Congratulations to Ian Campbell for winning our August show n shine - our first ever international winner, all the way from New Zealand! In exchange for a crate of beer and a slap on the back, Ian agreed to tidy up his best friend's mother's car. However, what he hadn't banked on was a dried on cement spillage, five year's worth of swirling courtesy of local car washes plus numerous parking scuffs. Oh the joys! The first step in the process was to remove the cement. The spillage was soaked in vinegar for several hours, and then carefully chipped off with a plastic scraper - this left some deep scratches and nasty etching, but at least the cement was off.

With the cement gone, the wash process commenced. Firstly, the wheels were taken off and cleaned with Meguiars Wheel Brightener cut 10:1, and the arches were pressure washed and scrubbed with Meguiars Super Degreaser and a stiff nylon brush. With the wheels and arches done, Ian then pressure washed the exterior, and applied a blanket of foam that was allowed to dwell for around five minutes. After rinsing off, the bodywork and glass was washed by hand using Meguiars Shampoo Plus and a Lambswool Wash Mitt, and then clayed using Meguiars Quik Clay and Meguiars Last Touch as the lubricant. After a final rinse, the exterior was carefully dried with waffle weave drying towels.

The next step in the process was to address the appearance of the paint. Fortunately, new age Subaru paint is a lot softer than was the case in the past, and Ian found that Meguiars Speed Glaze applied using a Meguiars Soft Buff Polishing Pad on his Meguiars G220 Dual Action Polisher was sufficient to nip out most of the minor defects and hide many of the deeper ones. Only the area affected by the cement spillage required additional work, and here Meguiars Dual Action Cleaner Polish was used in conjunction with an Ultimate Compounding Spot Pad to remove the scratches and etching mentioned before. With the paint now looking glossy and largely defect free, Ian sealed in his hard work with a coat of Blackfire Midnight Sun Paste Wax.

To complete the detail and secure the beer, Ian cleaned the glass with Meguiars Glass Cleaner Concentrate, polished the exhaust tips with Meguiars NXT Generation All Metal Polysh, sealed the alloys with Poorboys Wheel Sealant, dressed the tyres with Blackfire Long Lasting Tyre Gel and dressed the exterior trims with Meguiars All Season Dressing. In total, the work took Ian two days to complete, and the results speak for themselves - an impressive transformation from wrecked runaround to eye catching rally weapon. Well done mate!