20 years ago today I went online with Indycals. The year 2000 was a personally difficult year and imersing myself into starting a new business and building a website was my way to keep my mind focused on positive endeavors. Twenty years later we find ourself saying goodbye to a year that was difficult for everyone. While things aren't going to get better overnight, things are looking somewhat optimistic that we can start returning to a bit of normalcy this year.

When this website started I probably only had 20 or so offerings and in my first month I did a grand total of $50 in sales. I displayed my work with questionable photos taken with a point and shoot camera, usually in harsh light.

I now offer decals to do more than 500 different cars, and combined with the fact that most decals are offered in a multitude of scales, my total offerings must be in the neighborhood of over 3000.

The last four years have been a time of massive postive change. In March of 2017 we moved on from the ALPS printer and invested in a commerical grade digital LED printer. This allowed us to increase our production abilities while being able to offer designs of a complexity not possible with the ALPS printer. In December 2017 we officially started delving into Sports cars - Le Mans, IMSA, etc, and this has been incredibly rewarding and my enthusiasm for this area of motorsports has increased exponenentially. The year 2020 has been focused on major website revisions - new checkout systems, more visual interactivity/product photos, new server, and a complete rennovation to make our website mobile friendly.

Indycals is mostly a one man operation - I design, research, print, process and ship orders, photograph products, design, code and run the website. For the first 10 years Indycals was a side-endeavor while working a full-time 9-5 grind. But shortly after our 10 year anniversary it became my full-time "job". I put job in quotes because it doesn't feel like work to me. But even though it's a one man operation, I can't do it alone. My thanks go out to those I work closely with developing products, such as Classic Racing Resins, Silver City Models, Lance Sellers Resin cars, Replicarz, and those I've gone to for outside assistance who have helped improve the Indycals web experience.

A big heartfelt thank you to everyone who ever purchased my decals, parts and kits - I do this for all of you as there are far more decals in my lineup than I could ever use myself! Many of you have come to be good friends and that is the biggest reward I have received from doing Indycals. It is great to share my passion for racing and model cars with so many like-minded people - I really didn't know there were so many of us out there! I can honestly say that I am truly and deeply honored that my decals are a part of the art you all create!

And finally thank you to my wife Michele who has had to put up with many an evening of my retreating to my office to print orders and the occasional barage of cuss words when my printer screws up (although the swearing has dropped precipitously since moving to our new printer).

There is an old saying - do what you love, for the love of it and the rewards will be endless - that has certainly been my experience with Indycals.

Thank you - Michael Portaro, January 1, 2021

Congratulations Takuma Sato
2020 Indianapolis 500 winner!

Visit our 2020 Indianapolis 500 Photo Gallery

Welcome to Indycals.net version 4.0!

Mobile Friendly At Last!

You might be thinking "You guys just debuted Indycals.net version 3.0 back in March." and that is true. Version 1.0 lasted 10 years and version 2.0 lasted nearly 10 years, so why only a four month lifespan for version 3.0? Well, while version 3.0 offered some major improvements, the reality is even version 3.0 was already 'outdated' when it debuted. With version 4.0 Indycals is now a mobile-device friendly website! We tried to retain the original look as much as possible while making an entirely new website for those of you who browse on smart phones and iPads. We hired a great freelance designer to port the code to a mobile friendly standard and he did a wonderful job (we weren't sure such an old site could be simply updated vs needing a ground-up redesign, but he did it.) If anyone needs a good front-end web developer just reach out to us and I'll be happy to refer you to him.

COVID-19 Update April 8, 2020

Indycals is still taking and shipping orders as we always do. We have modified our shippind slightly - instead of dropping off at the post office 6-7 days a week, we are only dropping off on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but in reality you should see no delays in your orders getting out. We have invested in hand sanitizer that we use when packing your orders and envelope sealer so as not to have to lick the envelopes. We extend our sincere thank yous to all of you placing orders during this difficult time.

Welcome to Indycals.net v3.0!

