UPDATE #3: Bringing In The Right People For The Job
Hey everyone and welcome back to my journal!
I’m super stoked to share with you all this lengthy update, where we ensure Project Luna stays as close to perfect as possible. In order to do that, we need to rely on the specialists for the required work to be performed.
This update takes place in
October and November 2023.
A Lasting Impression
I’m a pretty positive and optimistic person. In my personal life, there’s a few sayings I frequently say:
“
The dream is free, the hustle is sold separately.”
“
Have an impactful day!”
Such sayings leave my family, friends and following always feeling motivated, positive and ready to attack their day.
Keeping that in mind, I wanted to get a custom license plate for Project Luna. I wanted something cool, unique, and very much
me. After toying with a few different options, it hit me… “
MPACTFUL”!!!!!
What a great idea, that speaks to me and one of my favourite sayings…plus an added bonus is it’s an M-car, so almost a double-entendre.
Now, I wanted to incorporate my saying into the license plate so I came up with this idea for the license plate frame…let me know what you think:
Well thanks to my good friend
Steven@Elevated Auto, he made this idea come to life!
It makes me so happy to have this license plate and frame. I know it will put a smile on people’s faces every time they see my car!
Did Someone Say “Spa Day”?
While having around 36,000 kms or 22,000ish miles, one could assume Project Luna is immaculate. That person making the assumption would be partially right, however upon closer inspection, there were several areas of concern that needed to be addressed.
The trunk has a large dent in it that went unnoticed from when I bought the car. Upon looking at the neighbourhood shots of the car from the original owner, you can clearly see the dent.
Here are some pictures of it:
In addition to that, because the car was often times left outside by the prior owner, there was some hail damage in various spots of the car, as seen below:
I first contacted my dent specialist friend
Deron@Magic Dent Repair Ltd., who has done dent repairs on my other vehicles. Unfortunately, Deron was unavailable for a few months because he was working on a special project for repairing an entire dealership’s fleet of vehicles that suffered hail damage.
I was then referred by Alex (M3Post Member: "
acarr6”
acarr6) to
Marty Corallo@Autodent Paintless Dent Repair, who is another recognized Paintless Dent Removal (PDR) specialist in Toronto. Marty sent one of his employees to perform the job and it turned out as great as possible.
Steven managed to snap a couple pics behind the scenes:
Thank-you again
Marty@Autodent Paintless Dent Repair for your team’s work on Project Luna.
INCOMING!!!!! OCD+ Package for Perfection
Steven@Elevated Auto and I have been friends for over 10 years now, and he has worked on all my family’s vehicles. In addition, he is my go-to referral for window tinting, paint protection film (PPF), and in-car electronics (ICE) upgrades.
Before Steven created his current shop,
Elevated Auto, he first started working at a recognized Toronto shop called
Auto-Links, and was the head tint and PPF specialist. He worked on my brand new 2013 Subaru STi, Project Gabby, and performed on it an entire front-end PPF job. Over time, we started doing a lot of extra PPF work throughout the car (ex: door jambs, A-pillars, B-pillars, front grille, etc.) and Steven coined the term, “
The OCD package” for my car.
Well funny enough, we eventually PPF’d the entire car and then recoined the term to be, “
The OCD+ package.”
Because Project Luna is such a special and rare car, I wanted to give it the same amount of love and attention that Project Gabby got…so off to Elevated Auto we went.
Since the car had spent some of its life sitting outside, it had extremely minimal swirls…recall this photo:
If you look closely in the photo, you can see the minimal swirling on the paint. I still wanted perfection, so I decided to reach out to my friend
Wes@Orion Detailing. Wes and Steven are friends, and both I’m glad are part of this project. Funny enough actually, the reason I chose Wes to work on the car was because over 10 years ago, I started my sole proprietor detailing business out of my home garage and was doing everything wrong (ex: 1 bucket wash without grit guard, wearing sharp object clothes like jeans with a belt and a watch, using the coin-op brush of doom all over the paint)…yes, it was bad.
I wasn’t getting the results I had always seen at car shows and strived for, so I started doing my research online, specifically on the detailing forums. I stumbled across a few threads on the website "DetailingBliss.com” and found a Toronto-local detailer with some very impressive threads on vehicles he’s worked on out of his home garage. From cars like an LSB E46 M3, to even a Ferrari Testarossa. The thread of his that first inspired me was the Audi R8 detail job he performed.
