Old Time Vendors

Setec Astronomy

Well-known member
I vaguely think I may have started a thread like this before, but since I`ve...er...accumulated...a lot of MF towels and wash, and I was talking to a friend the other week and he was doing almost a rinseless wash on his MIL`s minivan with some Dawn, I thought maybe for Christmas I`d give him some real rinseless and some towels.

So I was looking through my (how did I get so many towels that I`ve never used!?!?!?) stash, and I had some towels with "WCD" on the label...and I`m thinking...what does that stand for? Oh yeah, West Coast Detailing, the name that Patrick changed to after Excel. Then I had another bag of towels that I had written on the bag "WCD" but I was sure they came from somewhere else...then I realized WCD is Winner`s Circle Detailing, what Rob called TowelPros back in the old days.

It just made me think of some of the old "basement" vendors we used to buy stuff from on here, who had real jobs but sold detail supplies as a side gig. Here`s the ones I remember:

Patrick at Excel/West Coast Detail
Scott at Specialty Motoring Products
Rob at Winner`s Circle Detail/TowelPros
Bob at Danase

Who did I leave out? Those were the old innocent early days of eCommerce, before eBay, Amazon, and before AutoGeek grew into the behemoth they were and now seemingly aren`t. It seemed like Meghan would watch this forum (before they had AGO) and whatever product Patrick or others would find to sell that no one had heard of and there would be buzz about it, AutoGeek would pick up that line and undercut the basement guys.
 
Kevin Overall and his reserged Fieldcrest Charisma towels!

YoSteve and his green MFs.

Emmons Coachworks (little cotton towels, very soft and plush).

And heh heh, yeah..I`m still wearing that Danase t-shirt now and then.
 
Kevin Overall and his reserged Fieldcrest Charisma towels!

YoSteve and his green MFs.

Emmons Coachworks (little cotton towels, very soft and plush).

Before my time, Accumulator! :P

how about Irene from top of the line detailing?

While we mourn the loss of TOL, I was specifically thinking about the part-time people running "virtual" businesses. TOL was a real-life brick-and-mortar outfit.
 
What about Jeff Werkstat products?
Never tried any, but they did have a huge following here in this forum in the days of acrylic sealants.

Yes, I looked at old posts in the forum sub-topics/categories using the "last" arrow. This was at the very beginning of this forum, even before I joined in 2002! Lots of those posts are locked, so you cannot view them. Some of the epic posts are just that: EPIC.
Lots of Autopians from that time were (and some still are) great contributors to the various detailing topics. History has its place, as do those who make it! (How profound, Captain Obvious!)
 
Does PakShak count? Or was that their full time gig?

Hmm...not sure. Also not sure about Rick at ADS, I think he was full time, but maybe out of his house. ADS is gone now, but way back when we had a member...what was her name? She lived in Arizona and I think she had picked up stuff at ADS and said Rick had his inventory in his garage...but it`s possible I`m not remembering that right. PakShak is still around, but funnily enough, no longer sells towels, which was their big thing back then. Remember they used to mail the stuff to the mainland and had cheap shipping even though it was coming all the way from Hawaii. Used to come pretty fast, as I recall, Air Mail, you know...
 
I`m glad I`m not the only person here who still remembers Irene Bernado! Yes indeed, she was great, I`d buy stuff from her that I could`ve gotten cheaper elsewhere.
 
Yeah,I just recently learned of her passing. That’s really too bad. I hate to see above and beyond customer service become even more scarce this day and age.
 
Yeah,I just recently learned of her passing. That’s really too bad. I hate to see above and beyond customer service become even more scarce this day and age.

Holy cow you must really be plugged into the detailing grapevine to have heard that! I remember them closing TOL but how on earth did you find out she had passed away?
 
I simply googled her name once folks here started talking about her. Sounds like she suffered from some significant health issues. I hate it when I hear one of the good ones has left us.
 
Leo and his DF Concours towels[/SIZE]

I`d personally like to forget him. Maybe he was having some health issues but he claimed he subbed out the fulfillment to someone else, who it turned out wasn`t doing it. At least that`s what he told a bunch of us who ordered, had our CC`s charged, and then never got our orders. I honestly don`t remember if we ever actually got them, I remember being pretty hot under the collar about it, and as I said, would prefer to just forget it, it`s giving me agita just thinking about it.
 
Gee, I`m glad I was able to buy from him before that. He even used my comment about his towels on his website.
 
Re: DFTowel, I never had an issue with the few orders I placed. Still have all of those towels either in service or "NIB". One of the nicest towels I own.
 
I find the towels to be among the very few that don`t eventually lint. It`s too bad they didn`t stay on the market and make advancements over time.
 
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