How Sticky RX Refinishing Solutions came to be:

Sticky RX Refinishing Solutions was founded by long time Ferrari aficionado and Ferrari owner, Dave Lelonek. Raised in a suburb of Buffalo, New York, Dave is a mechanical engineer and owns two other businesses: Automated Machine Technologies, Inc and AMT Innovations, Inc. A contract engineering / manufacturing company and metal working products company, respectively. Among Dave’s accomplishments, he holds one United States patent and one United States registered trademark as well as other patents in process.

Dave’s love for cars and passion for painting started at a very early age when his parents helped him purchase his first car for transportation – Dave turned the transportation car into a restoration project. The motor of the car needed some work so Dave and his father had removed it in their home garage during the winter. Dave saw the opportunity to clean and tidy the engine bay with the motor out. That started it all. He decided, with the motor out, why not paint the engine bay? Once done, why not paint the exterior? While Dave did all the body work on the car, he did not paint the car initially. He did paint a fender a year later when it was hit in a parking lot.

So, Dave got an early start refinishing automotive interiors with his first car, a 1978 Plymouth Sapporo.  The interior was a rust colored red and he wanted it black. He removed the interior, dyed the vinyl dash board and rattle can spray painted all the hard interior plastic trim. The results were fantastic. Sadly, being a teenager going to school, the full interior was never finished due to a lack of funds.

While a senior in high school, Dave worked at a body shop and learned more techniques of spray painting and body work.

As a freshmen in engineering school, Dave had the opportunity to work for Mike Bos Chassis Craft building Dragster chassis. Dave continued with this work part time for many years and holds great respect for the opportunity to learn from Mike Bos while building those cars.

Mid January 2013, Dave purchased his first Ferrari at the age of 43. A car loved for 13 years, he now owned: 1998 Ferrari 355 F1 GTS. The purchase of this car started his obsession with Ferrari, not only the experience of driving these cars, but the experience of learning about them and working on them. Dave does all of his own service in his home garage.

In an effort to learn more and more about these very special and temperamental cars, Dave began to look for another 355 that needed work so he could have a restoration and project car. In October 2014, he found just the car – 1995 F355 Berlinetta. The car was solid but needed a major service and much tender loving care as it was neglected for many years. It was the perfect project.

In an effort to do the new project as sweat equity and keep out of pocket costs to a minimum, he decided to tackle the sticky interior refinishing work himself.

After countless hours of research, trial and error, and grueling experimentation, Dave developed a process to efficiently strip the failed OEM soft touch coatings from the plastic parts without harming the base plastic. Furthermore, he was focused on finding a coating that would match the factory color and sheen level exactly. While not easy to find, Dave (through his industrial connections) was able to locate an excellent coating that matched the OEM color and sheen nearly perfect.

The initial coating used was a rattle can finish. While a good finish, he was not satisfied with this as a long term solution as he wanted to provide the best possible quality to customers as he decided to embark on a business venture offering refinishing services.

Once again, Dave reached out to his long term connections in the industrial world along with his many years of experience and found a supplier that formulated a proprietary coating specifically for Sticky RX Refinishing Solutions.

While tapping into the internal resources and equipment of Dave’s other business, Sticky RX Refinishing Solutions has developed the most factory correct process for applying graphics to our refinished parts – laser marking. Our graphics are permanent, not stick on decals that may peel over time. This capability along with our proprietary coating and superior customer service sets Sticky RX Refinishing Solutions above the competition every time.

We wish to thank all of our customers for their business and ongoing support. However, we wish to pay special appreciation to the customers (our friends) that gave us our start. The trust you placed in our hands to do your parts correctly will never be taken lightly or forgotten. Without you, this business would never be the success it is today.

To all of our past and future customers, you have our word that we are committed to the highest levels of quality possible and that we will always strive to continually improve our processes, our delivery times and our customer service.

Sincerely,

Dave Lelonek

(Dave Rocks on various forums)