The other week I was looking at my car and felt that something wasn’t right - it looked ‘old’. The Mk1s gorgeous shape is utterly timeless, with stunning lines that do not betray its age. But something was making my car look old, and I couldn’t fathom it.
I have finally found what it was, and addressed it. There were three things causing this:
- The roof looked dull and had lost its rich colour. Solution: AutoGlym vinyl treatment. Now glossy black. Also an old sticker in the rear window says ‘Tamplins’ (a Mazda dealership the car went to once upon a time), and I will be removing that with a hairdryer and some diluted white spirit soon.
- I know this is wierd, but the lettering of the raised writing on the rear light clusters (the tiny writing) had ingrained dirt that made the rear lights look aged. Solution: Scraped carefully with a pin and cleaned with white spirit on a cotton bud
- My wheels, though clean, still looked old somehow. I love my original minilites and really didn’t want to change them or pay a vast amount for a respray/recondition. But Dandycars suggested acid treatment, and for £30 they used a very strong acid (had to wear protective gear!) and then a degreaser chemical to totally clean out the wheels inside and out, and they now look fantastic. There are still some marks that are just too ingrained to remove, but 99% of it is gone and it has transformed the look of the car, and even gives the appearance that the wheels fill the arches better.
There you go - not major things and certainly knit-picking, but they really make a difference to how old/new my car looks.
Cheers