I started learning all about brushes, two bucket method (this was also before grit-guards were a thing), paint-depth gauges, how to mask the car’s trim with tape, solar gun to see swirls, etc.. Keep in mind, we’re in 2011 and this guy had all the latest gadgets and gismos, and best practices down to a tee!
Here are some photos circa 2010 of Wes in action:
I’ve also included the detailing threads of those aforementioned cars he detailed for your reference to check out…it’s so cool how nostalgic these threads are, and how far the detailing world has come to nowadays:
Wes details an Audi R8
Wes details an LSB E46 M3
Wes details a Ferrari Testarossa
Wes inspired me to invest and build my detailing product arsenal, to the point where I grew my business, started charging more, and eventually specialized in high-end vehicle restorations and paint corrections locally, before closing and starting my professional career in the insurance industry at the age of 23.
I wanted this moment to come back full circle, or you could say “
full-moon” haha, and that’s why I wanted the guy who inspired me to start to my own business to be the person who performed this extensive job on Project Luna…what a story if you ask me.
What’s also funny is that Wes had no idea who I was until I reached out to him to work on Project Sky back a few years ago to polish some carbon fiber parts. When I had shared with him the above story, he was surprised that he had made such an impact on someone like myself, and was touched. Him and I started building a friendship, and we noticed we had lots in common, like being hip-hop music fans of Larry June, Westside Gunn and the Griselda movement, etc…small world indeed.
Wes was going to perform the following restoration job on Project Luna:
Interior Cleaning Work
- Interior detail including sunroof railing
- Polish Piano Black Interior Trim Pieces including Tachometer and any plastic piece possible
- Leather Coating on Interior Leather Surfaces with GTechniq Leather Guard
- Plastic Coating on Interior Trim Pieces with GTechniq Ultra Exo V5 and Crystal Serum Light (CSL)
- Fabric Coating on Interior Carpets with CarPro CQuartz Fabric
Exterior Cleaning Work
- 1-Stage Polish including Claybar and Exhaust Cleaning
- Polish Headlights and Headlight Washers, Front Bumper Amber Reflectors, Chrome Kidney Grilles, License Plate Holder, Roof Rails, Tail Lights, Roof Antenna Cover, Window Trims, Mirror Stalks, Chrome Fender Vents, BMW Emblems, B-Pillars,
- Stock Wheels Cleaned, Wheel Weight Adhesive removed, and Coated with GTechniq Crystal Serum Light (CSL)
- OG Mag Blue TE37s Cleaned
- Ceramic Coating on all Exterior Surfaces mentioned above, including miscellaneous sections including Door Jambs, Trunk Jambs, Exhaust, Hood Underside, and Windows with GTechniq Ultra Exo V5 and Crystal Serum Light (CSL)
**Please note that all ceramic coating work was done by Wes@Orion Detailing after the necessary PPF film was applied by Steven@Elevated Auto.
After Wes polished all of the surfaces that were able to be polished (painted and plastics), I had Steven and his right-hand and PPF specialist, John, perform all of the necessary Tint and PPF work as follows:
- Complete Vehicle Window Tint (Front Windshield, Sunroof, all Side Windows and Rear Window) with LLumar AIR 90
- PPF on Full Body (including Headlights and Headlight Washers, Front Bumper Amber Reflectors, Chrome Kidney Grilles, License Plate Holder, Roof Rails, Tail Lights, Roof Antenna Cover, Window Trims, Mirror Stalks, Chrome Fender Vents, BMW Emblems, B-Pillars, and Interior Piano Black Trim Pieces) with XPEL Ultimate Plus
- ExoShield Front Windshield Protective Film
While Project Sky is getting worked on, I will be borrowing the Volk OG TE37 Mag Blue 18x10+25 and putting them on Luna. Once Sky is finished, the OEM 220M wheels will go back on.
Unfortunately we did not capture a ton of photos, as we were filming all the content for my documentary on the car, which documents all of the above, and the origin story of how I got the car…how exciting is that?!! Miru is Steven’s content director, and is the mastermind behind the movie project and its vision.
Enjoy the pictures of what we were able to capture:
I took some pictures with Project Luna. I was later joined by John, Steven and Miru for a nice picture altogether:
Concluding Thoughts
Hope you all enjoyed this update! I’m grateful to have the support of Orion Detailing and Elevated Auto for Project Luna. It’s amazing how important lasting friendships are, and the power of the Internet to allow for these forums to be seen globally and have the ability to inspire anyone.
Stay tuned for next update, a little sneak peek for what’s to come!
