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In case you hadn't heard, Autogeek has a new TV show coming out on the Velocity Channel next spring - it's called "Competition Ready" and it's all about detailing. Shocking subject matter, right??? The show will be hosted by Mike Phillips of Autogeek and Adrienne Janic, "AJ", who you'll probably remember from her time on Overhaulin'
Well, the premise of the show is to talk about what it takes to get a car "Competition Ready" for a major event. In one very specific case (the topic of this thread), Meguiar's was brought in to prep four cars just before the Petersen Automotive Museum held it's grand re-opening after a full year (and tens of millions of dollars in cost) remodeling the place. We put together a stellar group of detailers for the project and headed to downtown Los Angeles of two days of shooting and paint polishing.
Our team consisted of the following:
From Meguiar's: Mike Pennington, Darin Pereira, Rick McDonough, Nick Winn and myself.
From outside Meguiar's and often found here on MOL:
Derek Bemiss
Joe Fernandez
Richard Lin
Ed Terwililger
Andy Wong
Paul Cartegena
David Sylican
It was an honor, a privilege and a downright pleasure to work with this crew. Passion. Dedication. Professionalism. These guys exemplify all of that, and we can't thank them enough for making the entire project a huge success.
Oh, and the cars weren't too shabby either - 1925 Rolls Royce Jonckheere Aerodynamic Coupe (AKA The Round Door Rolls), 1938 Bugatti Type 57C Atalante, 1967 Ford GT40 MkIII (a one owner, never raced car), and a 1956 Jaguar XKSS owned by the King of Cool himself, Steve McQueen.
We know you want to see pictures, so without further ado.......
Day 1 - Round Door Rolls and Bugatti
The team makes a grand entrance into the Petersen Museum, loaded with all the tools needed for the next two days.
Mike Phillips and AJ great the team as we swarm in.
Mike gives us all a run down on what to expect. It's a bit different detailing cars in a museum while a TV show is being filmed all around you!
We give an initial inspection of the Rolls Royce, putting the 3M Sun Gun to good use.
Richard Lin gets to claying the front fender of the Rolls.
Meanwhile, we headed over to the Bugatti where Mike gave AJ a crash course in using the MT300. You can see all the swirls in the paint, but this car was by far the worst of the bunch in terms of overall condition.
So it looks like AJ picked up on the MT300 so we left her alone to work on this $7,000,000 car. No, no, no.....we got the team working on it!!!
That's Paul (the other pc here on MOL) working on the hood of the Bugatti, with our own Rick McDonough getting to work on the rear of the car. This car had a nice mix of single stage and base/clear paints on it.
Joe Fernandez (Superior Shine here on MOL) putting the shine to the deck of the Bugatti.
From left to right: I'm in the background working with David Sylican, Joe Fernandez, Rick McDonough, and Darin Pereira on the rear quarter panel.
It was amazing how quickly these guys finished off this car and brought it to a fantastic shine - as it well deserves!
We even had some special shirts made for the occasion!
Back at the Rolls Royce, Richard Lin polishes on the massive expanse of a hood while Nick Winn works on one of the iconic round doors in the background.
It's been a few years since anyone has seen this team working side by side on a car. Mike Phillips and I putting the shine to that enormous Rolls Royce.
Derek Bemiss giving Nick Winn a few pointers while Andy Wong (bmrfan here on MOL) hand polishes the countless louvers on the back of the Rolls.
Ed Terwiliger and Derek Bemiss doing their thing. This shot puts this size of this car into persepective. The top of the hood is chest high to Derek when he's standing straight up!!
Nick Winn and Richard Lin keep on polishing.
When I saw this I ran and grabbed the staff photographer and made him take the shot. Andy doing meticulous cleaning on the iconic "Spirit of Ecstasy" hood ornament on the Rolls.
Back to the Bugatti and Mike Phillips and I shoot a quick scene talking about the processes used on the cars.
