Thursday was the worst possible day to come looking for me!! At noon I left the convention center and headed to the Bali Hai Country Club to handle the additional cars for CEC Wheels and didn't get back to the hotel until almost midnight. Sorry we missed each other!

The prep varied a bit depending on the vehicle - for some it was a simple case of cleaning the windows inside and out so they were 100% streak free, then applying a cleaner wax, cleaning the wheels, dressing the tires, and giving a final wipe down with Ultimate Quik Detailer, then vacuuming the interiors and wiping down the dash, doors, etc. For others, such as the '32 Ford, the Volvo Speedster, etc this included hand polishing the wheels. For cars like the Ferrari 599, Porsche Cayenne SUV and the Alpine Audio MB R-Class we had to do some defect removal - swirl removal, overspray removal, etc. Others, like the Bentley GTC and one of the big Ford F-350 4x4s, were just a mess - lots of swirls, holograms and even adhesive residue from shipping wrap and other protective coverings. The truck even had a ton of overspray in several places.

When you consider that on Monday alone we handled 46 cars with 5 guys in about 16 hours, that works out to each person doing the equivalent of 9 cars in a single (though very long) day. The single saddest thing though was the black '67 Mustang - we were told we could do nothing more than dust it off, that's it. The guy watching over it for Patrick Dempsey (the new owner who hadn't even seen it yet) was terrified that we'd put swirls in it. Heck, we wanted to take the swirls OUT of the darn thing for him!!!!! I don't know if he just couldn't see them or what, but the car was a mess, and it just got worse as the week progressed. Pity too, because it was a very cool car.