Anyone Remember This?

[cutlasguy]

Many years ago, the venerable Blue Coral brand distributed this product. It was an acrylic coating for weathered car finishes and was literally bulletproof! It couldn't be removed with any cleaning product known to man outside of a disc sander! Mineral spirits wouldnt touch it. Rubbing compound wouldn't make so much as a scuff! Unfortunatly the sun, over time, would turn your car into a Zebra, with light and dark areas in the paint! I gave my friend a bottle and he went from praising me for revitalizing his Cutlass, to refusing to speak to me again ,as he drove around in his Leopard on wheels!

For me, though, the product was a godsend! I coated my entire undercarriage, after cleaning and painting of course, with the product, and it has held up for the past 15 years without peeling or fading! My floorpans present like the car literally just came from the factory! Much easier than waxing your car's underbelly, and much more permanent also!

Alas, the product was discontinued many years ago(notice the price stickers) and I bough out the last remaining stock from KMart! It has held up so well though, that I haven't had to reapply it, and I'm not really sure that it's any good after all of those years stored in my basement! Just wondered how many of you Blue Coral fanatics had used it for the purpose I had?

[Guest Jim_Edwards]

That was/is a perfect example of a product being so good it killed the market for lesser products that required one frequently buy again. Great product like many others that have disappeared because they were basically "bottom line" killers in the long run.

A more recent example of a bottom line killer was 3M's Finish Restorer P/N 030902 which was discontinued after roughly a year on the market. One now has to buy two products to get the same result.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Jim_Edwards (see edit history)

[r1lark]

Here is someone who had a similar problem with the streaking: Removing Blue Coral Touchless Acrylic - MBWorld.org Forums

I fondly remember the glass jars of Blue Coral. The jar was wide, and only a couple of inches tall, with no neck (the cap was the same diameter as the body of the jar). The glass was a beautiful dark blue color, and IIRC the cap was blue also with either white or light blue(?) lettering. My brother had some that he used on his Triumph TR3A back in the early '60s.

[NTX5467]

I don't recall the particular Blue Coral product, but it probably led to the other "Renew" miracle restorers of later years. Orange bottle with black letting, usually sold at discount stores or drug stores . . . with television ads done in a salvage yard, in the middle of summer, showing a "new car new shine and color" from old, faded cars finishes out in the salvage yard.

In my earlier years of paying attention to car waxes and such, it was about the time they started advertising similar-miracle acrylic clear floor waxes, mopped on with little effort to result in a dazzling, sparkling shine on kitchen floors. I wondered why there wasn't a car wax like that! But then those floor materials didn't usually have the oxidation issues that car paints did.

Enjoy!

NTX5467

[caddyshack]

It usually took a few hours to apply a good "blue coral" wax job. Back in the early 60's I used it on a '56 Vette with great results. Engine compartment, chassis parts, and body, all looked great. Totalled the car in '66 so I did not get to experience the streaking that has been mentioned. Another product that was very popular at the same time was "Vista car wax" in a gold pry open can. Much easier to use, but not as good as "blue coral". Thanks for bringing up an old memory.

[dei]

I sort of remember Blue Coral also but......... Dad bought the less expensive Vista Wax for the Limited. Here is a picture of the ad I bought.

I'm bias as it shows a red 58 Buick (Special) convertible just like the one I own. Now, if I can just put my hands on that can around here somewhere I just might recreate that same picture.

Doug

[rocketraider]

Don't think the original Blue Coral formula would have caused any streaking. It was a two-part formula- first the cleaner, then the sealer. It was more work than I wanted to do!

Even had a GM part number IIRC. I remember the local Cad/Olds and Pontiac dealers offered "Blue Coral Treatment" service.

An uncle always used Simoniz Vista on his Fords. It was considered a "premium" wax back then. I've used it myself. I think it's still made, just not easy to find, though Ace Hardware shows they stock it $3.99 per 10 oz can. That's about the same as I remember it costing back in the day. Amazon has it for $2.88, but get this- shipped from Ace Hardware Direct!

'Course back in the day I was making $1.35 an hour and Turtle Wax Paste was like $1.29 a can

And then I discovered Burford Pro and Meguiar's products...

Edited January 27, 2012 by rocketraider (see edit history)

[Guest Jim_Edwards]

How about Johnson's J-Wax, the original cause of tennis elbow for those who never picked up a tennis racket. Stuff worked well, if you had six or seven hours of time to use it and didn't succumb to muscle fatigue.

I have bad recollections around 1957 voluntarily taking on waxing a visiting Aunts Black 1955 Chevy. GM's paints were not the best in the world in that decade and cutting the oxidation layer on that black paint was for all purposes impossible. Never did get all the swirls out.

[cutlasguy]

The Acrylic Coating was not the same product as Original Blue Coral! I used the original myself and had no problems other than the fact that it was a lot of work with results no better than any other paste wax! What was that sealer that looked like vaseline for anyway! Took hours just to rub it in after the original polishing! Nothing touches my classic but Zymol! I started using it when it was sold only through designated factory reps similar to the Electrolux vacuums, and I have used it until today! (Lots of dust though)

[Paul K.]

