Plasti Dip is an air-dry, specialty rubber coating. In fact, it's the original peelable, flexible, insulating, non-slip, durable rubber coating. The Plasti Dip product line provides a wide range of coating solutions from automotive customization to home improvement. “Plasti Dip” is actually a bit of a misnomer; it’s not plastic, and you don’t dip your car parts in it.
Plasti Dip is actually a sprayable rubber that comes out as a liquid, and after a few minutes, solidifies into a rubber compound that is easily peelable and leaves no trace of its existence when applied correctly.
Plasti Dip can be sprayed on your car and, if you decide you don’t like it, it just peels off and you try can again with a new color, so it is the perfect DIY paint job for an amateur! It also can be used to paint pretty much anything, in any color you choose, and, even if it does get chipped, scratched, or worn, you can easily touch it up again, or replace it with a new coat. People are using it to dip everything from blacking out grills, and chrome trim, to rims in any color you like, you can use it inside and out, and can Plasti Dip the entire exterior of your car too!
It’s available in a huge amount of colors and finishes at DipYourCar.com (the best place to buy it) but a few common Plasti Dip colors are also available on Amazon. The product is durable, yet completely removable; there is no better way to return to a stock appearance if you change your mind about the color, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a cheaper method to freshen up your car’s appearance.
Plasti Dip is a PVC-based paint that was initially invented for an entirely different purpose. It is now used by car enthusiasts to spray their cars with countless colors, blackout chrome trim, and paint rims. What is fascinating is how the product came to be an international brand, which was not as a result of an expensive marketing campaign, but instead brought to popularity through word of mouth and social media. The internet is now crammed with websites and videos that show the amazing things that can be done with this very simple product, along with DIY tips and other helpful advice.
Plasti Dip International began in 1972 as a manufacturer of heat-cured PVC, or Plastisol, products such as handle grips and toys. The founder of the company, Robert Haasl, thought there could be a market for an air-dry version of Plastisol that could be used by the home user for do-it-yourself projects that required a rubberized coating. He eventually came up with the formula for Plasti Dip, which in the words of his son, Scott, was a can of ‘plastic gloop’. The intention was that home DIY enthusiasts would use it to coat the handles of their tools, like wrenches and garden implements, to provide them with a better and more comfortable grip.
The early years of Plasti Dip were tough going and the company existed on a hand-to-mouth basis while Robert Haas drove the length and breadth of the country in his car, pitching his product to retail giants such as Sears and Ace Hardware, but with only very limited initial success. Later in the 1970s, Sears and Ace Hardware did take in the Plasti Dip product along with several other innovative inventions of the company including, Water Guard, which was a direct competitor for Scotchgard, a product called Super Grip, and water-bed repair kits.
Sadly, Robert Haasl died in 1998, before he could witness cans of his product being snapped up in armfuls by car enthusiasts eager to ‘pimp their rides’. He never knew anything about what has become known as car dipping, so he never saw car rims, roofs, badges, and even entire cars being dipped in the product that he thought would be used on the handles of wrenches.