Best Detailed
We've done a few vehicles like this over the years, and this one, by far has always been our favorite.
Restoring the surfaces of a classic car are not without its challenges. Keep reading to learn more about our process of bringing a car back to life.
This Corvette had been sitting for a few years, and the owner reached out to me to get it cleaned up.
It needed more than just a coat of wax.
From the seats to the wheels, every surface of this car needed some attention.
From dull, faded paint to interior pieces that were shades darker than they should be.
The biggest challenge is how do you clean and restore surfaces on a 40-year-old car when they've become warn and fragile from age?
We started with the interior.
After a quick vacuum, we tackled all the interior pieces removing years of grime to reveal the original surface again.
The challenge here is getting the interior clean without damaging anything. You don't want to damage or break something since replacing it may be difficult, given the age of the car.
As you can see on the seat, the difference is from left to right, with the cleaned side being the right.
The transformation was amazing. You'd never think it was that bad. The years of grime and dirt building up is a slow process and is something you wouldn't notice until seeing photos like these.
Once the interior was cleaned and detailed, all the surfaces were conditioned and protected.
Now, we turned our attention to the exterior.
Specificaly with the paint and the car we ran into two challenges, it's the original paint and it's on a plastic/fiberglass body.
First, we don't want to do anything that could damage the original paint. Repainting a panel to match would be a nightmare and never look right.
Second, with a plastic/fiberglass body we can't use a paint gauge to see how much paint is on the body. Paint gauges only work on metal bodies.
In general, this is why we choose to never use polishing machines on older cars like this.
The solution is to restore the paint by hand.
This can involve two to three days of hand applying and removing Meguiar's #7 to the paint to remove the oxidation and brealth life back into the paint.
Once the paint was brought back to life, it was time to wax it.
Yes! One of the few times we use wax. We do it by machine on the lowest speed to work it into the paint better. And it's also a welcome relief from all the hand rubbing the last 3 days.
After that, it was on to all the little things.
We polished the aluminum wheels and taillights.
We cleaned up around the emblems and did a light engine detail, as there wasn't much that needed to be cleaned.
We were told the client would wax this car on the weekends for his dad. Obviously, there are special memories with this car.
Ultimately, the client got the car they remembered growing up with returned to its former glory. And with any luck, he'll pass it on to his kids.