(Corona edition, 3/15/20)

Wait... it looks like the same Indycals! What's the big deal? On the outside it is. But we've spent all of 2020 revamping our product pages with a brand new checkout system as well as other updates. Some things were introduced earlier in the year such as https security and our currency converter over here to the right. We've also been updating images all along for better clarity on hi-res monitors. HTML code has been cleaned up and we've done some house cleaning with links and extranous pages. Some of the new implementations involved moving the entire website to a new (and supposedly faster) server. But the big improvement, as mentioned above - is the new checkout system, which involved manually updating all of our (over 600) product pages before it could be taken live. Improvements with the new checkout system include:

• More payment options: You will now have a choice to checkout using direct credit card processing, PayPal, Amazon Pay, or for those of you who prefer to pay by Check, you can use our E-Check (AHS) system so that you don't have to mail in your check.

• More reliable email confirmation of your order: Our old system relied on a rather not-so-reliable auto responder on our email program - when a PayPal notification landed in our inbox an auotmated response was supposed to go out, but it didn't always work that way. The new system automaticall sends you a confirmation email with full order details and sends a copy to us as well so that we know it was sent to you.

• More accurate shipping metrics and options: You will only see shipping options specific to items in your shopping cart, and pricing will be more accurate.

• Inventory control! This is one we are really excited about. We hired a developer to tailor an inventory system specifically for indycals.net. This applies to our resin parts, which if you've ever purchased any, you'd know you were usually required to contact us to insure we have them in stock and we would then invoice you for your order. Now you will see exactly how many of any part is availalbe for purchase and you can checkout without having to contact us, and if no parts are available it will not let you order (thus no 'backorders').

• Modern appearance: No more clunky pop up window. When you add an item to your cart you will see the cart slide out of the right side of the screen with an easy 'return' button at the top to continue your shopping. You will only see a view cart option when there is something in your cart and it will display the total price of goods in your cart at all times. A new "Add to Cart" button has been custom designed by yours truly to integrate with the look of our website.

• More consistent options: Some of our products have many configuration options - we have streamlined these sometimes confusing options, as well as added options (additional scales, etc) where practical.

We are also pleased to announce the return of three Indy car decals that went out of production when we switched to our new printing system 3 years ago: the 2000 Shell Reynard, the 2000 Tecate Reynard, and the 2001 Motorola Reynard

2019 Indy 500 photo gallery.

2018 Long Beach Grand Prix
photo gallery

Important announcement... As of March 1st, 2017

Indycals has upgraded our decal printing technology. With the exception of some metallic accents - that will be printed separately - we are no longer using the ALPS Printer for production of our decals. Our new system is toner based (rather than ribbon based) and offers smoother, cripser prints, better yellow rendering, and no more ribbon overlap lines that were especially apparent in large white areas. The new printer is more efficent and reliable and has allowed us to lower prices on some of our more expensive sheets (Lotus 78 1/12 scale, Ferrari 312T4 1/12 scale, etc).

Celebrating 10 years - 2001-2011!!!!

10 years ago today I went online with Indycals. The year 2000 was a bit difficult and imersing myself into starting a new business and building a website was my way to keep my mind focused on positive endeavors. When the website started I probably only had 20 or so offerings and in my first month I did a grand total of $50 in sales. I displayed my work with questionable photos taken with a point and shoot camera, usually in harsh light.

Ten years later I now offer decals to do more than 230 different cars, and combined with the fact that most decals are offered in a multitude of scales, my total offerings must be in the neighborhood of 1000. My web design skills have improved to the point that Indycals.net was completely redesigned from the ground up this past year, and I like to think that my product photography has improved a bit too.

Indycals really is a one man operation - I design, research, print, process and ship orders, photograph products, design, code and run the website... all while maintaining a full-time day job and hitting the gym for an hour and a half every day after work!

That said, it could not have been done alone. There are many people who have helped and/or inspired me over the years - I'd like to offer my thanks to (in no particular order and certainly not limited to): Bill Jorgensen, Lance Sellers, Chris Etzel, Chuck Sprague, Don Hovel, Terry Gunter, Jeff Stapleton, John Edwards, Tom Prestia, Eric Aitala, and Mike Peters.

A big heartfelt thank you to everyone who ever purchased my decals - I do this for all of you as there are far more decals in my lineup than I could ever use myself! Many of you have come to be good friends and that is the biggest reward I have received from doing Indycals. It is great to share my passion for racing and model cars with so many like-minded people - I really didn't know there were so many of us out there! I can honestly say that I am truly and deeply honored that my decals are a part of the art you all create!

And finally thank you to my wife Michele who has had to put up with many an evening of my retreating to my office to print orders and the occasional barage of cuss words when my printer screws up.