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The History of Van Wrapping and Vinyl Wrap

Van wrapping isn’t just a new phenomenon that started with vinyl film. Vehicle wrapping has been going on since automobiles were first invented. Of course, they didn’t actually use vinyl film to wrap their vehicles. Instead, regular paint was used to promote advertisements on the sides of vehicles.

American businessman Milton Hershey was the first person to demonstrate this in the year 1900, after he painted an automobile to promote his Hershey brand in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Over the next 50 to 60 years, new alternatives to paint were invented. These were alternatives that allowed people to include more colourful graphics on the sides of their vehicles without all the extensive paintwork.

The main alternative, of course, was the invention of vinyl chloride. Vinyl is a material similar to plastic, in that it could be made thick, thin, flexible, or firm. Furthermore, vinyl could have any colour printed onto it, which was a beautiful thing for businesses and advertisers.

What’s amazing is that the BF Goodrich Company discovered vinyl chloride by accident. Once they learned what it could do, vinyl became the base ingredient for so many different products across various industries. It opened up several different factories throughout the world and created jobs for hundreds of thousands of people.

As for the vinyl wrapping industry, it began to rise throughout the 1980s and 1990s. These two decades saw the birth of digital and laser printing technology. They made it so much easier to print colourful graphics onto vinyl, which meant that no paint or ink had to be used whatsoever.

In the 21st century, almost every van, car or truck that you see with graphics on the outside have vinyl wrapping. Some people even apply vinyl wrap without any graphics or text. They simply want to protect the paint job from dirt, debris, and the sun. The days of paint jobs are becoming more obsolete.

What our customers say

Boss Dog have now fitted livery to the vans at all three of our Southern Depots. Throughout the job I have found them happy to advise, efficient and above all professional in their approach. My only regret is that they don't have a branch in the North to service the other half of our fleet.I look forward to using them again as more vehicles come online.

Neil Barlow, Head of Creative, Kindertons Creative