Keels & Wheels Concours

Our Murci was awarded Best of Class at the Concours this weekend ( http://www.keels-wheels.com ). The award was presented by Keith Martin from What's My Car Worth, which is cool since I watch his show. I would like to have asked him that question during the event, but he was hard to corner and he's probably fed up with those questions anyway!

 

Refinishing my wheels, brake components, and the recovered DCTMS steering wheel really had the car looking brand new. I am not sure I can make it look any newer or fresher at this point, but there's always something. The engine bay is pretty spotless. The yellow really looks great on the green grass.

 

The show award is an extra bonus for the many hours I've spent over the last 6 months bringing a good car up to my standards mechanically and cosmetically. It always takes me a while when I buy a car, but I am really starting to fall in love with the Murci

 

And we had our Esprit in the show too. It managed a 2nd place award in a very crowded field, so that was a pleasant surprise.

Very cool! Love the fact that you work on your car, we are lucky to have you on the board!

Congrats!

Two gorgeous cars! Congratulations!

Great pictures. SLR & 8C verts are not something you see often.

Congrats! Car looks great.

Very cool! Love the fact that you work on your car, we are lucky to have you on the board!

 

Thanks Luxeous!

 

I can't stop working on my cars. The world doesn't feel right when I am not. I'll keep sharing what I learn.

Congrats!

 

Thanks VCR!

Great pictures. SLR & 8C verts are not something you see often.

 

The SLR is one of my all time favorites. While I prefer coupes, this one looked great. The 8C is a nice car to me, but about 3 times what I would want to pay for it. This was just one area of the show, there were about 200 very interesting cars there as it's an invitation only event.

Congrats! Car looks great.

 

Thanks Robber!

Congrats Stimpy.......what an awesomely beautiful car! Looks new......It also looks great with those Hercules wheels.

Congrats Stimpy.......what an awesomely beautiful car! Looks new......It also looks great with those Hercules wheels.

 

Thanks Forester! What I think makes the wheels look so good is that they are a combo of hyper-silver in the pockets and machine-cut on the face. It plays a mind game when you see them because they look all one color silver and very shiny but they clearly aren't fully polished, but too shiny to be fully painted, and not shiny enough to be all chrome.

 

The hyper silver is like a mirror too. It's painted gloss black first and then a translucent silver over the top. The end result is more dimension to the spoke because the areas with a lot of light reflect like a mirror and the lower light angles look dark.

 

The silver brake rotor hats and the yellow calipers also make the wheels pop a little more.

Congrats cars look fantastic !

 

Congrats Phillip, isn't nice when all of your hard work and time is rewarded with appreciation!

congrats philip, you make us proud. means even more to you for all the care and love u put into these 2 cars. i have a lot to learn from u.

Thanks Luxeous!

 

I can't stop working on my cars. The world doesn't feel right when I am not. I'll keep sharing what I learn.

 

 

Congrats! Your cars look great! Looks like you had a lot of fun. Thank you for sharing your interest and knowledge!

Thanks Kevin, Power and LW! Fun to be part of the Lambo Murci community!

Congrats! And great combo!

Congrats and looking good, must have taken ages to get your engine compartment that clean?

Love what you did to the wheels.

Congrats and looking good, must have taken ages to get your engine compartment that clean?

Love what you did to the wheels.

 

Thanks!

 

For the engine compartment, I had to use a dremel with small wire brushes of different shapes to clean off the throttle bodies. None of the aluminum polishes applied by hand were working to get them clean because of all the crevices. The dremel made quick work of it.

 

For the carbon fiber panels, I had to remove them to remove the deteriorated engine bay stickers that were making the whole engine bay look old. I used 3M adhesive remover to get off the leftover adhesive when you remove the metalized stickers. Don't like stickers anyway, but they could be replaced later with fresh ones if someone after me wanted to do that. I also had to wet sand and polish the scratches out of the carbon fiber. It seems the mechanics before me were using the carbon fiber in the center as a tool tray (wonderful), but all the scratches polished out.

 

For the grate over the muffler, I removed it, cleaned and sanded it, and sprayed it with a high gloss high temp black, which I think matches the shiny carbon fiber much better than a flat black. And I painted the top of the muffler heat shield black, because who really wants to see that? It looks much better.

 

For any little surface rust, I use the Loctite Extend Rust remover. You just paint on 3 light coats and it turns the rust black and leaves a protective coating. No big effort to remove rust and repaint. Works great on screws that have surface rust and any parts of the frame that have surface rust since black is the main color theme.

 

To clean the engine bay quickly, my secret is Vinylex. You just mist the whole engine bay and start wiping. It's amazing stuff and leaves the plastics and rubber looking fresh and healthy without being greasy. It does a great job of removing grime as a cleaner as well as on the engine itself. Makes the black crackle paint look richer too. I can make any engine bay look new in 30 mins with that stuff. And it stays looking good.

 

To fix the missing paint in the badge on the center carbon fiber, I used black Dr Colorchip. It works really well because you just slather the whole area in black paint and wipe off the excess with their cleaning solution.

Timeless beauty! Congrats.