Marc@AutoLavish
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/\ not my hand!
This is the first 2010 Model Year production Viper off the assembly line. 2010 is the last year of production for the Viper, which is scheduled to cease after 18 years of continuous production.
This last version of the Viper has a bunch of improvements over previous generations in appearance as it is the year with most available combinations on colors and options. Although these are very raw cars to drive this one looks quite elegant with the Gentleman's British Racing Green paint and cream-colored leather interior. Speaking of which, these seats are MUCH better than any previous Viper seats I have had the pleasure to sit in. Better fit, better leather, and better finish.
A Quality Manager for the Viper program, a good client of ours, contacted us to give this car a "quick cleanup" before it went to the press and periodicals for the typical abuse and evaluation. It had under 2000 miles, so was "in great shape".
The Viper was dropped of at our location for the service. Although the car wore no camouflage (most pre-production vehicles sport some sort of trickery to hide the new features from the public eye), the vehicle had to be parked in an enclosed garage overnight. It was cold as heck outside, but this was no problem; we would work completely inside Jacob's heated garage.
I drool:
The real deal!
These things are, basically, hand painted. The paint had only a few slight imperfections, with an overall outstanding job with lots of metallic flake. But it definitely needed a proper wash and polish. There were some RIDS and a few swirl marks. The RIDS required some compounding, but after all the work the clarity of the paint came though and looked outstanding.
The cleaning begins with the wheels. Here we use Chemical Guys Diablo Gel at a 3:1 dilution ratio to get the wheels and brake components up to speed:
Jacob starts with the thorough initial decontamination. The includes a pre-foaming, rinse, foaming, wash, rinse, and then refoaming to use the diluted car wash shampoo as clay lube.
The cloth top required no real effort still being new wearing the OEM protection from Magna. After the wash, we masked up the convertible top and other sensitive areas prior to polishing. A soft cotton blanket and some tape made it quick and easy to cover the entire top.
Test section masked off to find the best method/product mix for the specific vehicle:
Yep, looking better: clarity, depth, and shine all coming through. You might be able to make out horizontal lines running with the panel gap that are under the clear-coat. This was one of the only sections we saw any defects beyond repair by polishing on this car as they were installed in the original painting process and can not be taken out. Low volume production can often lead to little odities that owners usually look at as unique aspects to a car.
Refining the finish after correction using a soft foam pad at high speed and very light pressure:
