It’s All In The Details

It’s pretty much common knowledge that I am a bit OCD when it comes to my car and cleaning it. In fact I go a level above car cleaning and it’s called ‘detailing’. It means you go the extra mile to achieve excellence where ever you can. I am not at the ridiculous levels of Concours cleaning with cotton buds etc. But, I do have a selection of brushes to make sure I get in all the little places that I need to. I buy all my own products at retail prices and don’t get them given to me by anybody. If I did, I would say so and it certainly wouldn’t change my opinion when I get round to reviewing the product either. My reviews are always honest and unbiased. I mention all this because I get a few questions now and again at car shows, along with the odd email asking me what I use to clean my car. I have one or two products in my stash to choose from. However, this little lot doesn’t include all the various types of micro fibre cloths, glass cloths, drying towels, application sponges, hand pads, brushes, sponge brushes, tyre applicators, gloves, buckets with different types of dirt collectors, wash mits, snow foam lance, Karcher pressure washer or my Meguiar’s MT320 Dual Action polishing tool as I couldn’t get any more in the photo.

My favourite brands at the moment are Chemical Guys, Auto Finesse and Meguiar’s. I’m always open to using other brands as long as they work, an indeed tried some random brands with great results, such as Dat Wax.

I review my products and rate them on a score out of ten with two follow-up questions; ‘would I recommend it?’ and ‘would I buy it again?’ Both of these questions adding to the depth of the review when parting with my own money.

My reviews can be found on the main heading under ‘Car Detailing Reviews’. This is a section that gets added to regularly, even if I haven’t done a main post as such.

What I do have trouble with is giving a product a top score, then I get another similar product that I like even more and that gets a top score as well. That’s not to say I would go back and mark the score down for the other product. Indeed I would have no problems in going out to buy the top scoring products again. An example is that I love DoDo Juice Red Mist Tropical as a quick detailer, but it takes a couple of applications to remove any streaks if applied on top of Meguiar’s Ultimate Wax. (I did have a conversation with DoDo Juice themselves about this very issue, and they told me that they are aware of the problem). Auto Finesse Finale on the other hand doesn’t have that issue, but I don’t like their bottle spray mechanisms. Both are great products, but have their own quirks as it were.

There are numerous tutorials online and good ol’ YouTube on how to clean your car or detail your car properly, so I won’t bore you with that side of it all. However within my reviews I try to explain the price, the product’s sales pitch, product description, process, application, instructions, results, rating and conclusion all with photos. In fact I am still going through the process of working out what works for me and what doesn’t and in which combinations. I currently have got more than a dozen products that I need to create reviews for, but I just haven’t got round to doing them yet. It’s all a financial minefield and I would hate to think how much money has been spent on my car cleaning products, just one little pot of show wax I have costs £75 and it doesn’t look much different to Meguiar’s Ultimate after application, but I love the usability of that expensive wax, and that goes a long way to being in my preferred list of products as it were.

The other side to all these products is where to keep them, I have multiple bags of various types and sizes. In fact I have reviewed some of them, what they hold, how user-friendly and are they worth it etc. Some reviews will surprise you from the big names.

I hope my opinions help and save somebody some money on rubbish products out there, yes I have wasted my own hard-earned money on products reading other reviews that must have been written by the company employees. That’s the reason I started reviewing products, tools, equipment etc. My reviews are from a normal bloke that buys and uses them on his pride and joy. My goal is simple; to get a paint job that still looks wet and above all is protected. When you get to buy quality products, most of the time you get what you pay for, sometimes you don’t.

I get nothing for my reviews and I’m not on commission either, hopefully the reviews will help somebody one day.

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Back On The Road

Now that the weather in the UK has changed from pretty dismal to a sunny week or so. It was time to get the Mustang out and get it all ship-shape and road legal. Since November last year my car has sat in the garage just waiting for a nice day out. The car’s MOT had run out at the beginning of December, which means that until my car passes an MOT I can’t get any road tax to allow it back on the road, all be it that the road tax is free as it’s classed as a historical vehicle.

