We were asked to carry out an Enhancement Detail for this 1973 Daimler Sovereign Series 1 by local Jaguar specialist, Tom Lenthall. He has been looking after this car ever since sourcing it for their client some years ago. It isn’t concours by any standard, but it’s loved and gets regularly used. Like many of our clients who own classic vehicles, detailing needs to strike a careful balance between presenting the car beautifully, but not at the cost of losing all the patina. At more than 40 years old, this isn’t brand new and the owner doesn’t want to pretend that it is. However, he felt that it could do with some attention to restore life back into the paint, which had become rather dull.
After collecting it and driving it back to the Studio, we used a rinseless wash solution to remove a light film of dirt from the paint. Again, working with classics, we know that they don’t always take kindly to a deluge of water, so look to avoid it where possible. It’s not like modern, daily driven cars that get filthy, so a rinseless solution is ideal for this application.
Once under the studio lights, it was clear why it looked so dull. Aside from the expected swirls, there was a lot of staining present in the paint. We’re not sure what the cause of this was, but condensation under a poor quality cover is a likely candidate. We set about gently polishing the non-original paint.
It soon started to look significantly fresher, the newly found gloss really showing the beautiful colour and lines of the car off to best effect.
The paint was finished with Swissvax Best of Show wax, a wonderfully rich and oily wax ideal for older paint systems. There was just time for some pictures outside before returning it to Tom Lenthall’s workshop.
Supercar Legend, the Ferrari F40, meets Kamikaze Collection coatings