How To: Concours Carpet

[C. Charles Hahn]

Concourse Carpet For Your Car

By C. Charles Hahn (Shiny Lil Detlr)



The most basic carpet cleaning consists of vacuuming, spot cleaning, and occasional shampooing. However, with just minimal extra effort, you can have that "concours look" for the carpets in your daily driven vehicle. This consists of 6 easy steps.



Time to Complete: 30 Minutes (Can be more depending on vehicle, this was the time to complete the cargo section on my '98 Chevrolet Blazer)

Ease of Completion: Easy

Availability of Tools: Very Accessible

Expense of Project: Very Inexpensive



Before we begin, make sure you have a carpet which has been recently shampooed (mine was 4 months ago), and that you have just spot cleaned, and vacuumed. Should look something like this:

This is the pre-detailed carpet (as you can see I had previously done a process on the carpet which partially remains), just like every daily driver would have.



For this project, you will need one very simple tool. You will need a brush with strong nylon bristles that can pick up nap on a carpet. For this task, I use this one I bought at Menard's:

Step 1



With your brush, begin brushing the carpet longwise going AWAY from you on every stroke. Like this:

When you have completed this step, go ahead and do the same thing widthwise across the carpet, making sure your strokes are from the left to the right. Such as below:

Now your carpet should look something like this:

And you are ready for Step 2.

 

[C. Charles Hahn]

Step 2



Now, you can begin brushing and pulling the brush TOWARDS you, longwise along the carpet. Leave a space of one brush width between each stroke, like is seen here:

One easy way to leave an even spacing is as follows:



1) Place one finger on the edge of the brush, along the side you have not yet stroked on.

2) Move brush to other side of finger. Continue Brushing.

Thats it!! Its that easy and you're done!!



Your finished result should look something like this:

 

[C. Charles Hahn]

Here are a few pics of a brand new Porsche 911 Targa that has had this process done to it (found these on eBay):

 

[BradE]

Very interesting thread. Very nice pics, they add a nice touch to the thread. I use a similar method on my daily drivers, not exact but similar.



But, many concours judges frown on having any type of design brushed or vac'ed into the carpeting. In fact, depending on the rules of the show, you can lose points for it.

 

[C. Charles Hahn]

One final shot of the finished Blazer project, sorry its dark but I had to turn off my extra light to capture the pic properly....

:wavey

 

[C. Charles Hahn]

... many concours judges frown on having any type of design brushed or vac'ed into the carpeting. In fact, depending on the rules of the show, you can lose points for it.

In that case I guess you'd stop at the end of Step 1.... :bounce

 

[lsanford]

Great instructions and pictures of what you want.:up

Is the term "Concourse Carpet" a formal term with a standard definition? Or is this pattern what you personally like?

Thanks

 

[C. Charles Hahn]

Its just a pattern which is commonly used by detailers of higher-end cars, as I've found in looking through the web (you can find several examples on eBay as I did) and going to a few high-class (MB, BMW, Bentley) dealerships.



Another commonly used pattern which I personally can't seem to figure out how its done is the diamond pattern as seen here on an Escalade:

so no, thats not a specific term, its just a term describing what I would call the easiest, most user-friendly way to make your car look classy. :up

 

[metoo1022]

I'm guessing overlapping zig-zag. Brush all forward (as you did), now pull back on an angle \ . Now overlap this going forward / now back again \. I don't think it's a diamond pattern, I think its just long triangles. There appears to be a seam just behind the seats which was probably given a similar treatment without disturbing the "trunk".



Just a guess, but I think it would work.

 

[imported_seres]

SLD,



That's the pattern we do ~ it's actually pretty easy ~



You go up and down with vac attachment or even with upholstery attachment on steam vac. At the top of each stroke, angle slightly before coming back down. At the bottom, angle slightly again before going back up. You end up criss-crossing over your other strokes, thus making the pattern. (Does that make sense? I'm not too good at explaining things!!)



Our Volvo:

 

[C. Charles Hahn]

V4M - my vac attachments won't raise/lower the nap effectively enough to do that..... I'll have to experiment with the brush a little bit to see if I can do that - it looks really slick!

 

[imported_seres]

I really like it - I think it looks very "finished". Maybe if you hold the brush sideways - almost like doing calligraphy. Let us know what you come up with by using the brush!!

 

[vroddad]

Hmmm, I have an idea of trying to put the marque / logo in the carpet.

 

[Pats300zx]

Wow..great write up.....:up

 

[C. Charles Hahn]

Hmmm, I have an idea of trying to put the marque / logo in the carpet.

That would actually be pretty easy - just make a template of some sort out of tagboard or another heavy material, do all through the end of step one, then lay down the template and brush the design in. :up

 

[ClayBartrug]

I hope not to seem too ignorant here...but is a pattern like that in the carpet a desireable result to customer's? I think I personally wouldn't be too thrilled if I got my 911 back looking like that. I mean, it certainly has the appearance that it was cleaned thouroughly, but why the pattern ?



Or maybe that's the whole point, so they KNOW it was cleaned thouroughly? :nixweiss

 

[C. Charles Hahn]

Chris S - what prompted me to discover the art of doing this stuff is when a customer came to me and asked what I could do to "dress up" the interior of her car....



her carpets were a beige like mine are, and she had multitudes of stains and overall dirt in it. I went ahead and shampooed it, spot cleaned any remaining hard-to-get spots, but I still wasnt satisfied as the carpet still looked "dirty". So, since she had said something about also wanting them to look "fancier; more luxurious and expensive" I did some research to find out what, if anything, people did to dress the carpets in more expensive cars. I found several pics of cars like the 911 I posted on ebay, and I decided to play with the idea a bit.... The method I've laid out here is what I came up with to best hide a dirty carpet - since the stripes are more pronounced than the dirtyness of the carpets, you can't tell as easily after you've done step 2 that its dirty as easilly.



So yeah, I guess there is a degree of customer desire...

 

[Redcar GUY]

I hope not to seem too ignorant here...but is a pattern like that in the carpet a desireable result to customer's? I think I personally wouldn't be too thrilled if I got my 911 back looking like that. I mean, it certainly has the appearance that it was cleaned thouroughly, but why the pattern ?



Or maybe that's the whole point, so they KNOW it was cleaned thouroughly? :nixweiss

Ya I dont care for it much either, Looks like the stripes I put in my yard.

 

[Propaganda13]

Good write-up, but I personally think it's ugly. Of course, if we all had the same taste, we'd all have the same car.

 

[drewski59]

Hey guys, great write up!



I was just wondering what products you use for the shampoo and spot clean. I've been searching for the right interior products for my daily driver!



Thanks!:wavey