For a color-matched product, you can't beat Speed Lingerie, shown here in Victory Red and Machine Silver.
If you drive your car, you will get paint chips on the nose and front of the hood. When these add up to 50 or more, the car truly becomes an eyesore to a true car guy. And the fixes are not easy. Touchup123 is probably the best fix available. But even with Touchup123, the repair is never perfect, and you'll never get the smooth perfection on the front again unless you repaint.
As a result, car guys are attracted to a few available protection options:
I think the most reasonable, and most popluar approach is to buy a color-matched bra, and use it for maximal protection on long trips. But to fully enjoy the beauty of the Corvette, take the bra off for the rest of the year and show that shiny clear coat. Recognize that having anything on the paint for a proloned period of time will cause minor scratches and swirlmarks, even with the most carefully constructed bars. So it is just not a great idea to leave the bra on indefinitely.
The two key choices here are either Speed Lingerie or Colgan. Both have excellent reputaions, and many Corvette guys are pleased with either product. The color match for either one is generally excellent as well. I have the Speed Lingerie bra, but later bought Colgan mirror covers. The color match is perfect. See the photos under Silver Nose Cover as well. The main difference between the Speed Lingerie and the Colgan is price, and it is a major difference. Some comparisons are show below
| SOME BRA OPTIONS | ||
|---|---|---|
| West Coast Corvettes black bra |  |
$85 |
| Colgan color-matched |  | $379 |
| Speed Lingerie color-matched |  | $560 |
Also be sure to check at Extreme Motorsports. That's where I got my Speed Lingerie bra, and they still are running the best price available anywhere at about $500.
Go to TOPThe basic ideas in installation are the same, no matter which bra you choose. In this case, I have installed the Speed Lingerie bra. Here is the basic layout of the bra:
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Look inside your wheel well. You'll have to turn the wheel to the right in order to get access to the left side, and vice versa. These four black plastic automotive fasteners that you see here have to be removed in order to mount the large black "fin" that will secure your nose cover in place. |
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Just get a flat head screwdriver and pry up the center piece of these fasteners. When the center piece pops up, you can pull on the base and remove the whole thing. You cannot remove the fasteners until the center piece has been popped up. |
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Here's the C6 with all four plastic fasteners removed. The large black plastic fin shown here comes with the nose cover. Line it up with the holes, with the thinner end of the fin at the top, thicker end at the bottom. |
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Line up the black plastic fin with the fastener holes on your C6, then re-insert the plastic fasteners, and press hard to pop the center back into the fasteners. Then install the fin on the right wheel well in the same way. |
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Before you grab a wrench or any other tools, be sure to protect your mistress. I've learned the hard way that no matter how careful you are, you'll have something drop, or have a ratchet wrench spin around and scar her up. It's always a good idea to have a nice big soft towel to put under you while you're leaning over and working.. |
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Find these 4 tiny bolts. Then curse and swear and try to find a way to remove them so that you can stick the long black velcro strips onto that area. Those bolts actually have 7 mm head. You cannot use a 1/4" wrench(which equals 6.3mm). And unfortunately a 7mm is NOT a size found in any typical wrench set you may have in the tool box. You'll probably have to go out and buy one separately, so check on this before you get started. |
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Clean the area with rubbing alcohol first, then stick on the long velco strips. Then re-insert and tighten those tiny bolts again. Here is what it looks like when the black velcro strips are installed and and the 7mm bolts are back in. Now you're ready to attach the nose cover to these velcro strips. |
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On the top of the bra, there are some flaps that will overhang into the engine compartment. Pull those little flaps through into the engine compartment, and press them down onto the velcro strips to secure the bra. |
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Just let the nosecover hang down, attached by those velcro strips, for now. |
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Pull the right side of the bra over, and hook the large black clip onto the large black fin you have previously installed. |
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Then pull on the mass of the bra, stretch it as much as you can, all the way over to the left side, until you can clip the left side on just the same way. Be sure to pull on the thick vinyl, not on any small pieces of the bra that might tear off. Also be sure to do this in the sun, or after you've warmed the room and the bra for ½ hour with a space heater. It won't stretch if it's too cold. If the bra is warm, this step will be much easier. |
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Lift up the bra, and you'll see the 4 felt tabs haning down. Insert these through your grill. Be sure that all four go through the LOWEST part of the grill, not above any of the grill fins, or else you will not be able to clip them to the back of the bra in the next step. |
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Pull all four felt tabs though, and you'll see them hanging down underneath the body. Each has a plastic clip. That clip will be pulled through, then attached to the grey plastic strip on the underside of the bra itself. Those clips do NOT attach to anything on the car. Make sure no tabs go OVER any black plastic fin on the grill. They must be threaded just over the painted bottom surface of the grill. |
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Now this next part was not explained well at all in the instructions. Remember those 4 felt tabs you passed through the grill? Here is how you want them to pass. You'll pass them through the bottom part of the grill, then loop each one back around to hook back onto a hard, grey plastic strip on the bottom of the bra. So in this case, the bra is attaching to ITSELF, not to the car. Follow the sequence below -- a set of pics I took with the bra off the car, in order to illustrate this. |
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Here you can see I've already looped the tab on the left and attached it to the underside of the bra -- it hooks onto the long hard grey strip you see. The tab on the right will be folded up and then clipped to the back side of that grey tab also. |
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 | Sequence of attaching the tabs to the grey plastic clip on the bra itself. |
 | Example shown wiht bra off the car - now do this same thing on the car after you have passed those felt tabs through the grill |
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Take this black plastic clip, pull it down into the engine compartment, and you'll feel a spot where you can clip it onto the body to secure the bra. Also notice the black, flat plastic tab, seen underneath my right hand. That's next... |
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See the black tab? You just insert this in the crack between the light housing and the body of the car. It will slide right in -- don't be shy. |
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Final appearance. Good fit around lights, but it did bunch up just a little bit at the "pointy" area just to the inside of the light where the flap is inserted. |
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You may have some wrinkling of the fabric when it is first installed. It will flatten out if left in the warm sun. Here is the appearance after I had left it on for about 6 weeks during my winter travelling. |
 | Final front view. |
My buddy "Devildog Dan" was kind enough to share his photos of his silver SL nosecover on his new 2006 Machine Silver Vette. As you can see, the color match is just fantastic. Take a look, and click on the thumbnail pics to enlarge to full size. If you were not looking closely, you probably wouldn't even realize that the cover was on.