Earlier last week I arranged with Adam at Mustang Maniac to get my MOT booked in on Saturday (just gone). Friday evening the car was given a check up, to make sure fluid levels were where they should be and that I had no leaks. There shouldn’t be as I check my car every other week at least.

Saturday morning had arrived and it was starting to get sunny as I backed the car out the garage. It was a strange feeling being on the left hand side and it took a few minutes to get used to it again. The drive was great going to the Mustang Maniac yard, dual carriageway and some country roads to enjoy. The worst part was the pot holes or should I say craters in the road that had not been fixed. I spent most of my time totally focused on tarmac, when there was some rather than the traffic. I arrived at the yard after a ninety minute drive and sat in the office chatting to Adam for a while. I “borrowed” this pic from The Mustang Maniac blog Park & Pic section.

I was given verbal instructions on how to get to the MOT centre along with my faithful Sat-Nav. I was given some banter by Yogi warning me that the “Test centre closes at three, best you get a move on”. So off I went to the test centre fifteen minutes away, I parked up and waited for the guys to take my little lady into the testing bay.

What seemed like hours later (but it wasn’t), the tester came out with a clean sheet MOT pass. It’s such a relief to know that all was OK and safe with the car. Walking out to my car there was a couple of admirers looking at her and asked me a few questions about how long it took to restore and where was it done etc. I noticed a tiny drip from the water thermostat housing that needed a little tweak with a spanner to reseal again when I got back to the Mustang Maniac yard.

Now I can look forward to the dozen or so car shows I have in mind this year. My journey home was not so nice due to nutters on the road that got me nervous, so much so that I intended to make a little fun post shortly about it. Anyway I got home safely and parked the car up ready for a clean on Sunday. The car was dusty from the dry weather so I decided to get the Snow Foam on the car for the first bubble bath of the year.

Of course a rinse, snow foam, wash, rinse and dry is not enough, so I needed to give her a little wax top up to keep her shiny. Oh and polish the chrome wheels, and the glass, and the chrome trim etc. I must say that she didn’t look any different after the wash to be honest, but at least I know she is clean again.

I’m ready and waiting to get to the car shows now.

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First Time Videos

During some routine maintenance on my PC where I back up my files, then move them to relevant folders etc. I came across an old video that I thought I had lost. So I decided that I would share that video and a couple of others with you. The day was a Saturday 14th April 2012, I had a good mechanic mate of mine; Will from Park Garage Services came round to the house and help me with the start-up. This was a long time before I started to get involved with Mustang Maniac for my parts and the proper restoration process. After a long winter of re-wiring the car to get to the point I could turn the key properly, this was a very important day in the restoration process. I had no idea that this restoration project was ever going to be a blog that it is now, so there wasn’t that many pictures from the very beginning. I already had the old wiring out, well what was left of it that is. IThe old wiring sits in a big box and I’m still not sure what to do with it. It’s old, it’s brittle, it’s burnt and melted, it’s total rubbish, but I just can’t bring myself to dump it. Any ideas what to do with an old wiring loom? Please let me know.

The new wiring had been installed and nothing was neat at this point, or even in the right places come to that. The wiring was just connected up and roughly in place. That very early stage was just to prove the process to myself that it was going to work. Later on the new wiring would be taken back out for the full restoration and paint job, then reinstalled properly and neatly, just how I wanted it to be.

Fuse box location

The engine was not cleaned or prepped in any way prior to this video. It just had the new blue spark plug leads, Pertronix Ignitor II ignition upgrade, new replica battery, one wire alternator, new spark plugs and new cables for earth and battery etc. The starter solenoid was an unknown entity so we weren’t sure if we were gonna have issues at that point.

Being as I had rewired the car myself over a few months each weekend, the wiring was also an unknown piece of work too, I just hoped I had read the book of words (instructions) correctly. In fact the good lady wife had the instructions colour copied and laminated for me. That would mean my dirty hands wouldn’t ruin the paper or tear it. I could keep the originals in a safe place just in case I did lose one section or managed to damage them.

