1969 Camaro Pace Car - Show Car Makeover - Modeled by Michelle

[Rencor]

Thanks Team for another another great evening at AG's. Good company, great car & a beautiful model!

[Becciasm]

Continued...

WOW That looks like glass! You guys did an outstanding job!

Slightly off topic but Mike, how would you rate the new chinchilla microfiber towels for product removal?

[Mike Phillips]

Slightly off topic but Mike, how would you rate the new chinchilla microfiber towels for product removal?

Worked great with no linting that I could see...

It's very thick and plush and for removing wax off a show car with this microfiber towel or any microfiber towel I personally wear microfiber gloves, recommend microfiber gloves and have everyone working on our project cars wear microfiber gloves for the reasons I list in the below article...


Increase Your Grip Strength with Microfiber Gloves

I love the glove...


Part of the performance of any microfiber towel is simply holding it and thick, plush microfiber towels are easier to use when wearing microfiber gloves...

Plus, if you have a glove on your other hand you don't have to worry about leaving finger prints on the paint should you touch the car...










On Autogeek.net

Microfiber Gloves

[arkus]

I think i'll get some of the new chinchilla MF towels .
Any discounts on them ?

[Mike Phillips]

I think i'll get some of the new chinchilla MF towels .
Any discounts on them ?

Have to check the What's New page or call Customer Care at 1-800-869-3011

All pictures have been added from this project to the first page of this thread, check out the wet, glossy look created by Pinnacle XMT High Gloss Carnauba Wax after we machine polished the paint...





Also be sure to say hi and welcome Michelle as our newest Swirl Girl...

[Bacon]

Your team has mad skills. Its reminds me of those makeovers shows on TV. It starts with a 350Lbs overweight women...than after hard work she is transformed into a 125lbs beauty.

That car is your 125 lbs beauty!!

Nice work...very nice work!

PS..hubba hubba to Michelle!

[Rencor]

Roflmao....Kyle, don't u wish u could look this cool.... U can't come at me bro.... Jokes aside...Much respect!

Continued...


Here's the Transformation Team...



Someone is having way too much fun...

[Indy]

Steve here, the owner of the 1969 Camaro, below is an e-mail I sent to Mike that he asked me to share on the forum...

First I would like to say Thank You, Thank You, Thank You for coordinating the terrific effort and incredible work on my car. I have to say that I now know how my wife feels when she spends a day at the spa and comes home as happy as can be. I never understood that until now. Only except instead of getting a massage, mannies and peddies (God I hate that I know what that means), I got star treatment by you and all the guys on my Camaro pace car. On top of a glistening new Indy Pace Car, all the extra goodies showered on me were incredible. Never have I been excited about polishing my car until now.

As you know, I am a greasy hands on guy and when doing the restoration on my Camaro, did everything with my own two hands in my garage. Unfortunately, I had to rely on others for the paint and other shiny work. Well, you have seen the paint job I got. I have always thought the paint job was "okay" but at the time, I found that there were really not too many paint shops that wanted to paint my car.

The muscle car price craze had yet to begin and there just were not that many good paint shops around like today. Almost all of the shops I "interviewed" seemed to be more interested in quick in and out insurance repairs. No one was really that interested in the responsibility of doing a project that required several weeks and restoration experience with an effort toward quality.

When I shopped for a paint shop, money was really no object and I was prepared to spend $10k if that is what it took. What made it very difficult is that only two people who were in the auto paint business were willing to come to my home to look the car over despite the fact that I offered to compensate them for their time it would take to come out and give me an estimate.

Of the two guys that did come to my home to look at the car, one of them did not want to take on the work necessary and the other was willing, but could not take the car for at least 6-8 months and wanted another 6 months to a year to have it completed and returned to me. Well, that was out of the question. The other shops required I take the Camaro to them to look at. I am sure you can understand the difficulty in taking a car from shop to shop when it is completely disassembled, no interior, no glass and in primer.

I ended up taking the car to half a dozen shops before deciding to go with a small husband and wife owned body and paint shop. They had been in business for about 10 years and did have reasonable references. A primary factor in choosing their shop was that his wife had a 68 Camaro that her husband had painted, as well as maybe half a dozen or so other muscle car era vehicles he had painted that had come out decent looking. The owner was honest and he did state he was not a top shelf car restoration shop and that I could expect a "reasonable" paint job at a reasonable price. So he got the job.

Remember, this paint job was done in 2002 when 69 Camaros were not the big money cars they are today. At the time, a decent 69 Camaro Indy Pace Car was selling for about $20K, so a high end paint job just did not make sense. Overall, I feel I got what I paid for and was happy. After 9 years, the Camaro still holds its own at the shows and gets more than its fair share of attention. However, after your magic touch and the awesome effort by you and all the guys, I have renewed excitement. I feel like I now have a million dollar show car.

As for the price guess contest here,

http://www.autogeekonline.net/forum/...t-s-worth.html


I have looked over all of the contestants guesses and have come up with a winner.

