Damon Hill's 1996 Championship winning Renault Williams Formula One
Firstly, a litte bit of how this came about. A chap who knows me through the Lotus community sent me an email, asking if I’d be interested in travelling to his house to detail his mother’s Phantom Black Audi TTS which has been kept outside since they got it last winter, during building work on their houses, and was looking a little sorry for itself. ‘No problem’ I said.
It continued. While I was there, would I be able to have a quick tickle over of his father’s Lamborghini Gallardo, rarely used, but could do with a light polish and a coat of wax. Sure said I, by no means a local job it would make the journey more worthwhile.
Then, would I also mind detailing his father’s Williams. I replied – Clio? Megane? Something I haven’t thought of? I wasn’t expecting the reply I got. The 1996 Formula One World Championship winning car from Williams, driven by Damon Hill!
For those that are interested, a bit of background on the cars. The main subject of this detail is indeed the very car Damon Hill drove to his Formula One World Championship title in 1996. It is chassis number FW18-01. Amazingly, the chap who own’s this car still runs it, and this year has taken part in several races and drove it up the famous hill during the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Despite being unique in terms of it’s history and heritage, and very valuable, I think it’s great that it is still used for competition. A very reliable car in it’s day, it was designed by Patrick Head and Adrian Newey, and according to the current owner, is just about the last year that the cars were ‘relatively’ straight forward to run.
By relatively, I mean it still takes a team of 7 people to carefully warm it through, using oil maintained at 60 degrees celcius, warm water, heating fans on the outer engine block and radiators etc. Once started, if the oil temperature is allowed to drop below 60, they must drain everything down and start again. And remember, this is the easier car to run! After this year, electronics became much more prevelant and teams of people with laptops and massive computing power are needed to run the car – the cost and logistics become simply daft.
In the garage itself is the matching FW18-02 chassis, Jacques Villeneuve’s car, who finished 2nd in the Driver’s Championship and helped secure the Constructors win for Williams that year. Whilst there is an engine in the car, it is the same engnie that completed the last race of the season, and hasn’t been started since the end of 1996. As such, it’s considered pretty much scrap – but the owner has managed to secure a box fresh brand new 3.0 litre V10 engine to replace it!
Finally, a Lucky Strike Honda from 2004, driven by Jenson Button. As it stands, this is a ‘plastic car’, which is to say that while it looks the part and is all genuine race used parts, it currently has no engine and is therefore a show piece. That may well change in the future though.
So back to the job in hand. In order to prevent making a mess around the car, plastic sheets were laid all around it, creating static and so holding onto dust. I wasn’t even wearing shoes to prevent leaving wet foot prints all over the polished white marble floor.
I started by wiping the car down with a soft cloth and Swissvax Quick Finish. The point of the excercise was to make it look a little shinier whilst on display, and as I’ve been asked to look after the cars regularly in the future, it will help make it easier to clean after it has been on track. Perfection was not the intention, this is a piece of racing heritage and is being kept as such.
The dark blue areas of the car were desperately scratched and marred, so my main focus would be to improve those, but all the time being very aware of stickers, graphics, and delicate parts. The eagle eyed amongst you may notice a wing mirror is missing – broken off during transportation and hideously expensive to rectify!
Using some new pads from Swissvax I’ve been given to try (a range of spot pods sold together, called a Padtower), I selected a medium firmness polishing pad, together with Menzerna 203 polish worked at slow speed, and moved around the car. An instant improvement was visible.
It got better after a couple of hits, paint removal was minimal but it was measuring very thin, so I approched it gently.
Nose cone before and after, the haziness removed and the rich blue colour looking much better.
While that was curing, I grabbed some pictures of the other cars.
Wax cured, it buffed away effortlessly to leave a deep glossy lustre, and a very happy owner.
I look forward to bringing you more as I work on the other cars, and as the owner’s collection expands and evolves. He has owned and raced quite a few older F1 cars previously, and no doubt will continue to do so.
Testimonials
“I would definitely recommend anyone to use Shine On regardless of marque, Paul is a genuinely nice bloke who has the rare attributes of actually loving his job and doing it to the best of his ability (bordering on OCD). I personally plan to use this service at least every 8months to keep the cars looking at their best.
And to top it all off…..even my wife commented on how and I quote ‘amazing’ it looked, that testimony alone is worth its weight in gold!
Andy (M3 and Battle Bus!)”
