Sapphire Blue Dodge Viper GTS - ACR ~ Exterior Detail by Unique Car Care!!

[Rickrack]

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics220.jpg







The owner of this Viper lives in my hometown and drives by the shop often and sees the type of cars we work on, so he stopped in to make an appointment for an exterior detail. Since he drives the car pretty hard and isn’t very picky, he gave me an estimate of what he wanted to spend and left the car for a couple weeks to work on in-between other details. Overall, the car was in fairly decent shape, but there was plenty of room for improvement. Some of the chrome wheels were starting to peel, among some paint chipping off on the front bumper, but he told me just to pay attention to the paint and nothing else.





Here is what it looked like after a thorough wash and prep, prior to any polishing:



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics177.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics176.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics175.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics174.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics171.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics169.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics168.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics167.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics164.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics161.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics158.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics156.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics154.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics153.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics128.jpg







As you can see, there were some pretty good scratches scattered all over the car and some heavy swirling. I was hoping for a quick 2-stage polishing treatment, since the owner told me not to go crazy, but as soon as I started polishing, I quickly remembered how hard Viper paint was. Since a 2-stage wasn’t producing the results I was hoping for, I ended up moving up to a 3-stage polishing treatment to get the car looking its best.



.

[Rickrack]

I ended up polishing the complete exterior with Menzerna Power Gloss compound using an orange pad on the rotary, followed by Menzerna Super Intensive Polish using an orange pad to remove all of the heavy defects. For the last step, I used Menzerna Power Finish on an orange pad via PC7424XP. Blackfire Wet Diamond was used as the LSP.





Here are the final results…



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics284.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics282.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics277.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics275.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics272.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics266.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics261.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics258.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics257.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics255.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics252.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics250.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics246.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics243.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics242.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics241.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics215.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics202.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics200.jpg



http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/rickrack/Blue%20ACR%20GTS%20Viper/Junepics043.jpg





Thanks for looking!! :)

[Thomas Dekany]

STUNNING work as always Rick! That is perfection. :bow :bow :bow

[Apollo_Auto]

Awesome work there, Rick! Like the shop, too :).

[dmw2692004]

Awesome work! Sweet shop too!

[Pats300zx]

Beautiful work Rick. I am glad to hear that business is booming. Congrats on the engagement !!!!

[2Great2Exist]

nice job and badass car !

[imported_Jakerooni]

sweet job rick. Loving that color. How was the clear on that for correction purposes? Don`t the vipers tend to lean a little on the hard side? And the shop set up is simply perfect for a upscale shop. Congrats on all the success...... business and life!

[JohnKleven]

Sweet work Rick. Nice shop too.

[Labster]

Great turn around as always Rick! Congrats on the engagement, I`m in the same boat myself and it gets stressful!

[Barry Theal]

short, sweet and to the point! Perfect!!!!!

[Final Touch]

Nice work and I agree it`s a great looking shop. Do you use your hoists often? we`re upgrading our shop in the near future and a hoist is something I`ve been thinking about but I suspect it wouldn`t get used a lot. Detailing underneath vehicles in NZ is a bit OTT to be fair, dictated by our climate.

Love the ACR, there is an idenitical one that `works` just down the road from my shop, I`m eagerly awaiting the day that he come`s knocking on our door.

[TSC17]

Very nice as always Rick, and I`m happy to hear things are going so well...and not surprised at all. You`re a class-act through and through my friend. :)

[Rickrack]

tdekany- Thanks Thomas!



Apollo_Auto- Thanks Jesse! Not quite the shop that you work out of, but it`s treating me well. I`m getting some new lights installed over the next couple weeks and hope to have the floor redone when things slow down a bit.



dmw2692004- Thank you!



Pats300zx- Thanks Pat! The shop is busier than ever...



My wedding is less than 3 weeks away, so now I have to think of another excuse why I work so much. Can`t use the excuse "Honey, but we need the $$ to pay for the wedding.." haha! :)





2Great2Exist- Thanks!



Jakerooni- Thanks a lot Jake! Yes, the Viper clear was definitely harder than I was expecting. Overall, it was nice paint to deal with, but just took a little longer than I expected due to the harder paint.



JohnKleven- Thank you John! But I know you just like it because it`s full of Porsche`s!! LOL :)



Labster- Thanks buddy! Congrats! It`s definitely been a busy and stressful year so far. I can`t wait for the wedding planning to be over so I can get back to normal and concentrate more on my business. Next year should be even busier, so I think I might need to find a bigger shop...



Barry Theal- Thanks Barry! So how`s the new shop coming along? I`m sure you`ve been crazy busy trying to get it up to your high standards. Looking forward to seeing some more of your awesome write-ups!



Final Touch- Thanks! To be honest, I don`t really use the lift very often. It`s more of a pain than anything... If I had my choice, I would`ve gotten a scissor- style lift than can be moved if necessary. This particular lift is a little tough to work around and limits how many cars I can fit in the shop. Good luck getting that ACR to detail!



TSC17- Thank you very much Todd! Things are definitely going good... I`ll give you a call sometime soon so we can catch up on things...

[Jokeman]

Man was that thing hammered. He should have those wheels stripped and painted like the ones on your M, that would looks pretty sick.