Back to the start-up day; I put two gallons of fuel in the petrol tank and made sure there was no leaks. I had previously turned the engine over by hand with no spark plugs in place, that would make it much easier not having to deal with the compression, the engine wasn’t seized up. I had previously filled up the engine with water and some temporary light oil as the engine wasn’t going to run under stress for any length of time either. Oil lubrication is a critical factor to consider when the engine hadn’t run for twelve years or so for any cold start and engine wear. The turning over of the engine on crank would pump the oil around the engine at those low cranking revs. The car was cranked over for a bout thirty seconds and then left the car to settle for a minute or so. We then primed the carburetor up with fuel via pumping the gas (via the carb linkages) to help fire up and this was video was the result. The headers were straight out as there was no exhaust connected at all, the volume and resonance distorted the microphone on the phone.

My good lady wife was in charge of the camera at the time, this is the first time this video has been on the internet on any of my media platforms.

With the car restored I was arriving home from a car show and the car was filmed being driven into the garage. This is a nostalgic look at the before and after comparisons.

This time the Flowmaster 40 Series mufflers were fitted to the 3″ headers which gives that unmistakable Mustang v8 rumble.

This is also a first time showing of this video on the internet.

This video of the car backing out of the garage was another mate who wanted a ride out in the car when he first saw it back completed from the restoration. The final first time video on the internet video.

Then of course there is the mandatory drive by;

Apologies if you have seen the “Driveby” on my YouTube channel, but I think it’s worth a proper posting on the blog and not just a link.

I have started to review a few more Car Detailing products now and hopefully you will find them useful as well. I have found a couple of real nice products all of which can be found under the “Car Detailing Reviews” heading, the latest being from the Chemical Guys.

I’m looking forward to this coming car show season I must say, seeing these videos has made me realise how much I miss driving her. 🙁

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London Classic Car Show 2018 (Part 2)

This post is the second of three that will feature the cars of various motor sports through the years and different types of racing groups. The centre of the hall had a temporary road which split the hall into two halves. The road was opened to cross via a few gates and a bridge over the middle that was accessed by the VIP area. Various cars were allowed to drive up and down the road to let the spectators see and hear the cars.

The pinnacle of racing is arguably the Formula 1 series, although not quite as popular in the USA as the Indy Car series. This first car is one of Michael Schumacher’s F1 race cars. He won his first world championship with the Benetton team before moving onto Ferrari. Formula 1 has been a sport I have followed since the mid 80’s and that is little clue for the next post also in this picture below as well.

Sorry for the quality of some of the pictures as I was zoomed in on the large one.

Other single seat series

The Brutal Group B rally cars were often classed as “Too fast to Race” and were banned from the Rally series. These cars command huge sums of money now but could be picked up for the cost of a second-hand family car at the time!

“Normal” Rally cars of the yester years.

The “Touring Cars” series

The sleek endurance cars.

Some sports cars ( a couple from the previous post also cross into this category.

My next post is the post I am most excited about.

My last Clue: “5“

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My Misplaced Post

I have to confess that I scheduled a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year post to be scheduled for the relevant big day so I didn’t forget. But, as I kept thinking 2018 to myself in my mind so that I didn’t make a mistake as I was scheduling the post, the opposite happened and I actually set the year for 2019 thinking that was in fact the next year. So my resolution for this year is; learn how to work the calendar function on WordPress. I appologise for that.

Resolution completed! Apparently I just have to put the correct year, simple really. Obviously not for a doughnut like me though! So I had time off over the Christmas break and went back to work on the Tuesday as did most people and by the afternoon I had filtered out the emails and got myself back to where I needed to be – thinking that I needed a holiday and asking myself; just where did the time go?

For christmas my wife spoilt me rotten and bought me a vast array of lotions and potions for the cleaning and maintaining of the Mustang. The selection was taken from a list that I had made for her in order to pick something from it. As she didn’t know which one to get so she bought them all, as well as an Auto Finesse Crew Bag to fit them all in. I must say that the “Crew Bag” is like a black hole with handles, it has so much storage space and easily the best bag I have, and I have a few now, trust me.

