Hi all! I got a call last week from a guy and he asked me how much I would polish his car for. I asked him what kind of car it was and he told me, "Panther DeVille... you've probably never heard of it." Well he was right because I had no idea what kind of car it was. Anyway I told him I'd give him an appraisal when I saw the car in person and then asked him a couple of questions like, "How scratched is it?" etc. and he replied confidently, "It's not really scratched, just the paint's a little matt and needs to be 'brightened up'." Yup, I've heard that before.
Anyway, when I got home I Googled this car and WOAH! What a cool car! My butt has been puckered for a week waiting to get my hands on this thing!! When I arrived it was like showing up to a blind date to find that the Bride of Wildenstein is at your table gnawing on a pork chop. Very disappointing, in other words...
This thing was more neglected than a woman during the playoffs... The owner told me that he picked it up with in Germany a couple of months ago and it had been sitting outside for umpeen years. It was severely oxidized, had clearcoat failure all over it and this and that...
. Also when I arrived, the owner told me I had about 4 hours to finish because it was being taken to have the air conditioner repaired at 14.00. Considering that the base coat was so transparent that I could see the primer and with the amount pf scratches on it I said, "OK, it'll be done"
I started with a foam bath and a heavy mix of APC because there was a sticky film all over it. While the foam was dwelling I started to clean some of the "odd" places with a brush that looks like a SW brush, but it's not... I bought a pack of 6 of them for about $5
.
The vinyl top was also scrubbed with a horse hair brush.
A bit of what I was up against...
I started with InstaFinish #30 and a finishing pad, but wasn't anywhere near where I wanted to be and then based on the amount of blue paint that was on my pad, I decided that a glaze was more appropriate for this job; the paint was just too far gone to correct. I used InstaFinish HD Glaze on the entire car because it has a a medium cutting power (flashes very quickly) to remove light swirls and then fills things in VERY nicely after that. It's also quite durable too... I've seen it go for more than 4 months. Here's what I achieved with IF HD and a few passes ->>
A wanna-be 50/50
This is the fender before... it's actually been resprayed, but I'm sure it was done in someone's shady-shed so I wasn't going to take any chances on correcting it either so it got glazed, as well.
After some passes with HD Glaze:
Unfortunately this isn't a big write up with "50k no way" piccies but I thought I'd post this British beauty/beast anyway as it was an honor for me to polish despite the lack of time and what not
!
Thanks for reading and to all the Playboy subscribers, thanks for "reading"!
- Jesse
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