I bought a pony car missing half the bangers

[clyde]

This post is for AF.

One of the firs things I noticed when I bought the Camaro was that water wasn't really beading on it. It had rained recently at the dealer and the freshly washed car was parked out front, partly under an overhang that dripped some water onto the trunk. I wasn't that surprised since the car had been sitting outside for a year and a half. I also had no idea how much bird poop might have fallen on it and etched the paint, etc. The prospect of waxing (or similar) in the continuing not quite warm weather has not been very appealing and it's only really been warm enough to comfortably wash it once. And I put some light scratches in it when I did so.

There is a local autocrosser that's been getting his cars detailed by this guy and it looked like his work was good. I talked to the autocrosser and he highly recommended the guy as a really nice guy that does super good work. So I made an appointment and for the first time in my life, I paid someone to detail a car. (I intended to have him do the FoST this time last year (or the year before?), but never got around to it.)

He did find a couple spots with some minor issues and took care of them with a light polish, but more importantly, the car is super slick, looked fantastic under the lights in his garage (can't wait to see it in the sun tomorrow), and I now feel like the car is "ready." Of course, I still need to figure out color and style of numbers. And I need my 19" wheels to come in. And order and receive/pick up a set of 18" wheels/tires. And. And. And. But, it's "ready."

EDIT: Pics below are by Michael Kim of Magic Mike's Garage taken in his garage. Any DCer in need of a detail, I'd recommend him.












Something disappointing to see in the pics is that the front bumper is not quite the same same color gray as the body in some pics. Plastic. Woo hoo.

On the plus side, I couldn't see it in person. Now that I know it's there, I wonder if that will continue. After about three years with the Focus ST, noticed in the sun one day that the front bumper was no longer the same shade as the rest of the car and I couldn't unsee it after that. Over the next two years, the change accelerated. OTOH, every other 2013/14 blue FoST I looked at in the past year or so was much worse than mine. Anyway...