Yes, it's all sooooo glamorous!!!
Time was running short and after the Bugatti crew finished up it was all hands on deck with the Round Door Rolls. That we could put this many guys on just the front half of the car to wipe off the wax, without tripping all over each other, tells you just how incredibly massive this car is!
Day 1 is a wrap!!!
Day 2 - GT40 and Jaguar
Time for another intro to the cars from Mike and AJ. Hey, it's all for TV, remember!!
Steve McQueen's Jaguar XKSS resides in it's little alcove in the museum so we had a unique setting for working on this incredibly special car. Left to right we've got Derek Bemiss, Andy Wong, Joe Fernandez and myself. This car was a swirled mess, but it was also single stage paint, so Ultimate Compound, Ultimate Polish and Ultimate Wax were all that was needed to bring this piece of history back to proper glory.
Derek Bemiss, Ed Terwiliger and Joe Fernandez. By the way, Ed is the detailing program instructor at Cypress College.
Nick Winn makes sure all the rivets are taped off and protected. Yep, a lot of the exterior body panels of this car are riveted to the frame, and those rivet heads are painted and exposed. You really don't want to be messing those up..... not on Steve McQueen's car! By the way, this Jag XKSS is reported to have been McQueen's favorite car of all those in his collection.
Joe inspects his work while I polish on the trunk lid.
Derek, Ed, Andy and Joe hard at work.
Pretty cool that Mike Phillips and AJ jumped in for a bit!
Geez, everyone looks so darned determined in this shot!!!
Wow, that's a bunch of guys on one small car!! We've elevated Nick Winn to "king of the tape"!!!
A bit of surgical polishing between the bars of the luggage rack. I'm holding the MT300 this way (with a 3" foam pad mounted to it) because the trunk lid contours down below the rack and there wasn't clearance for the buffer handle if held 180 degrees the other way. That's Andy hand polishing around the trunk handle.
Polishing aluminum wheels is really, really messy work. So we let AJ do it!!!
Hey, when the car is this low and you don't have a lift, you do what you gotta do! So that's what Ed is doing!
Rick McDonough (front) and Darin Pereira (rear) doing their thing on the GT40. The modern respray on this car was pretty hard, so we put M100 and microfiber discs to work on it.
Richard Lin with some precision polishing between the letters.
David Sylican working his magic on the door. It should be noted that Richard and David were both so enthusiastic, and have so much pride in their work, that we actually had to reign them both in a bit. We were under a time crunch to get these cars finished, and while we all know that we could done an even better job on them given the luxury of time, we just didn't have that luxury. But the fact that these two guys wanted desperately to take this car to an even higher level than they did just reinforced in my mind that we picked the right crew for this project. You just gotta love it!!!
Remember how high that hood of the Rolls Royce was to Derek? Look at how low the roof of this GT40 is to Rick while he's half reclined on the ground!!!! We all know how the GT40 got it's name, right? Yep, 40" is not very tall at all!!!!
Another door, another bit of trim, and more precision polishing by Richard.
Just about done.... including some polishing of the plastic windows all around!
After all that hard work, a formal group shot just didn't seem right. From left to right: Darin Pereira, Rick McDonough, Richard Lin, David Sylican, Derek Bemiss, Ed Terwiliger, Mike Phillips, AJ, Nick Winn, Mike Pennington, Mike Stoops, Joe Fernandez, Paul Cartegena, Andy Wong
Day 3 - The Reveal and Grand Re-Opening of the Petersen Museum
The Petersen Museum held a special invitation only gala the day after we worked on these four cars. The staff photographer grabbed these shots for us of the four cars as they are currently displayed.
1925 Rolls Royce Jonckheere Aerodynamic Coupe
1938 Bugatti Type 57C Atalante
1967 Ford GT40 MkIII
1956 Jaguar XKSS
Thank you once again to the entire crew for their tireless dedication and passion to this project. And thanks to the folks at Autogeek and Competition Ready for bringing in Meguiar's for this amazing project. Look for Competition Ready to air next spring on Velocity!!
