Classic Corvette Stingray Gets First Wash in 33 Years
After 33 years of sitting and gathering dust and grime, this 1967 Stingray 427 is finally getting the cosmetic TLC it deserves.
When you have one car, sometimes life can be so busy that you may forget to give it its regularly scheduled washing and detailing. When you have 300 vehicles, like the owner of the collection shown in this YouTube video from AMMO NYC, it becomes a lot harder to administer the proper TLC on a consistent basis. Take the 1967 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray you see here as an example. It hasn’t been cleaned in 33 years.
Luckily, host Larry Kosilla and his assistant Dan show up to cosmetically refresh it inside and out.
They certainly have their work cut out for them. The classic is covered in decades of dust, grime, and even grease. The once-shiny chrome trim is hazy and pitted. At least one woodland creature temporarily used the interior as a storage facility.
The two dedicated detailers start with the cockpit. Any surface that’s not covered in dust sits under a layer of gunk and sometimes mold. With their first pass, the guys vacuum up all the big chunks of crud on the carpets and spray down and scrub the seats and interior surfaces. Their white towels quickly turn a horrid grayish brown. Liberal applications of cleaning spray and elbow grease result in seats that look remarkably almost new. What’s even more impressive is how different they make the steering wheel look. In the “before” section, there’s a swamp-like film all over the rim; in the “after” section, there’s a warm brown – and sanitary – patina.
“Once the initial sweep was completed, phase 2 is to use a 50/50 mixture of white distilled vinegar and water along with a steam machine to clean up any remaining mold- and mildew-type smells,” Kosilla says. He douses the seats, then wraps a microfiber towel around the head of the steam machine and blasts them with the cleansing heat. The rest of the cabin comes next.
Kosilla and Dan proceed to the carpeting. Getting that back to its former glory requires a combination of cleaning spray, steaming, scrubbing, and shampooing.
Next up is the engine bay for the 427-cubic-inch V8. Kosilla says, “Because this is an older vehicle, we stayed with the steam method here to minimize the amount of water used.” He and Dan do a great job of maximizing the engine‘s shine given they aren’t able to pull it out and work on it in more detail.
As much work as Kosilla and Dan put into the inside of the ‘Vette, they’re only halfway through rejuvenating it. The outside is both filthy and made up of various materials that require different cleaning techniques. To remove the topmost layer of grime, Kosilla sprays the classic down twice with a foam wash that makes it run off in streams of bubbly brown-tinged liquid. The duo uses a stiff-bristle brush to expose the tires beneath the decades of neglect that deface them.
Once the foam has worked its magic long enough, Kosilla washes it off the long-suffering paint. “It started to breathe again and … started to pop and the car just…almost came up 10 inches. It just looked and felt so much better.” But more work is required to fully reveal most of the paint’s lost luster. The team hits it with wash mitts, degreaser, and polishing compound before moving onto the dingy chrome and less-than-transparent glass. The final steps are glossing up the white-wall tires (which will obviously need to be replaced, but serve as four displays of AMMO NYC’s in-depth rejuvenation process) and polishing and waxing the revived paint.
It took three decades to turn this icon of American automotive history into a tarnished relic. In one day, Kosilla and Dan removed its heavy shroud of grit and grime to reveal a beautiful machine that’s been waiting to be freed for so long.
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