Doing the Poznań
After playing Lech Poznań in the 2010 Europa League, Manchester City Football Club appropriated the Polish Club’s Grecque celebration – immediately naming it ‘The Poznań’ – which involves fans turning their back to the pitch, joining arms and bouncing up and down. What’s that got to do with restoring a Zagato? Well that’s how I found myself on a Wednesday night in a pub in the centre of that very city, doing the Poznań with a random selection of classic car restoration specialists.
The trip itself came about just after my first spraying experience. Having already been introduced to Polish paint manufacturer Novol’s temporary bodywork holding primer, I went to the spray booth
to coat my front sub-frame with Polycoat Protect 5:1. It’s a tenacious substance, like a spray-on powder coat but more flexible – perfect for springs and the like. Paint technician Andy Bennett at Trevor Farrington demonstrated this by covering a wafer-thin piece of metal and once dry, bending it in every which direction. No cracks.
Panel beater Rob Cumberbatch talked me through ratios as he mixed it with thinner, before hooking me up to the air line in the spray booth. With footballer Peter Crouch’s goal celebration and the words ‘I am a robot’ going through my mind, I completed the first coat – not bad, only one run. After a bit more guidance in terms of limb movement and angles of attack, the second coat went on like the missus’ recent spray tan.
On exit, I was coincidentally introduced to Novol UK’S business development manager Nigel Barnes, who was visiting. After having a good nose around the Zag, he invited me out to its Poznań headquarters. Fast-forward two weeks and I found myself in the company’s Komorniki training facilities, being taught application by trainer Krzysztof Grześkowiak (an even better Scrabble score than my own surname).
Over three days ‘Kriz’ schooled me in the merits of air pressures, air caps and ratios, as well as the fillers, lacquers and protective under body coverings of the company’s six-stage classic car paint system, Novol for Classic Car. I’d worried that I’d find the sessions as exciting as, well, watching paint dry. But the passion for the perfect finish proved infectious.
Top tips such as, ‘Allow 72 hours for the holding primer to harden before welding’ were gleaned. And in the evening we retired to the city centre to do the Poznań.