Well, the premise of the show is to talk about what it takes to get a car "Competition Ready" for a major event. In one very specific case (the topic of this thread), Meguiar's was brought in to prep four cars just before the Petersen Automotive Museum held it's grand re-opening after a full year (and tens of millions of dollars in cost) remodeling the place. We put together a stellar group of detailers for the project and headed to downtown Los Angeles of two days of shooting and paint polishing.
Our team consisted of the following:
From Meguiar's: Mike Pennington, Darin Pereira, Rick McDonough, Nick Winn and myself.
From outside Meguiar's and often found here on MOL:
Derek Bemiss
Joe Fernandez
Richard Lin
Ed Terwililger
Andy Wong
Paul Cartegena
David Sylican
It was an honor, a privilege and a downright pleasure to work with this crew. Passion. Dedication. Professionalism. These guys exemplify all of that, and we can't thank them enough for making the entire project a huge success.
Oh, and the cars weren't too shabby either - 1925 Rolls Royce Jonckheere Aerodynamic Coupe (AKA The Round Door Rolls), 1938 Bugatti Type 57C Atalante, 1967 Ford GT40 MkIII (a one owner, never raced car), and a 1956 Jaguar XKSS owned by the King of Cool himself, Steve McQueen.
We know you want to see pictures, so without further ado.......
Day 1 - Round Door Rolls and Bugatti
The team makes a grand entrance into the Petersen Museum, loaded with all the tools needed for the next two days.
Mike Phillips and AJ great the team as we swarm in.
Mike gives us all a run down on what to expect. It's a bit different detailing cars in a museum while a TV show is being filmed all around you!
We give an initial inspection of the Rolls Royce, putting the 3M Sun Gun to good use.
Richard Lin gets to claying the front fender of the Rolls.
Meanwhile, we headed over to the Bugatti where Mike gave AJ a crash course in using the MT300. You can see all the swirls in the paint, but this car was by far the worst of the bunch in terms of overall condition.
So it looks like AJ picked up on the MT300 so we left her alone to work on this $7,000,000 car. No, no, no.....we got the team working on it!!!
That's Paul (the other pc here on MOL) working on the hood of the Bugatti, with our own Rick McDonough getting to work on the rear of the car. This car had a nice mix of single stage and base/clear paints on it.
Joe Fernandez (Superior Shine here on MOL) putting the shine to the deck of the Bugatti.
From left to right: I'm in the background working with David Sylican, Joe Fernandez, Rick McDonough, and Darin Pereira on the rear quarter panel.
It was amazing how quickly these guys finished off this car and brought it to a fantastic shine - as it well deserves!
We even had some special shirts made for the occasion!
Back at the Rolls Royce, Richard Lin polishes on the massive expanse of a hood while Nick Winn works on one of the iconic round doors in the background.
It's been a few years since anyone has seen this team working side by side on a car. Mike Phillips and I putting the shine to that enormous Rolls Royce.
Derek Bemiss giving Nick Winn a few pointers while Andy Wong (bmrfan here on MOL) hand polishes the countless louvers on the back of the Rolls.
Ed Terwiliger and Derek Bemiss doing their thing. This shot puts this size of this car into persepective. The top of the hood is chest high to Derek when he's standing straight up!!
Nick Winn and Richard Lin keep on polishing.
When I saw this I ran and grabbed the staff photographer and made him take the shot. Andy doing meticulous cleaning on the iconic "Spirit of Ecstasy" hood ornament on the Rolls.
Back to the Bugatti and Mike Phillips and I shoot a quick scene talking about the processes used on the cars.
Yes, it's all sooooo glamorous!!!
Time was running short and after the Bugatti crew finished up it was all hands on deck with the Round Door Rolls. That we could put this many guys on just the front half of the car to wipe off the wax, without tripping all over each other, tells you just how incredibly massive this car is!
