Whats up everyone. We did this detail a while back and i finally came across the pictures! I had changed out cards in my camera and didn't realize it lol. I thought i had lost the pics but alas, they are here! A quick history, the owner, Greg, had heard some good things about us from other Vette owners and decided to give us a go. We had just come off of another detail the day before, a 2010 Black Camaro if memory serves correctly. From the small photo i saw of this car, i THOUGHT it too was black...but i was quite wrong: This is the Carbon Flash Metallic, only the centennial edition makes have this color: take a closer look... ah yes, glittery. Anyone who has done a metallic colored car before knows that the metallic can really cover up swirls. Annnnnnnnnnnd at first thats exactly what i thought was going on. But after taking a closer inspection out in the sun, i noticed Greg had actually done a VERY good job at taking care of this baby. It surely had some lighter swirls but, not the huge mess that we have grown accustom to working with. He went on to tell us that he has never allowed anyone to wash it but himself and that he was very particular about how he washed it (ah yes, this helps explain things). It was actually pretty flattering to have him not only allow us to wash it, but to polish the paint as well! We started out as we normally do, cleaning the tires, rims and rim barrels. They were all in very good and clean shape as well...it was clear to see this was on Vette that was really babied. Next we foamed her up! After a good wash and dry, it was time to inspect the paint again, but under our halogens, sun gun and LED flash light. We decided to do a couple of test spots to see which was really needed for this car...as it wouldn't make sense to do an all out multi-step polish to a car that doesn't need it. We clayed it, which did reveal a little bit of bonded contaminants but, not a lot...and then got ready for our next step. We taped off a section on the hood, did a compounding and then polishing combo on the one side and then just a single step polish on the other side. I looked...and looked...and looked....and honestly the single step polish on this paint seemed to be all that was needed. What very light swirls were there had been removed and the metallic was just popping! Time to test your eyes...there is some light marring/swirling around the light in this photo..very light, but it should give you an idea of what we were working with on the majority of the car: Here is a bit more here a little further up on the hood: After a nice polishing with the Flex 3401 and some 205, she came out quite nicely: Man, they really went all out on this color lol. We kept looking at it and just fell more and more in love with it. It was a pain to have to check to make sure the paint was coming out as well as we wanted, but after close inspection...we concluded it was lookin sweet! Wanna talk about hard to see...this was hard to see. With this color sometimes you had to use indirect light to see the defects..like here: If you look @ the circled area you can see a cluster of scratches going sort of left to right. There were more of them above and below that section but you could only see a small section at a time with the light. After polishing though...it was beautious! This was probably one of the worst spots we came across: Not horrible but still very noticeable. This area took a couple of passes with our polishing step to get it to come out the way we wanted, but we didn't want to have the rest of the car looking so nice and then just skimp on this area.You can see here how it turned out: The area on the lower part of the drivers rear quarter panel had a few nice little scuff marks: But again, after going over it with the Flex, she came out a very niceeeee! Usually in my write-ups id have some info for you guys on some problem we ran into or something difficult we had to over come, but this was a pretty 'easy' detail...if you call 5-6 hours of polishing easy lol. No big problems other than having to continuously work with the light to see the paint at every angle possible. We had to close up the garage door, which we usually do anyway, so that we could get our lights to have their maximum effect and other than having to mess with that a little, everything went rather smoothly. The paint was beautiful, the finish was coming out great...and then when it came time for us to apply Wolfgang Fuzion, we were thrilled because, the sun was still up! On all of our recent details, especially in the cooler months (it was cooler at the time), the sun would be longgggggggggg gone by the time we finished up, but today we'd get to grab some final photos outside. After applying the Fuzion, cleaning the windows and dressing the tires...Greg pulled her out for us to get some beauty shots! Greg getting in to pull his baby out: Here she is: Sun shot! Another sun shot... Some nice reflection in the door here.. 100 year aniversary: Grand Sport: Ready to roll baby: In the end, the Vette turned out quite nice i'd say Not sure if anyone noticed but, he has a red Caddy CTS-V over in th 3rd car garage....hoping to get our hands on that one sometime soon. I took a walk over to it with my light while we were there, just to take a look and ive gotta say, it wasn't it bad shape either. It had water spots and some lighter swirls but again not a mess like many cars. Enough to need a double pass to get into good shape, but it didn't appear to be in the kind of condition to where i'd have to break out the Makita to cut the swirls out. Now, his girlfriends 300C that was sitting out on the street, IT needed major help lol...but we'll get to that some other time. I just wanna say thanks Greg for trusting us with your baby and give you ANOTHER thank you as it was your recommendation that got us the job with another Vette owner, a red C6. THAT car...was a mess lol, especially the poor hood, but i've got a write up coming up for it soon as well. It wasn't quite the nicely flowing job that this baby was, but the out come was still just as nice Hope you guys enjoyed the write up, ive got a ton to catch up on! We recently did a Ferrari 458 Italia, Porsche Panamera, LR4 Rover, the C6 vette mentioned earlier, just to name a few...so hopefully i can get some time to keep the write ups coming. Again, hope you enjoyed and thanks for taking the time to read
Thanks man! Glad you liked it n' glad you took a minute to read it...it was one of my 'shorter' write ups lol
Great job. I especially like how you were able to spot the really hard-to-see-albeit-minor imperfections in the paint. That metallic stuff really takes more time to examine!
Honestly i think with this one, it was all stock. No add ons at all. Still an awesome ride but i think everything was left 'as is' from the factory. I agree lol. That paint just shimmered on the curves of that car...it was a fun detail for sure. So true! Like i was saying in the write up, you have to put your lights at so many angles its not even funny. I found that putting them further BACK from the paint helped quite a bit...but even then it was tricky.
Thanks to you both. I'll try to get the write up done on the red C6 that his buddy owned...that car made this car look like a true walk in the park lol. I'll tell you one thing though, its very true what they say about vettes having super hard clear...we just happened to luck up on this 2012 with only having to do a single pass.
Thanks guys. It was kinda cool that morning but warmed up nicely. NOW though...we're up in the 100's lol. Gonna be 103 today and imma be drinking water like its going outta style for the next 5 months!
