RAG-ROOF REVIVAL
A professional valet transforms Johnny Tipler’s 986 Boxster S cockpit from an environment in which pigs might feel at home to a pristine five-star lounge bar
Job done, I clamber behind the wheel. There’s a momentary frown; this doesn’t feel like my Boxster’s steering wheel; it feels more like a press car loaned by Porsche GB! Such is the transformation from yesterday’s grease-impregnated rim that it takes a few miles to become acclimatised to this novel, svelte cleanliness. It literally feels like a thinner, sleeker wheel rim. Though of course it’s not; it’s simply minus a layer of crud. The impact of a clean-up wasn’t lost on the rest of the Terra-cotta upholstery, the treated seats slippery to the backside and now zinging out in a shiny orangeness that’s almost demanding of sunglasses.
What motivated me to book the Boxster in with Chris Bell at his HD Valeting and Detailing (highdefinitionvaleting.co.uk) operation close to the Norfolk Broads? It’s done 70k miles now, a figure almost double what it was when I bought it from its ‘one lady owner’ courtesy of SCS Porsche at Honiton, and during my two-and-a-half years’ tenure its cockpit hasn’t once felt the suck of a Hoover, let alone the nourishing fluids of a leather treatment. More pit than cock. I have several excuses: one is that I am more of a stranger to the vacuum than The Clean-up Woman, let alone Mrs T, and another is that the late-lamented Percy (he of the dachshund persuasion) was an occasional, if reluctant, passenger, thereby unintentionally augmenting the Augean stables scenario that even Hercules would have turned his nose up at. Long overdue for a re-fresh, then.
Neither had the soft-top canopy been reproofed, at least not during my tenure. Over the past several months, its lower extremities had become increasingly flecked with bright, lime-green mildew, if nothing else an alien mismatch with the Etna Blue and Terra-cotta hues. Who knew what manner of devilment I was fostering. So, a thorough clean and reproofing was the valeter’s second commission. He’d want it overnight for that, simply because it needed to dry off completely after the washing procedure before the Fabsil proofing fluid could be applied. Chris of HD explains the methodology: ‘If it’s been left uncleaned for a period of time, algae and mould will grow from the spores, or if the car’s been stuck underneath a tree you’ll find sap on a lot of convertible roofs. We have a product called Lime Prewash, which is a strong cleaner, but not so strong that it would damage the actual fabric. It does a great job of removing the algae, and then I like to leave the car to dry overnight so it’s thoroughly dry before putting the protection on. We use Fabsil Gold, and that will repel the water off the roof, whilst adding some UV protection as well. We recommend having it done every year. You generally know when you need to reapply the Fabsil, because if the water is not sheeting off the roof, it means the product is beginning to fail. You’ll notice when you wash it for the first time that the water sheets off rather than sits on the fabric and potentially soaks in, so it will be a lot easier to clean and a lot easier to dry, because the water will bead on the roof, or it’ll be sheeting like off a duck’s back.’
As for the exterior, the 11-coat Etna Blue spray-wrap (scratchandpeel.co.uk) is amazingly resilient, apparently self-healing, and as a result it is normally an eezee Sunday carwash. Anyway, as part of the spruce-up, Chris performed the wash ’n’ wax treatment, and detailed the Group4 Fuchs wheels, paying attention to the red caliper housings behind them. He also gave the Contisport sidewalls a shiny tart-up. The ragtop then received the shock of its life when he set about it with a rotary brush, working the suds into the canopy’s fibres with the bristles to displace years of impregnated grime. That procedure took him two hours. Having sluiced the suds from the hood, the car was taken inside his spacious barn and placed in a bay where infra-red overhead lights and dryer could gently dry it off. The
windows instantly misted up, but there was no question of lowering the top to vent them as the canopy needed to be kept taut in order to dehydrate. Chris elaborates: ‘There are quite a few fabric protectors out there for convertible roofs, and you can buy them in an aerosol or liquid form.’ Indeed, the shelves in his reception area are stacked high with products for different applications. ‘I prefer the liquid,’ he says, ‘because you can pour it into a jam jar and brush it on with a clean paint brush and get an even coverage, whereas with an aerosol it’s very difficult to know where you’ve been, and if you’re applying it outside, chances are the wind is blowing it around and you’re not getting a thorough coverage.’
Meanwhile, the cabin upholstery was thoroughly vacuumed, and the leather dash and seats cleaned and protected using an appropriate product. Special attention was paid to those aspects of the controls sullied by sweaty human hand, specifically the handbrake lever, gearstick and gaiter, and – oh yes! – the steering wheel. ‘We use our own all-purpose cleaner to take the dirt off the steering wheel rim. It’s a mild alkaline, so it gives good cleaning but not enough to damage the leather or take any dye off. We don’t put any coating on the steering wheel, but for the seats we apply a product called Leather Coat, which gives between three- to six-months’ protection and is something that you could have a bottle of at home, and you could easily just spray it on and help rejuvenate the leather. That’s all been done now, and it was quite soiled in places because it’s been left for a period of time. It’s not so noticeable just how dirty they are with black leather or a black steering wheel, but on something a little bit lighter like this Terracotta you notice the soiling a lot more.’ Soiled! What can have been going on?
Next morning, Mrs T dropped me off and I walked the mile or so to HD Valeting’s agricultural location. He’d started early. Not only had the top dried off overnight, he had begun applying the Fabsil re-proofing fluid, applying it with the care of a house painter dipping a 2in paintbrush into a jam-jar half full of the magic liquor. ‘It’s had three layers (coats),’ he explains, ‘and we use the infrared lamps to help cure it and dry it in between each layer, so we need to make sure it’s dry before putting another layer on top, otherwise all you’re doing is putting a layer onto the wet.’ The drying process continued under the bright lights and heaters, as I needed the car, but had I left it another day it would have dried naturally.
The refreshed cockpit was underscored by the fitting of a brand-new pair of terra-cotta floor mats, supplied by Porscheshop, and matching the rest of the now-pristine upholstery. It’s almost too clean to dare get into; having done a training session at a local National Trust park (yes, it’s come to this) the following day, I had to sacrifice a garment to keep my muddy Salewa footwear off the new mat. It’s amazing how inhibited one becomes about carting soiled goods around – that’s to say, sacks of coal or firewood logs; how long will this last? Till the new puppy arrives, probably, and we can get on with the rewilding.
There’s been another result, though perhaps inconclusive, and that’s a solution of sorts to the mystery of the “engine warning” message that randomly popped up, urging me to “drive to garage”. You’ll recall, perhaps, Dear Reader, that I’ve muddled around with glorious rasp-inducing catbypass pipes, and been obliged to have race-cat pipes fitted in order to pass the MOT – all components obtained from Porscheshop and fitted first by local specialists Trofeo and then William Hewitt Porsche. Between those two pipework installations, the car went on the rolling road dyno at Clive Atthowe’s in Norwich, where power output was raised to 269bhp. A savage shake-up on Belgian Pave when attending a pal’s wedding proved the warning light’s Waterloo, throwing all possible on-board alarms into chaos. With the new race-cat pipes came new sensors, and the PSM and Brake failure warning lights were thereby suppressed – apart from the one suggesting an engine issue. The proposition was that the ECU was modified prior to the race-cat pipes being fitted, and somehow the new sensors were confused by the older settings. Back at Clive Atthowe’s, he ran a succession of computer checks, which pointed not to a disharmony between sensors and ECU settings, but rather to cylinder bank 1 running a tad too lean. So, that may or may not prove to be the case, and, at some point, it will need addressing, most likely if the warning light rears its unwelcome head again. If there is any clue at all, I noticed that it came on whilst running at lower revs, so now I’m hardly ever below 2000rpm in any gear. Still, if nothing else, it has encouraged me to visit the higher numbers of the rev band!
And, as luck would have it, the chance to open it up in a traffic-free environment came about when we did the photoshoot for the Modern Classics feature, which you can read about elsewhere in this very issue. We rented a disused aerodrome, and the perimeter runways provided the perfect location to maxout around the curves as I flashed to-and-fro for snapper Simon’s lenses. There’s a lot to be said for the free-revving 3.2 flat-six, howling as it soars around the upper reaches of the rev-band, and the totally confidenceinspiring stiffness of the chassis on its Mo30 suspension and broad Contisport rubber. You only have to experience that a few times to rekindle any flagging enthusiasm for your Porsche.