Day 1 is a wrap!!!
Day 2 - GT40 and Jaguar
Time for another intro to the cars from Mike and AJ. Hey, it's all for TV, remember!!
Steve McQueen's Jaguar XKSS resides in it's little alcove in the museum so we had a unique setting for working on this incredibly special car. Left to right we've got Derek Bemiss, Andy Wong, Joe Fernandez and myself. This car was a swirled mess, but it was also single stage paint, so Ultimate Compound, Ultimate Polish and Ultimate Wax were all that was needed to bring this piece of history back to proper glory.
Derek Bemiss, Ed Terwiliger and Joe Fernandez. By the way, Ed is the detailing program instructor at Cypress College.
Nick Winn makes sure all the rivets are taped off and protected. Yep, a lot of the exterior body panels of this car are riveted to the frame, and those rivet heads are painted and exposed. You really don't want to be messing those up..... not on Steve McQueen's car! By the way, this Jag XKSS is reported to have been McQueen's favorite car of all those in his collection.
Joe inspects his work while I polish on the trunk lid.
Derek, Ed, Andy and Joe hard at work.
Pretty cool that Mike Phillips and AJ jumped in for a bit!
Geez, everyone looks so darned determined in this shot!!!
Wow, that's a bunch of guys on one small car!! We've elevated Nick Winn to "king of the tape"!!!
A bit of surgical polishing between the bars of the luggage rack. I'm holding the MT300 this way (with a 3" foam pad mounted to it) because the trunk lid contours down below the rack and there wasn't clearance for the buffer handle if held 180 degrees the other way. That's Andy hand polishing around the trunk handle.
Polishing aluminum wheels is really, really messy work. So we let AJ do it!!!
Hey, when the car is this low and you don't have a lift, you do what you gotta do! So that's what Ed is doing!
Rick McDonough (front) and Darin Pereira (rear) doing their thing on the GT40. The modern respray on this car was pretty hard, so we put M100 and microfiber discs to work on it.
Richard Lin with some precision polishing between the letters.
David Sylican working his magic on the door. It should be noted that Richard and David were both so enthusiastic, and have so much pride in their work, that we actually had to reign them both in a bit. We were under a time crunch to get these cars finished, and while we all know that we could done an even better job on them given the luxury of time, we just didn't have that luxury. But the fact that these two guys wanted desperately to take this car to an even higher level than they did just reinforced in my mind that we picked the right crew for this project. You just gotta love it!!!
Remember how high that hood of the Rolls Royce was to Derek? Look at how low the roof of this GT40 is to Rick while he's half reclined on the ground!!!! We all know how the GT40 got it's name, right? Yep, 40" is not very tall at all!!!!
Another door, another bit of trim, and more precision polishing by Richard.
Just about done.... including some polishing of the plastic windows all around!
After all that hard work, a formal group shot just didn't seem right. From left to right: Darin Pereira, Rick McDonough, Richard Lin, David Sylican, Derek Bemiss, Ed Terwiliger, Mike Phillips, AJ, Nick Winn, Mike Pennington, Mike Stoops, Joe Fernandez, Paul Cartegena, Andy Wong
Day 3 - The Reveal and Grand Re-Opening of the Petersen Museum
The Petersen Museum held a special invitation only gala the day after we worked on these four cars. The staff photographer grabbed these shots for us of the four cars as they are currently displayed.
1925 Rolls Royce Jonckheere Aerodynamic Coupe
1938 Bugatti Type 57C Atalante
1967 Ford GT40 MkIII
1956 Jaguar XKSS
Thank you once again to the entire crew for their tireless dedication and passion to this project. And thanks to the folks at Autogeek and Competition Ready for bringing in Meguiar's for this amazing project. Look for Competition Ready to air next spring on Velocity!!
)
(of course the kiss to AJ guys)
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