I suppose it’s a bit of a stretch to call this an install, since it’s no more difficult than putting on a decal really (and like a decal is also a case of peel-and-stick), but I’m going with it.
As mentioned in one of the paint updates, with the S15’s exterior featuring the tried-and-true combo of the OEM Aero package, rear spats, and Aero Workz front lip, aside from the colour it was going to be largely similar to other S15s in the world including Eric’s own Spec S here in town. As such, I wanted to rely on a few subtle details to put my own slight spin on things without straying from the intended subtle overall package. The first tiny tweak was having the mirror bases painted gloss black as opposed to body colour, and for the second we’re not moving all that far away…
Enter Aerowolf. They manufacture a few acrylic pieces for cars but there was one specifically I’d seen a lot of great buzz about and was interested in for myself: their Ganador Mirror Visors.
As the name implies these are little acrylic visors intended for Ganador mirrors, but for those of us without said beautiful (/baller) mirrors they fortunately work perfectly on some OEM pieces as well. S15s, handily, have mirrors that will accept these without any fuss.
For other applications these can be easily adapted anyway by just heating them up and reforming them to the specific curvature required, before then peeling off the double sided tape’s backing and sticking them in place.
These are a really neat way to add a tiny splash of colour to a car and feature a nicely etched logo as another detail, plus I’m sure they’ll offer some sort of “protection” for the mirror glass against rain and dirt in the right conditions. But we all know I bought them just because I think they look cool.
If you were wondering why I got purple visors, that’s because I had actually ordered two sets of these. The S15 had to get blue – to match the interior and other accents – but I also ordered the purple set to experiment with adapting them for another car. The colour should be a dead giveaway as to which car I’m referring to…
Anyway, as noted above installation is basically as simple as peel and stick. The only step requiring any special care would really be cleaning – to ensure any grease/dirt/other gunk is out of the way – so that these things don’t launch off the first time they see highway-speed winds. In my case, since they’d just recently been painted, the mirrors only needed a quick wipe before I peeled back a corner of the tape, held these in place, and then removed the rest of the backing.
As with any install relying on double-sided tape I made sure the car wouldn’t see any water for a few days after these were stuck on, and not only did they never wiggle in the slightest but they’ve now officially passed the highway test too.
All in, I’ve been very happy with these little things. From a lot of angles they’re not even noticeable, but reward those who take a closer look. They were really inexpensive too, and being so narrow and slim don’t block the mirror glass from moving or come anywhere close to interfering with anything when the mirrors get folded in. I believe you can get opaque versions too, but I really enjoy the look of the transparent blue.
With these on the S15 now, the purple set needs to be brought out again and spend some time with the heatgun so that it can hopefully fit on and work just as well with the other car. Let’s see how that goes.
-Bill