I had the good fortune to be selected by Meguiar's to be part of their Ford SEMA Team this year, so I spent last week at SEMA on Meguiar's dime and got paid to boot. Meguiar's has been contracted by Ford for the past several years to prep and maintain all the Ford display vehicles, but this year we also had to manage the vehicles for CEC Wheels, which meant not only more work but the opportunity to detail some amazing cars...and I got to drive almost all of them as well!!! Lucky me!!

We had 5 guys to handle the prep on 58 vehicles in a day and a half, then 4 guys to maintain them through the week. But we had to deal with an additional 8 vehicles on Thursday for CEC Wheels, and that's when things got really interesting!

My schedule was something like this:

Sunday: arrive Las Vegas 2:30 PM and then complete 12 cars/trucks for the Ford booth by 10:00 PM
Monday: start at 7:00 AM to finish off the remaining 28 cars/trucks in the main Ford booth, 5 cars for Meguiar's in various locations, 5 more Ford vehicles outside, 8 vehicles for CEC Wheels in a completely different building (fortunately these were in pretty good shape), completed around 11:30 PM.
Tuesday: back at it by 7:30 AM just to make sure everything is 100% for the show opening at 9:00 AM, then spend the rest of the day dusting down all the cars in 1 hour shifts. Finish the day with a final go-round of everything.
Wednesday: same as Tuesday but now climbing up on the damn lifted 4x4 Ford F-350 Crew Cab pickups is getting tedious to say the least!!
Thursday: started like the last two days but then I got pulled out to the Bali Hai Country Club with one of the other guys to detail a group of 8 vehicles for the CEC Wheels Automobile Fashion Show. We were stuck working in the parking lot, in the sun, but it was nice to be out of the noise and crush of the convention center. Of course we had to re-clean all the cars from the CEC booth once they showed up at the country club since, well, they got dusty in the drive over! Later in the evening we had to stage them all so they were lined up to be driven through the fashion show (hosted and emceed by Tommy Kendall, multi time TransAm Champion) so I got to drive all the cars. Not for very long mind you, just a bit over a 1/4 mile through a parking lot, but the list of cars was just amazing!!! The partial list of what I got to detail and drive that day:

Unfortunately I could not get my hands on the Mercedes McLaren SLR 722 as Claus Ettensberger, the owner of both CEC Wheels and the 722, wouldn't let anyone else drive it. With only 25 of these in the U.S. and a price tag north of $500,000 I guess I can understand. I did get to detail it though!!

We got back to the Hilton just before midnight, grabbed some dinner, and headed to our rooms for some well deserved sleep.

Friday: back at it by 7:00 AM to clean up the CEC vehicles that were brought back to the booth and then our usual routine of wiping down cars scattered around the convention until the show closed that afternoon.

I've got a bunch of pictures uploaded HERE, broken out by category. Sort of.

 

Awsome pictures Mike, thanks for sharing!

Cheers!

 

Great shots! For some reason, the TechArt Cayman absolutely SLAYS me... you would've had to pry me off of it.

Great story man

 

mike i tried to locate you on thursday late afternoon... i spoke with the 'other mike' in the meguiars both and he stated... you could be found in the ford section... i looked & looked but no go...

sorry i missed ya...

 

Nice write up and photos. When you say "prep on 58 vehicles" what did that entail?

 

I see Ford ripped off the Crossfire hood lines and mounted them on the doors of the 2009 Ford Flex.

I'll be trading in the Crossfire for the Volvo Speedster that's for damn sure!

 

Mike thanks for sharing, great pics.

 

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.

 

Mike,

I missed you as well. I was there only Tuesday and had to get back to work. When you say "crush" of people you weren't kidding. Great show and those Fords were "shining bright"!

 

Tuesday & Wednesday were the busiest days and the only days we actually managed to stick to our "hour on/hour off" schedule so even then it was hit and miss trying to find me. Thanks for the compliment about the Fords - we actually felt bad that we didn't have time to do a proper detail job on the cars - they really weren't even close to our usual standards. Not by a long shot. But the Ford big shots at the show, as well as the CEC honchos, all said the cars looked stellar.

 

The chrome painted Volvo in the Ford booth must have been major fun to detail but a real pain to keep pristine!

 

That paint was a major pain all around. I was curious if it was the same stuff used by the McLaren F1 team on their chrome painted race cars and was told that those cars use Alsa Paint and that supposedly Mercedes Benz is coming out with a chrome paint on their upcoming AMG Signature Series cars (a step above the AMG Black Series, apparently), but that the paint on this Volvo is a non automotive paint developed by the tuner of this car, Heico. It seems that once you shoot it you're basically done, and you pray it comes out OK because it can not be worked at all. No wet sanding, no high speed buffing...nothing. The Volvo guy I talked to about it was lamenting the decision to use this paint as it was just a nightmare. The spoiler on the decklid was bubbling up and a replacement is on its way for the L.A. Auto Show. Fingerprints wiped off very easily but it was also very prone to scuffs.

A lot of people asked me about the paint or if the car was just polished aluminum. I even heard one guy tell his friend "hey, this is that car I was telling you about that's made of titanium!". No idea where that rumor came from, but the Ford & Volvo guys got a chuckle out of it. And, yes, the Volvo guys & gals at the show flew in from Sweden for the event.

 

Those ridges follow arount to the sides of the Flex as well. They are actually much larger than the small ones on our Crossfires, maybe on the order of an inch across! The Front doors have the same ridges in them...maybe the rears too pretty soon.

I've been out at Oakville assembly every Thursday-Sunday for the past month doing weld support for the Flex.

Actually, I think it'll be a pretty interesting vehicle. Big, But it looks to be built pretty well.

 

very swank stuff Mike - I had never even heard of SEMA - and that black bentley...gad zooks. thanks for sharing.

 

Can't believe no one has asked how the prep work went on the models. LOL.

sorry, couldn't help it.

 

I enjoyed looking at their pics even better than the cars. They looked like they got their prep work done as well.