I will be reviewing them once I get to use them on here under my “Car Detailing Reviews” menu above. However the biggest surprise was the fact that my better half had listened to a conversation I was having with some retailers here in the UK for a classic looking fire extinguisher. Not any old fire extinguisher, oh no. I wanted one that looked old school but also did the job without additional damage. CO2 extinguishers can freeze electrical components with thermal shock, powder gets everywhere and creates a huge mess, water you can’t use on flammable liquids etc. So over the later part of the year I had been doing my homework. The best seemed to be HalGuard which is made in the USA, unfortunately not readily available over here in the UK. If anybody knows any different can they please let me know? Some of the benefits of this fire extinguisher are; no thermal shock, liquified gas gets to hard to reach places, no mess, rechargeable, recommended by aviation and many motor sports governing bodies, five-year warranty, oh it also comes in chrome! Nobody in the UK stocks or makes anything similar that has such good ratings or looks remotely like it should be from the ’60s. In the end, due to costs, I had all but given up on the idea. My wife had other ideas and picked up where I left off and ordered one from the USA. Inevitably there were all sorts of issues trying to get it past our wonderful HMRC customs people who obviously had nothing better to do other than check on fire extinguishers, maybe the could concnetrate on illegal immigrants a bit more like the ones hiding in the back of lorries maybe? Anyway, import duty, standard charges, handling fees etc. were a joke which added significant costs to the item. They had it impounded for a couple of weeks before they eventually released it to my wife mid December, by which time she was starting to panic a little. But, she got it and all credit to her. Once I had opened it and I asked “how?” I was told all about the horror story and the customs episodes.

Between Christmas day and the New Year’s day I wanted to fit it. There are additional brackets you can buy like, roll over cage mounts, under seat, quick release flat mounting etc. I already had an idea where it was to go; in the footwell on the passenger side. I waited for a clear dry day and got my car out into the cold air where I started to look for the best place to mount the new (essential) accessory.

The extinguisher needed to be off the floor, but low enough for the fresh air vent door to be fully opened just under the dash. The kick panel is made of a fairly thick plastic and the bracket has lots of holes for various mounting positions. I decided to use them all in order to spread the weight of the extinguisher so the screws don’t pull out of the plastic or distort it. Using the larger slot I held the bracket in place while I finalised the position and made sure it was straight.

The Dremel was the tool of choice as it was small and neat in order to create a small pilot hole ready for the screws, two larger style ones at the top that are also polished which would be seen, the remaining screws were smaller headed ones also polished. Once the holes were marked up I could fit the bracket properly.

The extinguisher was put into place and the belt clamped up then I took a step back to admire a fire extinguisher that I think looks good and will do the job should I ever need it, which I hope I never will.

The car was cleaned up, the mat was put back down and then I polished the chrome extinguisher to remove any finger marks and refitted it. I think the look goes well with the car, it can be easily accessed, it’s easily seen from outside and I can relax a little when I’m out on the road now.

Something that I hadn’t considered which is an added bonus, it looks good when the interior lights come on too.

I hope you all had a good well-earned Christmas break and I hope you all have a prosperous New Year.

P.S. Another resolution: I must blog more regularly!

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Writings On The Wall

It’s not often I get an idea late at night and remember it the next morning. Last week was one of those days where I picked up my phone in the middle of the night, and made a note of it. In the process I managed to keep myself awake for ages and regretted it the next day at work. So what was my idea?

I have been looking around for literally years now trying to find a cleaner for my BF Goodrich white lettered tyres. To be exact it’s not the tyres, but the actual raised white lettering on the tyres. I have tried all sorts of cleaners and even read about using a fine grade sandpaper to rub the surface of the letters to remove the old dirty coat and leave the clean underneath. Then I thought of “toothpaste.” I have seen people clean old plastic headlight lenses with toothpaste to bring them back to life. After all up to fifty percent of toothpaste is in fact abrasives, all be it in a mild form of course. My thought was around the “whitening” sort of paste. My tyres are pretty clean and protected, but the tops of the letters and some of the letters have gone a brown tinge over time and not the sparkly white that they once were.

As my toothbrush was wearing out I decided to have a go and see what happened. I used Meguiar’s degreaser first to remove the old tyre gel and treatments. After that it was a wipe over with some Auto Finesse “Citrus Power” Bug and Grime Remover. No I’m not on commission before you ask!

