Congratulations to John Redfern of Coventry for winning our November show n shine. John's best mate recently sold his Ford Fiesta ST and replaced it with something a little more hardcore - an Series 1 Lotus Elise. Being a gentleman, John kindly offered to detail it for him while he was away on holiday. Overall the car was in pretty good shape, with only relatively light swirling, although the paint was very rough to the touch and extremely dull looking. John started the detail with a thorough foaming wash using an all purpose cleaner solution and tackled the wheels with Meguiars Wheel Brightener and a selection of brushes. After rinsing everything off, John washed the whole car using the two bucket method, rinsed off again and then finally dried everything off with Poorboys Waffle Weave Drying Towels and a misting of Meguiars Last Touch to lubricate the panels. The bodywork was then clayed with Meguiars Detailing Clay Mild and Meguiars Last Touch. John reports that "When I say the paintwork was rough, this was the worst vehicle I have ever clayed, not for ingrained dirt, but small particles of bonded grit. To reduce the chances of damaging the paint I boiled a kettle of water, brought it in to the garage and kept cleaning and needing the clay in a hot bowl of water. I changed the water on every panel if not sooner"

With the paint perfectly smooth again, the exterior was masked up ready for the polishing stage. The rubbers and vents were taped off with 3M 3434 tape, using newspaper to cover the main vented areas. The fabric roof was removed to reduce any chance of polish contamination. To provide protection to the interior, John fitted a large microfibre towel in place of the hood. Without a plastics paint gauge to hand, John started the polishing stage cautiously and with trepidation using his Porter Cable 7424 dual action unit and Menzerna Final Polish II. With this making no impact at all, John switched to Menzerna Intensive Polish, but this too failed to rectify the paint to the standard John wanted. After consulting the forums and reading up on Elises done by ourselves and other professional detailers, John switched to using his Makita 9227 rotary polisher in conjunction with Menzera Intensive Polish. Using the zenith method to help keep heat down, John got the results he wanted. With the panels all being curved and John being worried about leaving holograms, he patiently went over the bodywork one more time with the Porter Cable at the end to ensure a perfect finish with maximum crispness and gloss.

The bodywork was then cleansed with Sonus Paint Cleanser to remove any remaining polishing oils, and then sealed with a coat of lackfire Wet Diamond All Finish Paint Protection. John then topped this with Blackfire Wet Diamond Ivory Carnauba Paste Wax for maximum gloss and wetness, and did a final wipe down with Menzerna High Gloss Acrylic Shield to ensure a perfect smear free finish with maximum shine. To finish off, the alloys were sealed with Poorboys Wheel Sealant, the exhaust tips were polished, the engine was thoroughly cleansed and dressed, and the interior was given a wipedown and vaccum. John reports that his mate was well chuffed when he came back from his holiday to find his paint looking perfect again, and as you can see below, it's not hard to see why! Great work John, 18 hours well spent mate!