Hello, Kansas City, and welcome back to the Bespoke Automotive Refinement Podcast, the number one podcast for all Kansas City car detailing, all Kansas City car detailing packages and services. We absolutely love talking all things about Kansas City car detailing. It really looks like talking about cars.
Would you agree, Thomas? I love talking about cars. It’s fun. We have a good time.
Today I’m gonna be asking you questions that people may or may not have about you and your journey. Are you ready? Okay, let’s do it. Number one, what was the first car you ever detailed and made you fall in love with car detailing? First vehicle I ever detailed was a fourth, no, it was a it was a third gen Dodge Ram one-ton work truck.
It was maroon, it had dents and paint chips on every quarter panel, every body panel. That was the vehicle that made me fall in love with detailing. It was, my parents owned an oil company and that was one of their work trucks, one of their worst work trucks, and that was the first one that I ever did.
And I cleaned it, I washed it, took it to the car wash, washed it, took it back to my dad’s shop and attempted to hand polish all of the panels. And I got about halfway done with one panel and I told my dad, because it was a punishment, that I was hand polishing these trucks. And I told him, I’m like, if you want this to actually look good, beside of it being a cruel and unusual punishment, go get me a buffer and I’ll make you look good.
So he did, made that truck look really good and that’s kind of what started me on the journey. Number two, when did you realize car detailing wasn’t just a job but it was an art form? Um, that took a while longer for me. I never really viewed it as an art form until I started doing paint correction.
Which would have been when I was 17, when I attempted a true paint correction. So I had this, I bought this Corvette when I was 17 and it had a glass, it was called a transparent targa top. And it was basically like, oh your dad had a Corvette.
So it had the top that like came off. Yeah. And mine was glass.
So it was like see-through glass. Oh wow. And it was starting to like, you could see really, like from the, from the outside of the car it was really shiny.
But from the inside of the car it was, it was foggy. And I realized it was because it needed to be wet sanded. So I went to the, I went to AutoZone and I bought just whatever wet sandpaper I could find.
I didn’t even look at the grit. And this was actually what made me become kind of famous on the internet. Was I wet sanded the roof of this Corvette and completely like wet sanded it way too, way too heavily.
So, um, I thought I ruined it. And I called one of my buddies who was a detailer at the time. And he was like, what grit did you use? And I told him, and he’s like, no, you gotta, you gotta use this grit.
So I spent like all weekend wet sanding and fixing this, this roof. And then I had to like paint correct plexiglass, essentially is what it was. And I realized then that it was an art form because you had to get every line perfect.
You couldn’t, you basically had to crisscross it. And you had to do that through the entire roof of the car. So that was what started it for me.
So it made me realize that paint correction and detailing was an art form. Next question. What’s the story behind the craziest project you’ve ever worked on? You’ve worked on a lot of really cool cars, a lot of interesting, you know, reasons behind even correcting them.
Like that one you did with the paint, the police car. I mean, you really transformed the roof. So you can do all kinds of things for your Kansas City car detailing clients.
I think the one that was, I don’t know, there’s been so many. I think one of the coolest things that I ever got to do was I had a friend who bought a brand new Lamborghini Aventador. And he had the car delivered to my shop.
And he told the dealership, don’t take any of the plastic off of it. And so I had this Lamborghini Aventador, I had this big Lamborghini to hauler from Lamborghini Houston show up at my shop, and they unload this brand new Verde Ithaca Lamborghini Aventador in my parking lot. And I was the one that pulled like literally zipped everything off.
Like you’ve seen those videos. Yeah, I pulled all the plastic off of it. And I went over with a light and I realized like, this car is brand new has two miles on it has delivery miles on it.
And the paint shot. And that was that was a really cool one. I mean, I don’t know, I’ve done I’ve done so many unique things.
I did a I’ve done a few vehicles that people thought were going to need to be repainted. And I told them, let’s just give this a shot then like, you know, do a spot. You know, I save you $15,000 on a paint job.
And there’s, there’s not one thing that sticks. I’m sure I’ve had plenty that I’ve done. There’s crazy stories, but yeah, if you go back to your younger self, what car would you tell them to buy and hold on to? Wow, um, a Porsche 996 Turbo S. So funny story.
When I bought my, my first Corvette, I paid $25,000 for the car in 2014 or 2013. And I had a budget of $25,000. I wrote a for this car, it was like one of the coolest things any teenager could ever do, really.
And I was looking at all different types of cars. And one of the cars that I came across at the time was a 996 Turbo S, they were like, 25 to $28,000. And the reason I chose the Corvette was I thought the Corvette looked a lot more exotic.
It had more sleek, smooth, it just looked more exotic. Well, the Corvette that I bought, never went up in value, they actually dropped in value. But if I would have bought that car, and not driven it, it’d be $100,000 car now.
So that’s one that like, kind of irks me. Then younger self and I was 23 when I bought my C606. But I paid $21,000 for that car.
And if I would have not driven it, if I would have just parked in the garage, and kept the miles low, that same car would be worth $60,000 now with those miles. So there have been a couple that I’ve, that I’ve missed out on. I owned one that you know, I, I drove the wheels off that car.
So I put almost 100,000 miles on that car. I should have just not driven it. I got to enjoy it.
So. So if somebody is wanting to get a hold of you and talk more about cars, to get in the queue for any of our maintenance washes, prescription washes, to even have you look at giving a free quote on ceramic coating or paint corrections, how would they go about getting a hold of you, the owner of Bespoke Automotive Refinement? The best way to get a hold of me is to call me at 620-282-0402. You can also go online to bespokerefinement.com. There you can check out a list of all the different Kansas City car detailing packages we offer, as well as a gallery of all the vehicles that have utilized our Kansas City car detailing services.