1939 Lincoln Zephyr - Swirls Removed - Modeled by Nicole


***Update - Thursday August 30th, 2012***
Discovered this video I took on my iPhone right after we buffed this car out showing the liquid gloss finish, check it out...







I took this picture immediately after Frank drove his 1939 Lincoln Zephyr into the Show Car Garage Studio...




And here's how it looked at the car show where I first met Frank and took these pictures...




The finish on the paint looks god sitting under the shade of a tree...





The car is beautiful and the paint looks great!


Question: Do you think it's possible that there are swirls and scratches in the beautiful paint job on this 1939 Lincoln Zephyr?


Answer: Let's take a look...

Before Frank drove the car into the studio I had him park it in front of Autogeek in full sun




Here are the pictures I took showing the true condition of the paint.....

Picture = 1939LincolnZephyr015.jpg



These next three shots are all cropped out from the above picture...

1939LincolnZephyr015a.jpg


1939LincolnZephyr015b.jpg


1939LincolnZephyr015c.jpg




I walked around the Zephyr and captured these swirl shots...















While the condition of the finish may appear to be show car quality, it's actually in

Just to note, some people think that in the above pictures I'm pointing to the swirls with my finger. That's not actually what I'm doing. What I'm doing is placing my finger on the paint to give my camera something to focus on and by doing this the camera is able to at the same time focus on the surface of the paint and thus capture the swirls in the paint. It's just a coincidence that it looks like I'm pointing at the swirls.

Here's my article on how to captures swirls and other paint defects with your camera.

How-To capture swirls, scratches, etchings and other surface defects with your camera


In my new how-to book there's a chapter on deciding your car care goals, that is what is you want out of your car's appearance? Do you just want to do the basics or do you want to create a true show car finish?

In order to get to where you want to go you first have to determine where you're at, that is what is the current condition of your car's finish. Knowing the current condition and the goal you want to achieve helps you to choose and use the right products to reach your goal.

Part of helping people to determine their goal meant I needed to a list of Paint Condition Categories that people could use as a guide. The idea being is you first wash or wipe your car clean and then inspect your car's paint and determine which category it falls into and then from there you can better choose the appropriate products to reach your goal.

After visually inspecting the paint and discovering swirls and scratches I placed the paint on Frank's 1939 Lincoln Zephyr in Category 3 Good Condition. This is 2 categories away from Category 1 Show Car Quality. You can find the list of Paint Condition Categories on pages 37 to 39.



So we have some machine polishing to do to remove the swirls and scratches and restore a true show car finish worthy of the Zephyr name.