Polished Bliss vs The Batmobile

Done by Clark, posted by me...

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Yesterday saw this Lamborghini Gallardo belonging to a very good friend of ours come in for a 1 day All Surface Protection Detail, due to the stealthy appearance of the car it's started to be known as the Batmobile - hence the title

The car itself has been driven "enthusiastically" over it's short life and has competed in 2 Gumball Rallies aswell as having a full camouflage body wrap at one point, so being solid black it was looking a bit tired:







Previous machine polishing attempts were easily visible by the buffer trails and product sling:

















A quick tip for you all - Don’t leave your car with a window half down in a damp garage or there's a good chance you'll get this....



Good grief!

Clearly the car could have been doing with a lot more than just a 1 day detail but the owner is the first to admit he isn’t overly fussed about swirl free paintwork etc so a good general clean up was agreed as the most sensible option.

The front and rear grills were removed for easier access for cleaning:





Then as always, the wheels were done first:

Gloss-It wheel gel (4:1) was used with the various brushes:









Then rinsed (the inner rims were dry of paint and a bit rough so they only came up around 90%):



Arches and tyres were then cleaned with Meguiars Super Degreaser:



There was a large amount of tar in the arch liners...



...so out came the Tardis and a MF towel:

Before:



After:

The car was then foamed with APC at 60 degrees:



This was thoroughly rinsed and then all the exterior trim etc were cleaned with APC and a brush:











The engine bay was sprayed with R222 and then agitated:



I then rinsed at 60 degrees and left the engine to idle for 5 minutes to help with the drying, as you can see from the steam it doesn’t take long for the heat to build up from the V10!



With all the little details completed the car was then washed with the 2 bucket method and Meguiars Shampoo Plus. After rinsing this then highlighted the defects in the paint even more now the bodywork was clean:



After a quick going over the bodywork with Tardis to remove some minor tar spots I moved the car inside for claying. Surprisingly the clay took next to no contaminants off the paint or glass:



When it comes to preparing a car with swirly paint that’s only in for 1 day we usually glaze to try and fill/hide as much of the defects as possible but once inside the buffer trails and massive amounts of scratches were clearly visible, making the paint extremely dull and milky looking:





Luckily, having the fast acting Meguiars 205 to hand for a good few months now I was confident of making a vast improvement without taking multiple hours to complete. So with the Kestrel and a Gloss-It green polishing pad, I worked the polish at speed 6 with alot of heavy pressure for the first few passes before stepping down to speed 4 and using very light pressure. This took no longer than glazing but produced far better results:

We went from this:



To this:



Obviously loads of scratches left but alot of clarity and depth restored to the paint.

Left side of the bonnet polished, right side untouched:



The paintwork was then cleansed with Raceglaze Pre Wax Cleanser and then waxed with Vintage.

The wheels were also given a spruce up with the machine:





I then sealed them with Blackfire Metal Sealant:



For the tailpipes (which had been removed from the full Tubi system - my god the car sounds nice!!) a combination of Blackfire, Brilliant and Meguiars metal polishes were used as well as the dremel:



Side by side comparison:



The engine bay was dressed with 303:

The interior was fully detailed including the leather, which was cleaned and fed with Raceglaze leather products:



The plastics and vinyls were thoroughly wiped with APC and then a new product from Raceglaze to ensure the mould didn’t re-appear:





The faded trim around the boot was dressed with Meguiars All Season Dressing:



After just over 12 hours of work and a wipe down this morning with Werkstat Carnauba Glos, this is how it looked:







































Thanks for looking!

Clark