2007 GT500 Shelby Mustang by Esoteric Auto Detail

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2007 Shelby GT500

Here we have an iconic American muscle car…the GT500 Shelby Mustang. I really appreciated Ford going with the retro styling reminiscent of the ’67-’68 body style. The 1967 GT500 Shelby Mustang is one of my all time favorite vehicles…the styling, the motor, and because 1967 was an amazing year in history since that’s when my wife and I were both born!

Fast forward to 2007, and the combined efforts of Carroll Shelby and Ford’s performance division known as SVT produced the new generation GT500 with a supercharged 5.4 liter V-8 that generated 500HP and 480 lb-ft of torque. These cars will rip up some pavement for sure!

The owner of this vehicle has done a great job of taking care of it, but over the past 3 years and 18K miles, it had accumulated its fair share of light swirls and scratches. The goal was for a 95%+ correction rate, and I’m happy to say that it was achieved. There were a few deeper imperfections that I was only able to improve, but as always clear coat preservation was also a priority.

OK, onto the work!

When I spoke with the owner about how he cares for the vehicle, I found out that he had been using Turtle Wax Ice products. It’s always a good idea to ask these types of questions prior to working on the vehicle so you can develop a specific plan as necessary. Turtle Wax Ice products use silicone, and in my experience they can wreak havoc on the polishing process if not completely removed. It can either cause the pad to spit, sputter, and hop, and the polish to clump, or it will seem like you’re polishing forever yet it doesn’t seem to correct.

Unfortunately my plan was to take some “before” photos of the swirls in the sunshine after I completed the wash/silicone removal process, but by doing this the sun was too low in the sky and all I could get was a shot of the swirls on the tail light. Since they were pretty fine swirls, I couldn’t really capture them in the shots with the halogens, so I guess you just need to trust me that there were actually swirls to correct!



As you should know by now, I normally use Chemical Guys Citrus Wash & Clear at paint prep ratio for washing the cars first to remove any remnants of wax. Silicone however is an entirely different animal, and requires a different process. For this I used Hi-Temp Prep Wash which is designed for silicone removal. I did a mix of CGCWC and Prep Wash in the foam gun, and mixed it as well in my wash bucket. I sprayed the car down, let it dwell for a while, and then washed it with my bucket solution and a sheepskin wash mitt. The wheels were cleaned with P21S Wheel Gel and an E-Z Detail wheel brush.

After washing, I clayed using Clay Magic with Dodo Juice Born Slippy clay lube. I found the vehicle to be very clean with only light contaminants on the areas behind the wheels and at the rear of the vehicle.

Since all the graphics on the Shelby are vinyl, I had to spend quite a bit of extra time taping the edges for protection. It takes a while, but is necessary.

I took paint readings on my DeFelsko DFT, and found them to be pretty healthy and consistent.



Normally Ford paint is pretty soft, so my plan was based off of experience. I figured that a white pad and Menzerna 106FF would do the trick, but after working a test section for a while, I found that it was only removing the light defects. I progressively moved up the scale in aggressiveness only to find that the paint used on this Shelby was not like the rest of the Fords (including Mustangs) that I had worked on before. What has this world come to? In the past month or so I have found a very soft Z06 Vette and a hard Ford product!

The winning combo was Megs 105 with an orange LC pad on the PC. With the proper technique this combination can “easily” knock out deep defects yet finish down very fine.

Here’s our Shelby ready for surgery:


I’m going to fast forward through the process because I didn’t take any “during” photos. After I finished with the leveling stage with the Megs 105, I took it back outside to give it another wash with CGCWC/Prep Wash to remove any oils from the polish as well as the dust. This would then allow me to inspect the finish in the sun to determine which polish/process I needed to use next. As you will see from the next few sun shots, the finish looked tremendous even after using 105. Based on this, I knew I could use a very light polish to finish it up.







Based on my findings, I decided to use Optimum Poli-Seal with a white LC pad on the PC for my finishing polish.

After the OPS application and cleaning up all of the other cracks and crevices around the car, I applied a coat of Optimum Opti-Seal for a nice look and added durability.

Our Shelby looked beautiful at this point, but as Emeril Lagasse likes to say, I wanted to “kick it up a notch”.

So I broke out the Pinnacle Souveran carnauba and BAM! We now went from beautiful to stunning.

I didn’t do any work in the engine compartment other than to clean up polishing residue, but you can’t do a Shelby detail thread without including the obligatory motor shots.

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Exhaust tips were polished with Optimum Metal Polish:



Other details:
Tires were dressed with Optimum Opti-Bond
Plastic trim was treated with 303 Aerospace Protectant
Wheel wells were dressed with Chemical Guys Fade 2 Black
Vinyl strips were polished with Menzerna PO203S/white, then finished with OPS/white
Tail lights were polished with Menzerna SIP

And now for the after photos:





The light of truth!

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A few garage shots:





Yet another gratuitous logo shot.

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Normally I’m inserting a witty comment or funny observation right about now, but quite frankly I didn’t have any good material to work with. So instead I figured I would just write anything so I could keep you a bit longer.

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And finally…



As always, thanks for taking the time to review my work.

Total time = 9.5 hours.

[jordanrossbell]

Wow, what a vehicle....that thing looks amazing, your photography skills are second to none as well!

[RaskyR1]

Originally Posted by jordanrossbell

Wow, what a vehicle....that thing looks amazing, your photography skills are second to none as well!

+1

Great work Todd!

[SCoach]

Great looking car and terrific detail. A question if you would...

Can you give me your impression and thoughts on the Optimum Metal Polish? I bought some this week in anticipation of doing some wheel, exhaust, and other cleanup work soon.

I am mostly interested in it's abrasiveness. Would you liken it to a finishing polish or a heavier polish? I know very little about metal polishes, so I need to see if I need to add something else to my arsenal.

Thanks.

[dmw2692004]

great car!
I always enjoy reading these write ups and the work is just top notch! Amazing!


i second SCoach's question about the optimum metal polish. I have some but I dont know how abrasive it is.

[Chicagoareanew]

Crap. I was using Turtle Wax Ice before I got the stuff I have now.
And for the tail lights, what did you use on those? The same polish as the rest of the car?

[OTG Signs]

I don't like that body style, but the detail looks great!

[Apollo_Auto]

Very nice work, Todd! Love that car!