Thread: The 996 Next Door: A Mid-West Love Story by AutoLavish with Steven Pham

You've seen her since the nice couple next door brought her home, and you've seen her over the years: more and more milers are on her but she always looks so beautiful. Now she's all grown up, but the downside of that is she's starting to show her age.

We took this beauty in for a face-lift. She's a beauty and is babied, but hasn't always recieved the care she deserves. Add in soft Porsche paint and you have a weathered look that takes away from the true beauty of such a great car.

With the client's arrivial, we got to work by properly looking over everything to see what we had in store.






The convertible soft top was looking quite grey and dull, but luckily we already discussed proper care of it with the owner before hand and this was something we already had on the list of things to do.




Clean wheels? Well the faces sure looked fine... we'll see how clean they really are




The sun's reflection is too bright, but they driver's side keyhole had a lot of build-up that needed attention.




Halograms + Swirls = lack of clarity



Even her ears? No. Not her pretty little ears...



Yes. Even her poor pretty ears. *sigh* Let's fix this baby up!

Because the vehicle was driven to us, we needed to make sure the wheels and brake components were cool prior to starting. Here Jacob takes the temperature of a caliper.




Started with a quick vaccum of the soft top to remove the light stuff. This would allow Jacob to begin the initial foaming while I got started with more attention to the fabric.




Degreaser to the wheel wells, APC to the tires






I then came through with P21S Wheel Cleaner Gel and got to work on the lugs, calipers, wheel barrels, and faces










While Jacob was flushing each wheel, tire, and wheel well, I got busy with RaggTopp Top Cleaner and a brush on the pretty lady's hair. I continued to give her scalp a good massaging while Jacob began with the wash process.

The start of the Facial Cleansing while I finish with the shampooing






Here you can see her deep black hair had a much smoother and uniform look after the scalp massage and shampoo



Jacob's careful wash of her rough body not only removed the surface soil, but pulled away some oils as well.



Finally rinsed and prepped for her epidermus skin exfoliation, here we take a careful look at her shoulder under the Brinkmann dual LED



Ready to get started!




First Combo produced good clarity and got rid of a lot of defects, but we wanted more cut:



2nd Combo produced the best clarity of them all, but didn't give enough cut to remove all the deeper swirls, nor did it remove enough of the random isolated deep scratches (RIDS) :



3rd Combo produced the least defects, but clarity suffered as a result.



What to do? I called the client and let him know we were currently on pace to keep things in the budget, but because we were only scheduled for a 2-step polishing process it was going to mean a choice of best possibility clarity (which will give the best gloss / shine), or best correction (least amount of defects left).
We ended up working out a plan on give it all and stepped things up to a 3-step polishing process. This would give the optimal amount of defect removal with a finish of the ultimate clarity. Menzerna IP on a green LC pad with the Flex DA, followed by M205 on a white LC pad with a 3M Yellow Foam backing plate on the Makita, and ending with Menzerna 85RD on a blue LC pad with the Makita and 3M Grey Foam backing plate.

While we were working on the best combination of machine+backing plate+pad+polish, Jacob's dog, Enzo, came out to make sure the garage was safe.




50/50 Collection




(after initial heavy polishing, prior to final polish)



Got Clarity?




Indirect light difference in the finish:



50/50 showing final polishing steps







Exhaust tips getting some love

Action shot of the last step: Menzerna 85RD




Hydralic wing lifts needed some love






Final wash prior to sealing



Special attention given to cracks and crevices




Towel dry the big stuff, but using a blower doesn't only add volume and bounce, it also acts as a "Q-Tip" to get those trace amounts of water out.




Applied Powerlock via PC






Applying sealant to the underside of the wing, and don't forget those CLEAN hydralic lifts!




Being a lady that is driven daily, we applied Aquapel to the windshield while the sealant set






Key holes got taken care of with a toothbrush and P21S TAW turned out quite nice.



She's a pretty lady.

Leaving the house late, all parties knew the work wasn't over. We still had one last thing to do - apply convertible top protection to the top. We didn't do it right away simply because we wanted to insure the top was completely dry prior to application. There was no need to risk lowing the durability of the protection by appling it to a damp top. A couple of days later, we made it over to the owners house to finish the work and to get some quality shots of this baby.

When the day came, it was nice the beautiful 996 was sleeping tight in the garage, but sad to see an ugly, gloomy, rainy day was upon us. No full sun shots nor ability to take the car out to anywhere scenic for photos.

Here I eye down the prize while Steven, the photographer, figures out angles to see what he has to work with.




Draped off ready for the final conditioning.





Here you can see how deep and rich the black top looks on the right side of it while I make sure the finish is consistent.




Steven was able to get the final Final shots.

Originally Posted by Steven Pham

Weather, unfortunately, was not good for this day as it was cold, rainy, and cloudy. Michigan weather for you: it changes every five minutes. Location was limited to the clients garage because of the weather, so I had to work with what I had. If you know a little about black cars and photography; its hard to light the car itself as it reflects literally everything, so you have to light its surroundings.

The lights in the garage were not bright enough to light the car enough to show details or reflections, so I placed 4 Nikon flashes inside of the garage (all pointing up at an angle) to light the ceiling inside of the garage. Unfortunately, unlike a studio where the surrounds are nice plain and white, the garage had all sorts of objects to reflect upon.

The flashes light the garage as well as the car, showing better reflections. Generally ambient lighting from the sunset/sunrise would be better as it is nice, warm, and less harsh for black cars or any car in general.

More interesting work by Steven, check out whereisstevenpham.com
More photos can be seen on his flick: flickr.com/sil3ntp8nd8/
contact Steven by emailing him: stevenphamphoto@gmail.com


996 Turbo Cabriolet - The Car Next Door: Thanks for looking!



Don't you wish she was in your garage?

WOW. That's a clean car. Nice work fellas!

Are you sure the paint isn't melting? When black is done right you just know, and this is darn near perfect!

Originally Posted by D-VO

WOW. That's a clean car. Nice work fellas!

Thanks, we work hard to provide the highest level of service to our clients

Originally Posted by Forfend

Are you sure the paint isn't melting? When black is done right you just know, and this is darn near perfect!

She turned out great. The owner is still really happy almost a month later. Taking a look at these pics is a quick reminder as to how bad it really was originally

nice work, that black is great!

Nice plate. Good work and good pics too.

Wow. That's amazing stuff. When I first looked at the first picture of the top, I thought it was grey or tan. It's amazing what you guys can do.