So, my a good friend has a black 1.8L Miata that has not probably been detailed or taken care of it’s whole life. I spent about 1 whole night and the next day’s morning prepping it out for him. Car is a daily driven car, with the original paint except for the hardtop and rattlecan flat black from when he crashed the car driving canyons.
It’s a pretty sweet car, and has a rollbar, hardtop, upgraded seat, exhaust, and a few other bolt ons.
I will explain the process i did first, before you see the before, during and after pictures.
Wash: Started off with a bucket of automotive car shampoo, some Meguiars Fine Bodyshop/Professional Claybar, Microfiber Wash Mitt, and some Microfiber towels.
-Washed the car once over, and clayed the whole car. It was pretty bad so i had to use a good 1/2 a claybar finishing the whole car.
Dried off with a microfiber, and started polishing the corner of the hood. But, you can see how bad it is.
So i went over the whole car with Autoglym Extra Abrasive Polish with an Orange cutting pad and the combined effort of a rotary polisher and random orbit polisher.
^ Not too bad considering it’s all original 12 + year old paint, but the rock chips are all visible still regardless and so are the cracks and chips in the windshield. Still needs more polishing to bring out the depth in the paint.
So, I went ahead and used a softer grey and white buff pad with my random orbit with some Meguiars #80 Speed Glaze and Menzerna Final Polish. Topped it off with some Autoglym Radiant wax polish as a nice sealant and glaze to hold up well against the elements. As a final icing on the cake, and due to the nature of black cars, i added some Autoglym High Definition Wax. For the trim i used some plastic conditioner and silicone spray to condition the mudguards, R lip, and the trim.
It finally looked like the way it was supposed to look. I always enjoy side restoration projects like these. This will probably save this car a repaint at least for a good few more years.
