This 1959 Impala was brought to my attention by an older gentleman who had stored it in his barn for quite some time. The car was painted approximately forty years ago with lacquer, and since then had never been polished or seen much in the way of proper maintenance. The goal with this detail was to restore oils to the single stage paint, remove a large percentage of the swirling and get the chrome and paint protected.
Before:
Surface staining, oxidation and marring dulled the finish. Note how the finish looks like a chalky-white, rather than the bright, reflective white finish that it should be:
The chrome trim showed some staining which necessitated a serious polishing:
Viewing the paint under direct sunlight revealed the heavy marring from improper washes and wiped-owns, as well as rotary swirling from an improper polishing technique:
There were also various scuffs, areas of surface staining and accumulated dirt and mold:
During:
After a wipedown with Optimum No Rinse at QD dilution, the car was decontaminated using Clay Magic fine grade clay, and Meguiar’s #7 was applied to the paintwork to restore oils to the lacquer:
After the decon step and #7 application the paint was looking cleaner and brighter, but still heavily marred and swirled:
After some testing, a combination of HD Polish and Meguiar’s D300 was found to remove approximately 80% of the paint’s defects when used with LC black finishing pads on the Rupes 21 and 75E. This process made a dramatic increase in the paint’s appearance, especially under direct lighting, without removing an amount of paint thickness that would jeopardize the integrity of the aging lacquer finish.
In these pictures the paint had been polished, while the trim and areas around/under the trim edges had yet to be touched:
After:
After polishing the trim and sealing with CarPro Reload:
