Check out the difference detailing a tuned car makes

Internationally renowned photographer Mark has been working with TG for many, many years. When not taking photos he’s buying inappropriate cars. Here he shares his addiction with the world…

This whole barn find thing has puzzled me for years. How does anyone forget about a Lamborghini Miura? A Subaru Forrester in the middle of Gloucester I can get on board with, but you could leave that for a century and it’d still start on the key.

Recently I’ve had to change my stance on this. Not that I’ve found an old Porsche Turbo rotting away, but rather a Nineties Mazda RX-7 I’ve abandoned for nearly three years. Outside and exposed to the elements. Oh dear.

I’ve owned my RX-7 for nearly seven years now, racking up some 20,000 miles in the first four. One thing about rotaries is they’re a lot easier (and cheaper) to rebuild when they’re still working, so in 2017 I decided to have the engine refreshed. That’s where it all went wrong.

Yup, it went bang. The mapper blamed the engine builder, the engine builder blamed the mapper. Having just sunk £3k into it, I lost my rag and moved the car to a friend’s barn. Here came the dilemma; sell it for spares at a huge loss or stick with it and throw more money at it.

I chose the latter, but I needed to save up all over again to get it fixed. Fast forward to very recently and it was finally back on the road. The engine? Perfect. The bodywork? Less so.

I’ve spent nearly 15 years buggering around with modified cars, and in-between all of the handbrake turns and DJ EZ compilations I’ve met a few helpful people along the way. One of those being James Batty at Auto Finesse, who specialises in car cleaning, especially when a car has been ‘weathered’ somewhat.

My level of detailing ranges from the £6 Bronze service to the £15 Gold one at the local car wash, so naturally I was fairly sceptical with James’s claims. What I wasn’t prepared for was just how extensively he and the team approach these transformations.

“We’ve had the lights apart, the spoiler off and we’ve had all the wheel arches taken care of too,” James explained. “The paint is actually in good condition, but it’s all those crevices where dirt has built up over the years that really let a car down. Put the time in here, and you can really bring a car back from the dead.”

And that’s exactly what they did. The RX-7 wasn’t just clean; it looked like it’d come straight from the factory. I genuinely couldn’t believe just how good the car looked. These pictures don’t do it justice... thankfully Auto Finesse has that covered too. Simply YouTube the term ‘Auto Finesse RX-7 before and after’ and you can witness the full process in glorious 4K.

I haven’t asked James how many hours went into the Mazda (yet), but if one beer equalled one hour, I’m going to need to clear out every Bargain Booze between here and Hatfield. I’d love to say they used some kind of magic, but in reality, the guys just used the right product for the right application. Unfortunately, that now means I’ve got no excuse for not keeping it like this in the future... 

This story was originally published in issue 341 of Top Gear magazine