Insight: the fine art of car detailing

A few weeks before, I’d treated the whole car
to a Turtle Wax makeover, aware that afterwards the bodywork still felt ‘bitty’. It’s these ‘surface contaminants’ that Tipper now sets about removing from the wing with a clay bar. It’s actually a piece of soft, blue clay, and as he rubs the wing with it, he sprays on a soapy liquid to stop it drying out and dragging. 

After a couple of minutes, I run my hand over the wing. It’s smooth as silk but Tipper’s not done yet. He sprays the wing down to flush off the clay residue, and then wipes it over with an alcohol wipe. Now to polish it. 

He masks off the wing before selecting a light polishing compound that won’t cut through the Astra’s top coat. A few squirts of that onto the head of a small machine polisher and he’s good to go. 

“The polish will be quite aggressive at first, but as it heats up, it’ll turn to an oil and become finer,” he says. 

Earlier, Tipper had admitted that when polishing, “there’s lots going on in my head”. Basically, his OCD yearns for perfection but he has learned that it’s impossible to achieve, at least in the time his customers will allow him. Four hours of polishing is not unusual, and he took three days over a Ferrari F40 the other week and six hours cleaning the engine alone of a 1928 Bentley. He charges £650 a day, by the way. 

He says: “I’ve had to learn to step away, and if the customer says ‘that’s fine’, I have to accept that. But if ever I hear myself say ‘that’ll do’, I know I’ve not done my best.” 

His love of detailing dates back to childhood when his dad, a self-employed vehicle mechanic, would bring cars home for work. Tipper would give them a wash and vac. His dad then started a fleet management business, meaning that there were more cars to clean. 

“He could see my passion and encouraged me to go into business, which is how, in 1989, Perfection Detailing was born,” says Tipper. 

Things ticked along for a few years until, in 1997, a customer asked Tipper to go to Ferrari Maranello at Egham to clean his F50. That job got him 
talked about throughout the sports and classic car communities, and he has never looked back. 

He reckons he has cleaned more than 26,000 cars, among them Nigel Mansell’s JPS Lotus 91
 of 1982, 18 of the 24 Aston Martin Vulcans built prior to their handover to customers and the entire Prodrive collection. (“I didn’t clean the seats, controls or steering wheels,” he hastens to add.) 

“What drives me is the transformation I can make and seeing the pleasure my work gives my customers,” he says. “Unlike valeting, detailing is personal. My customers become addicted to keeping their car just so.” 

My eye is drawn back to the Astra and its two faded headlight lenses, typical of the breed at this age. Can Tipper spruce up one of them? 

He sets about it with some light cutting compound and a machine polisher on its slowest setting. Every few seconds he stops to let the plastic lens cool and check he’s not over-polishing. After
 a few minutes, I can actually see the light bulbs.
 It may be a tired old £800 Astra but I’m just as excited as anyone with a gleaming £2million F50. Sadly, possibly more so. 

How to detail your car:

Richard Tipper has cleaned more than 26,000 cars, so he knows a thing or two about making your motor shine. 

STEP 1 - Spray the dirtiest areas
 first — sills, wheels, wheel arches, door shuts and fuel filler area — with a multi-purpose cleaner and leave to soak.  

STEP 2 - Remove each wheel in turn. Spray and clean the reverse side as well as the hubs.

STEP 3 - Fill a bucket with soapy water and, wearing a pair of wash mits, wash the car, rinse it and blow dry it until every last drop of water has been removed.