Thread: Good Guys Detailing - Paint Correction Detail on a Red Ford GT 40

A new client recently brought his Ford GT in for a paint correction detail. This car had never had any major detailing done to it so it needed some special care. The paint had a lot of problems but nothing that couldn't be fixed. The car was 6 years old so there were years of defects built up in the paint including swirls, deeper scratches, deep etched-in water spots, contaminants in the paint and oxidation.

Here is what the car looked like when it arrived:



Lots of swirls.







Deep etched-in water spots.

Close up of the etched-in water spots.



Inside shots of the defects under inspection lights.

So as you can see this car has some serious defects to remove to make the paint look perfect. My friend Dylan and I started with a typical 2-bucket 4-grit-guard wash method. Once we were done washing we sprayed the whole car with Iron-X to help remove the contaminants in the paint. Iron-X starts to break away dirt and contaminants that are embedded in the paint. After we let the Iron-X sit on the car for a couple minutes we rinsed it off and started claying with a Clay Magic Fine Grade Clay Bar using Dodo Juice Born Slippery as our lubricant.

Once Dylan and I removed all of the dirt and contaminants it was time for a test section. I started with a Meguiars Microfiber Cutting Disc and some Meguiars D300. This combo took out all of the deeper defects and finished down very well. I completed half of a panel and started testing polishes. Sonax Perfect Finish removed all of the compounding haze and really made the red pop. Here are a couple 50/50 shots of my test panel under inspection lights and out in the sun.





While I was working on the car, Tim Buxton from Knox Details was in town helping Todd Cooperider. Tim is an excellent detailer and really has a passion for what he does. He had recently purchased a Rupes LHR 75 pneumatic polisher from Kevin Brown at buffdaddy.com for us to try out on this car. After using it I was blown away by how much this thing cuts. It was also the perfect size to work on the smaller areas of this car. While talking to Kevin Brown on the phone about the machine I ended up ordering one from him Along with bringing this great toy with him, Tim stayed for a couple days to help me out on this car. Since he was already used to the machine he compounded all of the smaller areas of the car with the Rupes. Thanks you very much for the help Tim, would love to have you back anytime.

Since Tim was helping me with the car I wanted to show him a "good" time. I took him out in downtown Columbus a couple nights and we also attended an epic pool party I was more than happy to show him around. Tim is a great guy and a hard worker, not an easy combo to find nowadays!

After Tim helped me compound and I got all of the polishing done the paint was looking really good. We were able to knock out about 95% of the defects and get the paint to finish down really nice.

Here are some up-close after shots:





The front end had its fair share of rock chips but it still looked a lot better once all of the swirls and scratches were removed.























The up-close pictures show that we now have great paint without all of the eyesores in it. Here are the after shots starting with some inside shots:

And the outside and sun shots. The sun really beamed off of this paint and the shots with multiple suns are awesome. When you have a car with many curves in each panel you can get the right angles to reflect the sun more than once, it looks kinda crazy.

Once we were done with the car we had paint that had great reflection and a deep red color. The client hasn't picked his car up yet but I am sure he will be blown away when he sees it, especially in the sun!!!

Thanks for reading!

Very Nice! One thing though, this is a Ford GT, not a GT40. Unfortunately, Ford lost the right to call this car the GT40 because they did not think to trademark the term. Some one else did and sued Ford when they reintroduced this car to the public. Still, it does not take away from the beautiful restoration you did!

Later,

Originally Posted by Lee Yoder

Very Nice! One thing though, this is a Ford GT, not a GT40. Unfortunately, Ford lost the right to call this car the GT40 because they did not think to trademark the term. Some one else did and sued Ford when they reintroduced this car to the public. Still, it does not take away from the beautiful restoration you did!

Later,

Thank you for the kind words. I noticed that I put 40 after GT and tried to change it but it wouldn't let me in the main title lol. But thank you very much for the info because I was not aware that was the situation.