As the toothpaste was almost empty I took it out to the garage before the wife noticed it had gone along with my toothbrush.

With most of the dirt and grime removed I sprayed some more citrus on and used that as the lather agent for the paste and got to work scrubbing.

It made a nice little mess but nothing some more Citrus Power couldn’t cope with. Once messy mixture was removed I found that it had actually worked and brought some white back to the letters. The final step was to re-coat the tyres with some AutoGlym Instant Tyre Dressing and allowed it to dry.

The other wheels followed a similar technique and used a tiny splash of water to activate the toothpaste and seemed to work a little better.

Before shots of the dirty letters than can clearly be seen:

The cleaning process:

The after shots:

I am well chuffed with the results. I suspect that next time I will use a white toothpaste which is a little more coarse. As this is still a working idea in progress I will tweak and modify the process until I am fully happy with the results. The best part of all this is that a tube of unbranded toothpaste is cheap and will last forever and a day. I’m not sure that I will need to carry a tube with me to a car show though. Only when I need to clean the writings on the (side) wall of the tyres. Let me know if you have tried similar ideas or have a better idea for the white letters, or indeed the full white wall tyres themselves.

In case you are wondering; yes the wife did notice the toothbrush and paste had gone and asked me where it was. Once I had explained that I cleaned my car tyres with it, she didn’t speak, instead I got another one of those “looks” of disbelief. You know the sort of “look” that women have perfected when a man does something daft. Me on the other hand, I know that I have done something pretty cool using just a little outside the box thinking.

Remember before this goes viral all over the internet – you read it here first. 🙂

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Last Car Show?

The car show season seems to be coming to an end and the Autumn is creeping up on us quickly. This latest car show at Fornham was a few miles outside the main town of Bury St Edmunds. I had arranged to meet up with the Bury Retro Car Club at the local Tesco’s to get my pass for the show. As his is always a popular show entry is only via pre booked tickets. If you turn up without a ticket you will have to wait to see if there is a space to let you in or not, as that happened to me last year. I arrived at the supermarket and found an impromptu meet in the car park with cars arriving all the time to meet up with their friends and clubs. With plenty of people wandering around looking at the cars before the main show.

Out club being no exception, we left in convoy and arrived at the ground and parked up to our allocated spaces.

After everything had settled down a bit I had a chance to wander around and take in the view of some great cars.

I got to speak with a lovely family about their car that they had inherited from their Uncle who had sadly passed away after an illness. It turns out this fastback was originally an export model and the vin number seems to confirm that. The car has a huge provenance of paperwork where receipts for spark plugs had all been filed away and documented. This car has all its original panels on it. The reason for the different trunk was that there was a dent in it which was removed but just not got round to repainting it again before he passed. We were talking for ages and the more I heard about this car the more I wanted to know. The car has all sorts of additional locks on it and alarms as the uncle was paranoid about it getting stolen. I can see his point here I must say.

I hope to catch up with them all again soon.

This may well be the last show of the year for me that I have scheduled, and the others I have made a note on depends very much on the weather.

In the future I am to limit my pictures to no more than fifty of a car show or at least split it up into parts if it’s a particularly worthy show.

My Reviews:

I have writing a few reviews for the car detailing products which I have bought with my own hard-earned money.

The first is the Chemical Gus detailer which can be found here. or cut & paste below. https://onemanandhismustang.com/chemical-guys-extreme-slick-synthetic-detailer/

The Meguair’ MT320 Dual Action polisher can be found here. or cut & paste below. https://onemanandhismustang.com/meguiars-mt320-dual-action-polisher/

The DoDo Juice Lug Nut cleaner can be found here. or cut & paste below. https://onemanandhismustang.com/dodo-juice-nutt-plug-wheel-nut-cleaner/

The EZ Car Care Wheel Armour can be found here. or cut & paste below. https://onemanandhismustang.com/ez-car-care-wheel-armour/

I have also added a little logo to the right hand side menu bar. This is for the McAfee Secure website notification. In other words it’s regularly scanned for viruses and phishing etc. Although this aimed at retailers, it can’t hurt to be safe with all these hackers out there! So you can browse knowing full well that this site is safe and I have paid for the service from McAfee. I am trying to see how the plugin works with my WordPress plan so I will keep you updated on that.

Finally:

My thoughts go out to you ALL in the USA and Barbados who are being battered by the recent hurricanes causing untold damage. I hope it’s all over soon and you can start to get back on with your lives again.

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Helmingham Hall Car Show 2017 (Part 3)

With such a big show at Helmingham Hall I managed to take over three hundred photos, half of which I have posted on these last few posts. This is the last of those whittled down selection of photos. I enjoyed the show and spoke to some great people, and saw some great cars too. So to finish up, and in no particular order, more cars.

Then of course there is the original bad ass Dodge Viper V10.

Another all time favourite car of mine is this beautiful Aston Martin V8 Vantage, another poster that was on my bedroom wall as a kid.

It’s not very often that you see real nice Lamborghini Countach at a show, then I spotted another at the show, this is a rare beast in a right hand drive. I was spoilt for cars at this show, some great Fords both UK & USA; Mustangs, Thunderbird, Escorts, Sierra Cosworth, Capri, Trucks etc.

I just had to finish with more close up of my car, I think it’s only fair though.

During the day I walked past the limited number of stalls that were there, nothing official from the brand names though. For once I didn’t buy anything, I had made my purchases at Waxstock a couple of weeks ago, but I now have a review of my new favourite quick detailer from Chemical Guys, click here or go to the Car Detailing Reviews menu at the top to see other reviews. From the pic above you can see why I am pleased with the results.

I haven’t forgotten about the semi pro pics of my car by the way. I will make a separate post of those pics on another small post soon, once I get them ready that is.

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Helmingham Hall Car Show 2017 (Part 1)

Sunday just gone I visited one of my favourite car shows at Helmingham Hall in the heart of the Suffolk countryside. Once a year for one day the hall opens its vast grounds to us petrol (gear) heads to show of our pride and joys. I managed to take lots of photos but I managed to break it down to under two hundred photos, including the ones of the hall which I am quite pleased with.

A little about the hall which is a moated manor house in Helmingham, Suffolk, England. It was begun by John Tollemache in 1480 and has been owned by the family ever since. The house is built around a courtyard in typical late medieval/Tudor style. The house is listed Grade 1 on the National Heritage List for England, and its park and formal gardens are also Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. The present Helmingham Hall may have been initially constructed in 1510 on the site of an earlier house called Creke Hall. The exterior was altered between 1745–1760, again in 1800 by John Nash, and in 1840. The original half-timbered walls have been concealed by brick and tiles. The house is surrounded by a moat 60 feet wide, over which it is reached only by two working drawbridges, which have been pulled up every night since 1510. These were originally operated with a windlass but in recent years this has been replaced by an electric motor. The house is not open to the public and Helmingham is best known for its fine garden, which is open on a regular basis. It is a semi-formal mixed garden with extensive borders, a rose garden, a knot garden, a parterre and an orchard. Beyond the garden there is a 400-acre (1.6 km²) park with herds of red and Fallow Deer.

This year I was able to park on the Nissan 200sx owners club stand, so a big thanks to those guys. We arrived early at just gone nine, the gates to the public were opened at ten just as the sun started to shine. We had plenty of space and managed to spread out, I was almost on the end and in a prime location. My friend Craig was in his Honda Integra Type R parked alongside me.

Once everybody had turned up who was going to be there we could shuffle around again, so now I was on the outside and Craig moved to the inside of me. Due to the extra space we could park diagonally which was pretty cool as nobody else could. I even managed to use my new home-made show board stand too.

Once everything had settled down it was time for a dust down and quick spruce up, which took over an hour before I even started to have a look around. I got to use my new Chemical Guys quick detailer which I was very impressed with. I will be reviewing that product soon as it’s not widely available just yet.

There was so many cars at the show again I am having to split the posts, otherwise there will just be photo overload and take for ever to load. There is no real logic to the order of the photos, it’s just a batch at a time.

As a young boy I had posters of this car on my bedroom wall, it still remains one of my favourite super cars to date. This is the update 25th anniversary edition. The unmistakable Lamborghini Countach which means ‘Heavens’.

