 

The basic electric engine boasts 170 hp and a maximum torque of 184 lb-ft and a 0-60 speed of 7 seconds and a limited 93mph top speed. The standard range is 80-100 miles on a single charge and, using a 240 volt socket charges in three hours or the optional SAE DC Combo Fast Charging allows for 80% charge in just 20 minutes. Adding the Range Extender will take you a little further (up to 200 miles) by allowing a 2 cylinder 650cc combustion engine to maintain a charge to the lithium-ion battery until you can get to a charging spot. 

There are three drive modes –  Comfort, ECO PRO and ECO PRO+ and an uber tight turning radius of 32.3 feet that is designed – according to BMW – for tricky city driving. 

The car itself is also being billed as the world’s first mass-produced Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) -constructed electric vehicle, and weighs in at around 2,700 lbs. 

The base Mega World comes standard with 19-inch extra-efficient forged aluminum wheels, BMW Navigation, BMW ConnectedDrive with eCall, the BMW i Remote, an alarm, 7.4 kW on board charger and LED headlights, DRLs and tail lights. The interior is decked out in bright, lightweight Sensatec and sustainable cloth, which is made from recycled materials. It also features a leather trimmed steering wheel and grained dash trim. And yes, you do have to live with that black hood, whatever color you choose.