ASTON MARTIN: VANQUISH S RED ARROWS EDITION

We have over the years been very fortunate to be able to work on some of the rarest vehicles made, but this Aston Martin Vanquish S Has to bee probably the rarest example we have had the pleasure to work on, this collaboration between the Royal Airforce Red Arrows and Aston Martin to produce 10 cars, 1 through 9 being sold through Aston Martin Cambridge, the last Red 10 was to be raffled off to raise funds for the RAF benevolent fund.

The detail on these cars is extraordinary, the cars 1 through 9 are linked with the Red Arrows Hawk Aircraft, starting with Red 1 to Red 9, this particular example is Red 3, the cars are finished in Eclat Red mirroring the Red Arrows livery and their motto, on the carbon front wing air intakes you can find the Arrows mirrored tail number individual to each car on one side and the Arrows in formation on the other with the corresponding position the plane flies in blanked out, the unique bonnet and boot badges with the Union Jack and made of solid silver.

Inside the car the "Arrows" theme is used throughout, such as the pinewood green inserts that evoke the design of the classic flight suit and Martin Baker Ejection seat fabric, together with the green webbing, the signature Red Arrows diamond formation is embroidered into the seat backs along with the unique sill plates, with the bespoke carbon helmet stowage taking the place of the rear seats, all in all a truly unique interior.

Our client purchased this example looking to it's value as an investment piece but to also be able to enjoy the car from time to time, so we were instructed to remove any defects in the cars paintwork, install paint protection film to the front bumper and the front splitter and the cars sills , then to finish we were to apply Gtechniq Crystal Serum Ultra to the areas not protected with PPF  and then to finish apply two coats of Gtechniq Exo to the entire car.

We started in the usual manner, with our safe wash and de contamination procedures, once dried, we could examine the cars paintwork to asses what level of correction the paintwork needed, as with most hand finished paint, unfinished abrading marks had been left in the cars paintwork, these needed to be removed but apart from these areas only the usual light swirling and scratches were evident.

So now we knew what was needed we started with the areas of the car that needed the most attention, those areas of the car with the abrading marks were addressed using the Rupes LHR 75E and a microfibre cutting pad along with Menzerna HC400 we carefully began to address those areas, once completed we could begin to rectify any light damage to the rest of the car.

With the correction and refinement stages now completed we could start to address the areas of the car to be protected with our Xpel Ultimate Paint Protection Film, this amazing product will not only protect those areas from stone chips it is also self healing, meaning if those areas become scratched the product literally "self heals" and the scratches simply disappear.

With the ppf installation now complete we were able to focus on the next step the detail, to protect those areas of the car that had not had paint protection film installed, for this we wanted a product that offered unrivalled gloss but still offered the very best protective qualities, for this we turned to Gtechniq's new flagship paint sealant Crystal Serum Ultra, which as a bonus now offers an unrivalled 9 year guarantee, but we didn't stop there, to give the Aston the very best protection we completed the car with two coats of Gtechniq Ex0 V3 including the areas covered in ppf, this not only gives the ppf an element of protection but also means that the water behaviour on the complete car is the same, giving the entire car a uniform ultra high gloss with a highly hydrophobic water behaviour characteristics, with Gtechniq C5 on the wheels and G1 on the exterior glass, the car was now complete.
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