I will post ‘part two’ in a day or so. There is so much more and unusual cars to show you, everything from more super cars to some timeless classic cars. There was even some birds of prey on show too.

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Wax On – Wax Off

I have to admit that I have a little bit of an OCD problem when it comes to cleaning my car, I take it out, I bring it back and she gets a clean before the cover goes back on. The guys at Mustang Maniac use my car cleaning obsession to wind me up about it all the time. I like to try all sorts of different cleaning products to find out what works best for me. I love the Meguiar’s products, but there are others products that I use for specific jobs by other suppliers, DoDo Juice, Auto Finesse, Chemical Guys, Poor Boys World, EZ Car Care etc. I have tried some products and I didn’t like them on the Mustang for various reasons, but I use them on my others cars as they are fine for those. I have started to add to the Car Detailing Reviews menu again now to let you guys know what I think of them.

Here in the UK there is a show that is held once a year just for a single day which has been held for the last five years now called “Waxstock”. The Waxstock show is also billed as Europe’s largest car care show. I wanted to go last year, but it clashed with a car show that Mustang Maniac guys and friends were going to be attending in numbers, so that was my choice last year to go to the car show. As it turned out that car show was a nice sunny day, a great day out and having plenty of laughs with the guys. This year the same clash was going to happen, but the car show’s location was predicted heavy rain or thunder storms. As much I like to see the Mustang guys it’s quite a trek to get there for me. So I decided with a heavy heart to leave the car in the dry and take a trip to the middle of the country to visit the Waxstock show which would be a two-hour drive to get there. The weather there was not going to be brilliant either, but at least it was going to be held inside.

Cost of the tickets was a little expensive at £15 per person to get in, but that included the free parking on the day. The show is mainly aimed at the professional car cleaning companies or the more specialised car detailing companies. The outside parking area was split up to have the show and shine area for people who wanted to show off their cars and hopefully win a prize and the general parking area. The down side was there was plenty of small cars with big exhausts trying to sound like big cars, if you know what I mean. To be fair there was some nice cars on show outside and some “less than average” examples should I say to be kind. It seems as though the slammed look is still the in thing, I personally don’t like the look, but beauty is in the eye of the behold and I can really appreciate the amount of work gone into those cars. A couple of the cars I think we’re there for a bet as the paint on the cars were scuffed and slightly worse for wear.

The doors opened at nine thirty in the morning on the dot and the long queue of people to get in started to move. There was supposed to be fifty-five stands representing over seventy brands. Most of the vendors were around the outside and the bigger sponsors were in the middle.

I never knew there was so many different suppliers of car care products. The main hall was not that big, maybe around the size of a football (soccer) pitch or there abouts.

There were cars at some of the stands all nicely polished and gleaming. From old fans to super cars and the Pagani Hyper Car.

It was obvious that many of the cars were trailer Queens and transported to the show without a tyre touching tarmac. There were some pretty spectacular old English Ford’s a Cortina and an Escort. Both highly collectible and can command some big money, especially at this standard. The sad part? They were never going to be driven and enjoyed, they are just large show pieces now.

There were a number of cars from private entries all trying to make a claim for the prizes of best in show.

There was a couple of demonstrations from vendors showing their products in action which was interesting.

I managed to walk around in about an hour or so and watched a couple of stand demos. There was a talk in the staged area from guests who were respected in the detailing industry. After a second look round it was time to part with some money, some old favourites and a couple of new products to try out.

I spoke to a couple of suppliers about what I found with their products and what I wanted to achieve. In particular the points I have raised when using the DoDo Juice Tropical Red Mist on top of Meguiar’s wax which leaves streaks. The great guys at DoDo where aware of as it had been mentioned to them before. All in all it was a good day to see what all the fuss was about. But I doubt I will go again. I bought enough to make it worth my while as I was there using the discounts. But to be honest, the prices are not that much cheaper as you can get on the likes of eBay. Saying that, there was a a single pot of wax a new sale for £500! Hopefully I will be at a car show soon and see how these new products I bought perform in the hands of an ordinary man with his Mustang, along with his OCD obsession.