One of the controversial discussions amongst me and my friends during Auto Salon was the topic of Top Secret’s new direction of graphic design on their new demo cars. Whether you like it or hate it, their new cars have a very different graphics image. They take a little time just to get used to before any well founded judgement can be made, simply because they are so different than Top Secret’s usual vinyl style. Part of the reason for the difference is that for the first time the legendary Mana-P did not design the new logo. Although Mana-P designed and applied some of the graphics still, the new Top Secret Logo and the hood stripes were a new surprise to us all and a result of Top Secret’s new graphics partner.

Giving my review is a bit unnecessary since its a very subjective decision and you’ll reach your own conclusions regardless of what I think. So I’m going to skip past that and go into something which I think is a little more useful.

I have a bit of a theory on the inspiration of the new graphic design. This theory is my own and just based on my perspective on the JDM world and the exotic car world, two things which I love greatly. Perhaps it’ll make a little more sense of the new graphics, I think it will.

First, the bonnet stripes. After a few minutes of seeing the design it started to make sense. Top Secret is moving the image upmarket into exotics (GT-R and 996 Porsche both being classified as exotics for the sake of this argument). Right now one of my favorite graphic designs on an OEM exotic car is the Ferrari 430 Scuderia’s racing stripes. My hunch is that those stripes were an influence to the graphic designers who made this layout. Unfortunately I havent talked to the designers to confirm. Here’s my current favorite Ferrari, see if it connects with you (very high res pic courtesy of one of my favorite websites www.seriouswheels.com ):

Next, the Porsche…I’ve had a lot of people comment on the red graphics on white. Honestly, its not my top choice of color combinations. But what was the reason for red on white? If you’re a fan of Porsche then the GT3 RS should be no stranger to your magazine collection or hard drive photo collection. The 996 GT3 RS in white came with red graphics (and red wheels), blue graphics/wheels were also optional. This is a classic color combination also found in RS Porsches from the 70s. So it has some deep emotional meaning to Porsche afficianados. Since the 996 Top Secret car is naturall aspirated, it makes some sense to me to remix the color combination that comes standard on the ultimate naturally aspirated 996. Although I dont LOVE the white wheels, I’m really fortunate that they didnt choose the red wheels because that would have looked awful (in my not so humble opinion).

Here’s the “bone stock” 996 Porsche GT3 RS:

So that’s my theory on the inspiration behind the Top Secret graphics schemes for the R35 GT-R and the 996 Porsche. Its quite fun actually to look at modern demo cars and try to derive the original inspiration behind the designs. Sometimes the inspiration is more prominant than others, but in this case this is what came instantly to mind.