As the 4th July was yesterday we wanted to wish all our friends across the pond Happy (belated) Independence Day. So we thought we would start with half a dozen little known facts about the USA’s Independence Day.

1. Only two people actually signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4: John Hancock and Charles Thomson, secretary of Congress. Most of the other (founding fathers) signed on August 2.
2. Not everyone was on board with celebrating on July 4, the day Congress approved the Declaration. John Adams wanted to celebrate on July 2, the day Congress voted for independence.
3. Three US presidents have died on July 4 — John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe. In a bizarre twist of fate, Adams and Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the country they helped found.
4. July 4 wasn’t deemed a federal holiday until 1870, nearly 100 years after the nation was founded.
5. Americans consume around 150 million hot dogs on the 4th July each year. That amount of hot dogs can stretch from Washington D.C. to Los Angeles more than five times.
6. Americans also spend more on beer on the 4th July than any other national holiday.

Customer Cars

We had a nice ’69 Mach1 into our workshops for an oil leak from the intake. It wasn’t anything major, but a pain none the less and just makes things look a messy, especially when it comes from the front.

Yogi got to grips with taking the carb of and draining the system down.

With the plumbing disconnected the manifold was removed carefully to see exactly where the leaks was happening. It soon became quite obvious.

The next part was to remove the old gasket which had obviously failed and clean up the faces on the intake, block and heads.

New gaskets with our own little know-how to put them back without anymore leaks. Before we knew it Yogi had the intake back on, torqued up, plumbed in and rigged up to his timing gun.

With it all back together nobody would be any the wiser except for the front of the engine now looking cleaner again.

Special (limited offering) Service

Last week we mentioned that there was a special service that Adam was going to offer only to a select few customers. The service is aimed at a good customers who have been with us for a while, or new customers who have spent a significant amount with us.

Adam will look at the car when it comes into us and he will offer the customer our unique offer to upgrade their paintwork to a reconditioning detail. You may not be aware that he is looking at your car, but he is. Trust us on this one! The service is an additional paid for service to help bring the faded or lacklustre shine back. The intention is to breath life back to these cherished cars.

Our first offering was this red ’66 Coupe which was a bit of a barn find and was in need of some serious Mustang Maniac TLC. Some mechanical work was done to make her road worth again again above all.

The before pics;

Our very own car detailer will wash and dry the car to see what he is dealing with under the grime. He will then look carefully at the paint to see what is needed; maybe a clay bar, iron decontamination, flatten, polish, wet sand, polish, wax or combination there of. The bespoke treatment will be applied depending on the car, condition and what it needs to get the best results. The interior can also be addressed if required too.

This extra cleaning service is not a full detailed paint correction, respray or stone chip repair which can cost silly money. Neither is this a service we will offer on a stand alone basis. So if you book in a dirty car and ask for an air filter change, this service is not coming your way. Adam doesn’t want to get into the car detailing market, there are plenty of people out there who can offer that service for you. This is additional service only offered to customers on Adam’s say so. If you are lucky enough to get this service you may have to leave you car in for a few extra days until we can get our detailer on site for the car. We can’t promise miracles for a very bad car of course, but we can certainly make a difference and put a smile on the customers face.

The customer of this car loved the results and as a result this was the trigger to expand this to other customers. This is no bucket and sponge cleaning effort. This is a middle of the road high spec clean. This car took the best part of eight hours to go over to get it to this condition.

We have another car in with us a ’66 white coupe this time, which is having the detail treatment. The car wasn’t quite finished at the time this goes to press (or goes to web should we say), so we will bring that to you next time. As yet we don’t have a name for the process, perhaps you could give us a idea for the name of this service?

Keep safe & take care!