Corvette Detailing

Body

Composite panels

Height

Low — front takes the road

Roof

Removable

Usage

Seasonal

Composite panels and correction

Corvette bodies are composite — fibreglass on older cars, sheet-moulded compound and carbon on newer ones — and the paint over composite behaves differently under a polisher from paint over steel. Composite does not conduct heat away from the surface the way metal does, so a polisher held in one place builds heat faster and the paint can be damaged before the operator feels it. Panel edges and body lines are thinner and heat faster still.

So correction on a Corvette is done with more pad movement, lower speeds where the panel needs it, and an infrared thermometer on the surface. It is not harder. It is different, and a shop that corrects a Corvette the way it corrects a sedan will eventually burn one.

A low car takes the road on its face

The front bumper, the lower valance and the leading edge of the bonnet on a Corvette sit closer to the road than on almost anything else, and they take stone chips, road tar and bug impact at a rate a taller car does not. Bug residue on a summer of highway miles is protein that etches if it bakes, and on a low front it bakes.

Front-end decontamination — tar and bug removal before iron and clay — is a larger part of a Corvette detail than usual. Paint protection film on the front is worth a conversation on a car driven regularly; a coating on the rest is what makes the bugs rinse off rather than etch.

The removable roof

Targa panels and convertible tops come off and go in the boot or the garage, and the seals they leave behind take UV and grit. Seals get cleaned and conditioned so they still seal in September. Stored panels get cleaned before storage because a summer of dirt on a stored panel bonds. On convertibles the fabric top takes a fabric cleaner and a repellency protectant, and the rear window — glass or plastic depending on generation — gets the right product for which.

Seasonal, and stored

Most Corvettes here are good-weather cars, with the hand-care marring pattern that comes from being looked after between drives and a five-month storage period every year. Correction and coating in spring, no dry dusting through summer, and full decontamination and protection before storage in November. Our storage guide and the summer-car correction page cover both.