Is Blue Coral two part system of products available anymore?

[Guest Jim_Edwards]

Is Blue Coral two part system of products available anymore?

No. Blue Coral is down to a couple of cleaning products and wiper blades and now a brand name belonging to Shell. Looks to me like they are just trying to milk the trade name for all that it is worth. A good example of good products going by the wayside from a series of buyouts and mergers.

[john2dameron]

My cousin pointed me to Vista and I used it for years. Then my barber sold me a bottle of "Liquid Glass, First Class", a pink liquid that you applied to a wet car. Rain would hit a car with that stuff on it bead up in bubbles as big as a 50-cent piece and slide off the car. Used it for years until I guess it went off the market.

Bought a new '89 Ford pickup and attempted to wax it with Turtle Wax. The polishing cloth left swirls in the wax and they would not rub out. It really looked nasty. In desperation I washed the truck about 3 more times that day to get the swirls out and never considered using Turtle Wax again.

[Dave Henderson]

Those pesky swirls.... In past days the pros sometimes used a very common household product to remove them, corn starch.

[Guest straight shooter]

My wax of choice is collinite insulator wax. Nothing beads better and last longer. It has been around for a while.

[Guest Jim_Edwards]

My wax of choice is collinite insulator wax. Nothing beads better and last longer. It has been around for a while.

Had never seen or heard of Collinite until your post. A quick visit to their web site revealed a lot about the nature of their products. Some might consider pricey, but I think they are worth a try for any car or boat painted with lacquer or enamel paints. Thanks for the heads up!

Collinite Automotive Wax Choice of the Pros Collinite

[NTX5467]

Out here in the "west of Fort Worth" location, the more common waxes were around. Few places carried Classic Wax back then. From the ads I'd seen, that was one of the best waxes as it had genuine (was there immitation?) carnuba wax AND jeweler's rouge in it. It was one of the popular "one-step" waxes back then . . . what later became known as "cleaner wax", ANd something I learned to use sparingly. At that time, Classic had a full line of waxes . . . cars, boats, airplanes, etc.

I used it for several years, until the cleaner part of things kept removing paint that looked fine, then I started looking for "straight" wax. Ended up with old Simonize wax. As it was hard to apply and buff off, I usually did it on the hotest summer days, so it'd flow easier. This was the stuff that went on everything, including floors.

Then, at a regional car show, I discovered Meguiars. That's been my product-of-choice for the past 40 years. Plus, a non-abrasive wax that's easy to use!

In the middle 1970s, when I started looking around for waxes, I'd read of the legendary/fabled Blue Coral product. GM did have a bottle of it with a GM part number on it. We had a few bottles in stock, so I openned one to see a somewhat buttermilky liquid. I believe it was the "second part" of a two-part application. I wasn't impressed, so I looked elsewhere.

In my searches, I would see cars at new car shows which had a label for some treatment that had been done to their cars. Or if the paint looked to have been polished, I'd later go to the dealership's parts dept to see what might have been used. In many cases, it was not something I was impressed with, BUT they seemed to get good results with it.

In looking at used cars back then, sometimes I'd find one with good paint on it (better than normal, but without that just-detailed look). I found one that had been treated to a "Ming Treatment" paint protectant. Later, there was the Poly Glycoat system sealer, which Gulf States Toyota did at their "port of entry" as a seemingly normal part of their "make ready" service. It was also sold in some auto supply stores, but the paint suppliers usually tended to not like the stuff! The body shop people usually added some additional refinish time for a PolyGlycoated vehicle, too.

It seemed that only GM dealers did the Blue Corral deal. If it was hard to use manually, all of the dealership detail people had BUFFERS. AND knew how to use them (in a time before the more user-friendly orbital buffers).

Enjoy!

NTX5467

[Guest prs519]

I had one of those GM bottles which also said Blue Corral. It is a beautiful bottle, and I caution anyone that has one to handle it with great care as it seemed it broke way too easy even for my nimble fingers. Wonder if the product affected the glass, as an interesting aside.?

Perry in Idaho

[JD in KC]

...It seemed that only GM dealers did the Blue Corral deal...

Nope. During WWII, Packard dealers (lacking new cars to sell) also hawked the Blue Coral product. I remember Blue Coral very well. The blue bottle reminded me of milk of magnesia. I don't remember the acrylic coating product.

Picture Source: PackardInfo.com

Edited January 29, 2012 by JD in KC (see edit history)

[X-Frame]

Had never seen or heard of Collinite until your post. A quick visit to their web site revealed a lot about the nature of their products. Some might consider pricey, but I think they are worth a try for any car or boat painted with lacquer or enamel paints. Thanks for the heads up!

Collinite Automotive Wax Choice of the Pros Collinite

From the 1955 Chicago Auto Show:

[Larry Schramm]

Does this bring back memories?

Edited February 16, 2012 by Larry Schramm (see edit history)

[DNC]

Does anyone remember Rain Dance?

[Larry Schramm]