What got you started in serious detailing?

I got into detailing about 3 years ago. I had just got my Mustang and I was looking around the net at work one night for waxes. I found Autopia and then Autogeek and then several other retailers. I would read posts all night at work. I was like a spnoge. I just couldnt seem to read or learn enough about detailing. 3 years later i'm still going through products like a kid in a candy store.

 

Quite simply:

Mothers 3 Step - 10 Years Old - Bad Technique
PB/Ultimate System/Adam's - 13 - Beginner Starting
Now it's a relentless desire to improve, understand, and create Detailing into another category of it's own.

 

I guess I have been into it for about 10 to 12 years, but I didn't know that is was detailing and I didn't know about the products and techinques, just used to use the readily available Autoglym products and spent hours washing and polishing the car. Then I bought this about 3 years ago.



And I needed something more, the Autoglym wasn't giving me the finish I wanted. It had a serious amount of contamination that I couldn't shift, and I knew there had to be some trade products or something better around. I stumbled onto Detailing World and found myself among people who were just as obsessed as me.

 

I began detailing Mercedes-Benz / BMW at my Father’s dealership as well as his Jag collection back in the 50's, he enters them into Concours d’élégance events (detailing to another level) and as such I’m used to a large number of high-end new and used cars. The one thing I learned (and still have that last 98% to learn, mind you) way back then still holds true today “It’s the surface preparation that makes the difference, not the product. I detailed my first car when I was fourteen; it was a 1929 Bentley that belong to my Fathers friend Brigadier John Dix of Kensington, London. If, as they say, "God is in the details," then a 1929 Bentley is truly a religious experience.
JonM