When Tony Giorgini was a kid, washing his parents’ car wasn’t just something he did to earn his allowance.

“I remember always asking my dad if I could wash it,” he says of his father’s then-new 1968 Chevelle. “Until I found out about waxing. Then it became, ‘Dad, can I please wax the car?’”

That Chevelle was the first car he ever tried detailing – outside of the scale models he’d finished – and he’s owned several similar cars since.

See, for Giorgini, a London, Ontario-based car enthusiast who’s restored close to 60 classic cars, detailing is more than a hobby.

“Really, I see cars as art,” he explains. “I love it when I can take a car that’s been neglected or abused and bring it back to show quality.”   

Though he’s not a professional, Giorgini understands what it takes to make a car’s finish pop: effort.

“People ask me, ‘What type of wax do you use?’ because they don’t realize it’s not just product. It’s a lot of elbow grease.”


Going high-end
Having the right equipment and compounds definitely helps, as Marc Harris of Michigan’s AutoLavish will tell you. (The company’s tools – e.g. an ultrasonic paint thickness gauge – are definitely high-tech.) But what really makes a difference is how many hours the detailer puts in the car.

“People think the pinnacle of a car’s cleanliness is when it’s new, but with enough time, we can actually take it a step beyond that,” says Harris, who started with AutoLavish over four years ago.

“We did a Volkswagen GTI, metallic black. The colour actually had some rich violet and blue undertones, but you couldn’t see them because of all the swirls,” says Harris. “After we detailed it, the owner brought it to the dealership for service. The employees there asked him what colour it was, because they didn’t realize it was stock.”

AutoLavish’s “pursuit of perfection” package buys you 18 to 35 hours of labour – between $1,600 and $3,100, at a $90-an-hour rate – and a nearly flawless finish, though most customers opt for the cheaper 10- to 15-hour job.


Passion counts
Giorgini, too, will sometimes spend over 15 hours washing, waxing and polishing a car to get the finish right. “I’ll have the radio on as I’m detailing, and I just get lost in my own world and lose track of time,” he says.

It’s that sort of time and attention to detail that’s required to get a car’s paint mirror-smooth.

Technique, of course, is important, too, which is why Harris has taken classes on automotive paint and technology, photography and even light and colour—he wants to know the science behind detailing.

The quality of the finish a high-end detailer can add to a car is really limited only by the owner’s pocketbook.  

“It never ends. It’s just about how valuable the car is to the owner,” says Giorgini. Harris concurs. “How much work we do, the level we take it to, is really a matter of matching the owner’s goals with his budget,” he says.   

The best detailers – Harris and his partner Jacob Bunyan are among them; their work has been contracted out by customers as far as Puerto Rico – are not only willing to invest 15 or 20 hours in a car, they’re drawn to do so.

“There’s not a lot of high-end detailers, maybe a few dozen in all of the [United States], because the money is in high-volume detailing,” explains Harris. “Low-volume detailing is a labour of love.”

“Working on my own car, my Honda S2000, and wanting to make it stand out, that’s how I got started. My passion for detailing is really all about my love for my own car.”