First, the honorable mention goes to Rencor as he guessed "priceless". The car is not for sale at any price as far as I am concerned. I have always wanted an 69 Camaro Indy Pace Car since before I was old enough to drive. If I sold it, I would be devastated and would only want to buy another one. And, if I did have to buy another one, I am sure I would not find one with all original sheetmetal, numbers matching, and as in good a shape as I have made this one.

No one can replace a car I built with my own two hands. There isn't another pace car built by me to my specification except this one. In fact, I have been offered all kinds of different amounts for my Camaro. When asked to state my price, I refrain from giving one as I am terribly afraid that one day the person asking will agree to the price quoted and I would have to sell it. So, I simply say its not for sale and thank them for the compliment.

There have even been a few potential buyers that have refused to take no for an answer and believing that everyone has a price, have waited for me to go off somewhere so that they could go behind my back and approach my wife, who as you know, attends every show with me, and attempted to bargain a price with her. She has been handed many a business card or slip of paper with a dollar amount and a phone number written on it.

Thankfully, I trust her dearly, but have hidden the title where she can not get to it just in case.

Since Rencor stated "PRICELESS" he would be correct. However, since Rencor had inside information, he must be disqualified and can not participate in the contest.

The winner is RedGT. He came in at the insured and I feel is a reasonably appraised value of $70,000. I thank everyone who played and for those that have guessed six figure quotes and higher, I am humbled at your assessment of my hard work and honored that you feel my efforts are worth so much...Thank you.

Again, a HUGE THANKS TO YOU AND ALL THE GUYS.


Steve Karlecke

[Indy]

I would like to thank (blame) Mike and all the guys for my being unable to get work completed today. I had to leave my desk every half hour in order to go stare at my car and rub the tips of my fingers over the oh so silky smooth paint.

Before the excellent detail, it was like touching sand paper. Now it feels like buttered glass.

I need to get to a car show and show it off.

[Mike Phillips]

Steve here, the owner of the 1969 Camaro, below is an e-mail I sent to Mike that he asked me to share on the forum...


Steve Karlecke

Hi Steve,

Thanks for joining our forum and sharing the e-mail you sent me, I thought our forum members would like to hear the background story on how you built this car from the ground up doing all the mechanical restoration yourself plus what you went through to get a nice paint job.

Your experience on what you went through to get a nice paint job is also interesting but similar to what other people have to go through to get a nice paint job on their project.

I'm writing an article on what to ask for when getting a paint job because a lot of people don't really know what's involved and thus what to ask for or how to talk to a painter during the planning stages of the car.

One thing you did right was to have the orange stripes painted under the clear layer of paint and then had the painter spray extra clear onto the car. Both of these steps cost more money but pay for themselves over and over again over the life of the car just from a paint polishing point of view.

Polishing paint is an art form in my opinion, it requires the right pads, products, tools and techniques plus the human elements of care and passion, that is the person doing the work has to have a passion for the craft and care about what they're doing.

Polishing paint to perfection is not a grinding process and it's more than just follow step 1 with step 2, follow step 2 with step 3, etc. Polishing paint to perfection is a mindset and I talk about that here,

The Mindset of a Professional Detailer


Most of the people that hang out on this forum and forums like this go to car shows and see really cool cars except the paint is filled with swirls, I did this two weeks ago when I went to the Cars of Dreams car show in West Palm Beach, in fact we ran into one another there again.

As I walked around and looked at all the cool cars both inside the museum and outside on display, while yes it's true there were hundreds of really great cars almost all of them were completely swirled out and most of the owners don't even know it. That's because they don't know the difference between a swirl and a squirrel


The difference between a swirl and squirrel



They also don't know how to properly polish paint, (that's why their cars are all swirled out), and they don't trust anyone else to "touch" their baby. So after they get their toy back from the famous painter it tends to just look worse and worse with time, it never gets better and better.


The only way a detailer like me ever gets to "touch" a cool car like yours is usually by a "warm introduction" due to the fact that the owners of these cars don't trust anyone they don't know to "touch" their car.

That's the show car world in a nutshel...

And this,

It's the guy that does the wetsanding, cutting and buffing that makes or breaks the end results for a paint job"

The painter usually just paints the car. You can seek out and hire the BEST painter in the world but sanding and buffing an entire car is a HUGE job and a lot of dirty work filled with risk.

Really good painters move past that part of the work and just squeeze the trigger on the paint gun and when they're done painting the car they turn the wetsanding and buffing portion over to a guy generically referred to as the painter's helper.

He gets a few hours to what should take a few days and unless he's given high quality sandpapers, compounds and polishes AND has some knowledge of how to turn out a swirl free finish... it's not going to come at looking like a show car finish.


Thanks for trusting Autogeek with your beautiful car and bringing it to our studio and letting us do a "Show Car Makeover" to it.

The last Camaro we worked on took 3 First Place Trophies the weekend after we buffed the paint out, I hope you have just as good a luck...

1970 1/2 Camaro - Paint polished at Autogeek.net




Steve's Camaro - Paint polished at Autogeek.net





Hope you're not a stranger to our Thursday night projects and hope to see you on the forum once in a while...