Making it Shiny

ViperInBlack

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Barry Meguiar annoys me. Thanks for listening. I feel better now.

He has this show called "Car Crazy," and he manages to continually smile. It is not only his social expression but his resting expression. The smile never ends. Shades of Dr. Sardonicus. I feel the overwhelming urge to tell him about life as it really is so that he will share my misery. No. He just keeps on.

Anyway, he manages to find some of the truly wealthiest and most boring individuals who are able to own the finest vehicles extant.

His guests never seem to own just one car. They own garages full of them, and they are eccentric machines like vintage Tuckers with their own BowFlex. Just amazing vehicles that appear to lack any excitement potential and are as exciting as a gathering of soap wholesalers.

Barry, of course, smiles.

I have also seen Barry cry. He was kind enough to mention that some poor dude's wife had committed suicide and was undaunted when the guy attempted several times to redirect the conversation. Barry kept on and when the dude would not cry, Barry did. I could not find the remote.

I far prefer Mother's Car Shows which are a disjointed series of very cool cars from a confusing array of venus in obscure places with throngs of people who award completely indecipherable trophies. The recipient is always thrilled. The cars are always too cool. Chip Foose is usually there...looking worried as he always does. I do not beleive Chip has "fun" in the normal sense of that term. I think he was a stern and compulsive child even in his playpen.

Now, Mother's and Meguiar owe their almost obscene wealth to the creation of endless (and likely meaningless) waxes, polishes, sealants and brews for us obsessed with the concept of shine.

I recall admiring a guys 2002 Corvette Convertible in a Costco parking lot as he proudly ran his hand over the orange peel surface only to find a stone nick. I stayed with him until emergency services arrived. He failed to respond. He had a nice family and very nice funeral. The car is on e-Bay.

When I first got into cars, my mom shared in the interest. I would awaken late on Saturdays, and she would have washed and waxed my car. Now, that's a real mom.

The car always looked great, and as Newtonian physics have demonstrated: a shiny car is more likely to smoke tires going into 3rd gear. Don't trust me...trust Newton. He was the man.

Later in life, my mom would yell at the cat whom she felt showed her insufficient respect. Still...she could really wax a car, that woman.

Waxing and detailing your ride is not only essential to adaptive emotional development, it also renews the desire to drive the thing more often.

Waxing a car is one of life's few pure pleasures. Watermelon is the other. (It is the only food stuff where the observed cannot tell if you are eating it...or it is devouring you).

If you can find suitable music ("My Shirona" by the Clash is good), you can spend a couple hours with a bag of terry townels, a can of Maguiar's "..Gold," and you can easily convince yourself "hey, this looks even better than new."

With oil at $53 per barrel, waxing your car for $8 is one of the most economical highs you can get. Sticking your nose in the wax is another.

There is, of course, a style to waxing. It is not so much a technique as a weird little cocking of the head to see if you failed to remove any of the residue. This with a little squint and a heavy sigh can get you admitted for 48 hours for observation in most inpatient facilities.

I have long known that if you refuse to let others help, they immediately feel it is something for which they should beg. Trouble is, with a Viper, I really do not want anyone touching it. I really do not like family looking at my Viper because I think some of their mojo is absorbed into the paint. This is not the good mojo; it is the other kind.

"Born to be Wild", "Born to Run," "Born Under a Bad Sign" but not "Born Free" are great. They imply that I am pushing my red start button and am outta here.

These songs, however, pretty much **** for waxing a Viper. I recommend "Enter Sandman", "No More Tears," or even "Sweet Home Alabama," "Smells Like Teen Spirit" or "Layla." If your interests are more for opera and Gregorian Chants, you may qualify for the Kelsey Grammar "School of Driving Scholarship." Consider one of those Lexus or Audi thingies; the large tortoise looking roadsters.

Now, I realize loads have been written about prepping, conditioning and opening up paint with various potions. This all appears to have emerged during the same time that the Sopranos began having difficulties, and in the same State.

I say "Nonsense...if Crisco works for the chicken, it is fine for the Viper."

Personally, I clean my car daily, cover it at night in the garage, uncover, clean it, regularly polish it, stand in awe of it. When I tire of that, I try the old standby of driving it. The enjoyment is interchangeable.

Besides, I would not drive my Viper in the rain, the dust, when it is too cold or too hot, when it is too sunny, when it is too windy, too humid or if I am feeling resentment of my dog or Barry's smile.

I learn a great deal about cars while in my gym and watching DirecTIVO. It is where I first became concerned that Craig Jackson auctions off cars that he often knows little about. Also, he appears to have had a stroke so he talks out of the side of his mouth. Is that symbollism or coincidence? Actually, it does not matter, for the very next time I want a 427 COPO Camaro for $375k, he's the guy I would call.

I guess.

There is one automotive show that has set the high bar for annoyance. Seen it? There are two guys. One is bald, obese, short of breath and with cholesterol elevating so rapidly that I want to invest in it.

The other guy is small, has a Canadian accent (what causes that?) and has too much saliva for his mouth to contain. He talks rapidly and slobbers.

Together they blather, and you sudden realize that neither has had a date during this lifetime. When the show is over, the lights are down, and the crew is gone, they are simply placed in a closet until the following week. It is heartbreaking, really.

Spring and Fall are great times to wax. They are great times to drop the top and listen to the citizens "ooh and ah" and little kids explain to their parents the purpose of a Viper.

I know people put a lot of credance into which cleaner, polish and wax you use. But, I truly do not care if you use Turtle Wax. Just don't put it on my car.
 

