Not the first time this old Galant has been washed, but the first time I’ve actually washed it by hand the old fashioned way – with a big bucket of suds and the trusty garden hose – in the three months or so that I’ve owned it. The night I brought it home from Prescott back in November, I did run through one of those high pressure drive through washes, but I’ve been sadly remiss about tending to the dust still covering much of the interior after Roger drove it around during the rally.

It’s been some time since I’ve had a car that looked nice enough to warrant a good hand washing. Sweating like a pig as I scrubbed every inch of the exterior down, I thought back to when I owned Daisy and how I used to spend a solid six hours or so on each detail session. I miss that special ritual of car ownership, but [464] has a less than fabulous respray which is an orange peel rush job that doesn’t exactly match the original color, so it’s hard to get inspired to really invest the time that goes into polishing your typical, automotive jewel.

Regardless, [464] looks a lot better now that all the dust, grime, and general filth has been cleaned away. Since stripping the wax, doing a clay bar treatment, and polish before re-waxing wouldn’t have returned the best results, I turned my focus to the interior. Easing back into the dedicated car owner mindset, I opened up a package of Turtle Wax “ICE” plastic, vinyl and leather cleaner that I got from a buddy a few weeks back on that cruise to Prescott and began wiping down all the leather surfaces. This ended up taking twice as long as it did to just wash and dry the exterior, but it payed off. As the taught, splitting seats in [195] can attest, the Arizona sun can be brutal on leather seats, so it felt good to get more familiar with the finer areas of my “new” Galant.

There are some areas on the seats which have already begun to get tight and aren’t as supple as their neighbors, and those are likely beyond saving (I’ve heard that, once leather gets dry and hard, you can’t soften it back up again), but by taking care of the leather, in general, I hope to keep the interior of [464] looking tip top for years to come. Now that I’m getting back into the swing of showing a little freaking pride in my daily transportation, I’m looking forward to doing some research into quality products to make this gem of a commuter really shine again!