Y2K5SRT

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Waxing philosophical - or waxing psychology? All good to me. Interesting commentary on the TV show aspect, having hosted one of those myself for a time. Most start out as backwoods little deals and then pick up more & more local viewers until a cable network pays too much for it. Ask the guys on the fishing shows: Not only do they land free boats and the trucks/SUV's to tow them, but they reel in some ridiculous coin to boot. Amazingly enough, it is really quite simple to do a TV show as long as you have good editing capabilities. They allow even the most forgettable talking heads to shine like the freshest of Meguiars - smiles.

Now if only we could get Sal Zaino to do a show. The Sopolymers
 

Mach500

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Alice,

You and Chris should start writing columns in the Viper magazine. Enjoyed reading all of your posts this week. Thanks.
 

Paul Hawker

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Alice.
While your stories are well written, and very entertaining, the personal attacks on some wonderful people is out of line.
I have spent some time with Barry Meguiar, and have found him to be genuinely taken with automobiles, all kinds of automobiles. Those "wealthy and boring" people just happen to be personal friends of his, whom he has met during his lifetime. He wishes to share their love of cars via a TV show, just as you are sharing your enjoyment of your Viper on this forum.
Just because you have a better car than your neighbor (in your opinion) is no reason to relish any anguish he may be enduring.
 

glenn hofstetter

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I grew up in a America of plenty. Gas was $.399/gal and if you got a fill-up they gave you triple trading stamps and a set of 6 flower printed 14oz beverage glasses. Today I have the pleasure of owning the bad boy of all cars, a GTS Viper! More power and chutzpah then anything ever built. Even the Harley riders give you a thumbs up. My responsibility to mankind is to keep is as shiny as possible. So I get out my slightly used Zaino collection and reread all the instructions. They tell me that I should put the LOC on real thin and that I should put on number whatever even more thinly. I come from the Gartlis days of "if more is better, too much is just right!" I don't care if this juice cost me enough money to buy 150 gallons of gas in the old days, its mine and I'll use as much as I **** well feel like. So I take the car to a guy to "Clay": it. Seems funny to me that to get your car clean you have to throw dirt on it, but I want to obey the word of Sal. $80.00 bucks later plus a GOOOOD tip the car is back in my garage and ready for treatment. I start with what is suppose to be enough LOC to do a school bus and run out on the back fender which is where I started. Now realizing that I can only get this stuff though the mail ( harder to find than drugs which only requires getting to a dark corner in Compton) I panic because its only 11AM and I have nothing else to do all day. I remember that my neighbor with the Z06 has some LOC so I go to his place BUT he's not home. He and I are good friends so I break in to borrow his LOC. Because someone has been taking his lawn mower gas, last week he put in an alarm system which malfunctioned while I was in his house. I had to get out of
there as quickly as possible to protect my ears. I did have time to get a little more gas. Anyway, I finish the LOC while the police conduct a house to house search which was kind of fun to watch. You don't have to wait for LOC to dry which in its self is un-American, even Glass Wax had to dry per Auther Godfrey. Now I start the number whatever which I have about 3 gallons of.
This I do not run out of, as a matter of fact I still have enough to do One front wheel. Then I see that I'm suppose to use a 100% cotton towel made in the USA. Nice touch Sal but I see through this ploy. I look through our "rags" and can't find any USA, my neighbor's house is under stake-out so I'm forced to borrow from our (my wife's) linen closet. She has about 8 REAL BIG towels made in North Carolina of 100% Egyptian(???, see why I'm worried about Sal?)cotton. These cost us more than my last suit BUT nothing is too good for my Viper. The police helicopter circling overhead speeds the drying, I wait for the right instant and I attack the dried number whatever. In less then 15 minutes I've gone through 3 of those nice towels but the car looks GREAT. Now I get a cola and debate rather I should tell the police A) the truth, B) that my wife broke in to the neighbors to get more towels or C) they'll never take me alive. I decide on D, say nothing. I reach for my secret weapon, Z-6 gloss enhancer.The instructions tell me that I can do the whole car with about 1oz of this stuff, yea sure!!! I did some quick math and figured that if you spread 1 oz of this over one viper the thickness will be 1 /10,000,000,000,000,000.07". Since it takes several hours for me to count this high I use just about the whole bottle and our remaining 4 towels.When the car is done it looks better than new. I had a C-5 Vet before but Viper paint is much better. When my wife gets home I show her the car and remind her that she has to do the wash because we're out of towels. She throws a fit and goes for a visit to her mothers.
Now you can see my point. Sal Zaino is out to ruin every town
in the US with his rob your neighbor distribution system and his crafty way of getting you to buy cotton from Egypt. If you are a Viper owner your very marriage is in danger. But the worse thing of all is his "less is more" concept of applying product which is in complete conflict with our great American Don Gartlis. Maybe we should make Sal our Drug Czar since its harder to get his chemicals than any illegal drug besides Philadelphia Scrapple.

Actually this is great stuff, anything that reminds me of a wine cask (LOC's smell) is great even if it taste like hell.
Support your local police and watch out for that thieving neighbor.




--------------------
Glenn Hofstetter,2000 Red GTS,Borla Headers,Corsa Cat Back,Supercharged,Lighter Flywheel,3.54 rear,2 neat pillar mounted gauges

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Bill Pemberton Woodhouse

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Gosh, Glenn, I read the entire story and it was as polished as Alice's. When I got to the last line I figured out why I seem to prefer to sit in the garage with a raspberry aromatically kissed glass of Shiraz and stare at my vehicle lustfully -- it is the wine essence subliminally planted by Zal in all his Zaino products.

PS - Dear, Sal, I love your products , but please remove the smell , as I am drinking more wine, and waxing less and less ( sorry Sal, I meant polish ).
 
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ViperInBlack

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Glenn:

I would love to see photos of the finished detailing. Must be amazing.

Alice
 
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