We decided to have a go at the chromium parts this time, using the Meguiar’s NXT Generation All Metal Polish. The very encouraging results can be seen on the photos, so the car looks at its best before its trip to Garage De Ridder…

Hans Knol ten Bensel

This polish came with a very handy pad, which we used to rub the parts in. We started with the front end of the car. The radiator grille and the Jaguar emblem were slightly pitted and needed some loving care, as was the front bumper. Also the chromium surroundings and rims of the head- and fog lamps and the chromium inserts of the little side lamps needed attention.

The application pad is very handy and soft, making it ideal to clean edges and rims without damaging the parts... and your fingers!  

We rubbed the front grille in with the polish, using the pad which proved very handy to use between the spokes of the front grille. The soft pad wraps itself nicely around the edges and difficult to reach parts of the grille, and is very pleasant to use. We used a soft cloth to rub the parts to a deep shine after the product had done its work.

The neglected lamp surroundings and especially the front bumper benefited greatly from the treatment, and completely regained their original shine.

The astonishing result after cleaning... 

We then worked on the other chromed parts of the car, especially the chromium surroundings of the side windows, which showed also some slight pitting. A gentle rub-in with the polish brought dramatic improvements, bringing back the original shine. The pitting has not completely disappeared, and we have to work (or rub) a little more here in a following session.

The rear bumper had been treated in its early life (some 45 years ago…) with some winter protection, which unfortunately had attacked the chromium layer, and the bumper is now in need for a complete re-chroming. Since we need the car for the marriage in October, we decided for the moment to leave it at that, and just polish it, which brought indeed back the original shine, but unfortunately could not repair the attacked surface of the bumper.

The often neglected foglamp surroundings came out shining like new...

What this cleaning session clearly showed was the excellent qualities of the Meguiar’s NXT Generation All Metal Polish, and, last but not least, the very good chromium of the Jaguar MK II Saloons used at the time, as the pictures clearly show…

Air was needed…

Before the car was to be towed out of its Brussels garage, we needed of course to inflate all tyres, with, as we wrote in the first article, the rear tyres being still flat. We bought an extender cable for the little electric compressor we used to inflate the front tyres, but this proved to be still too short, so we fell back on our manual air pump, which surprisingly proved to be quite suitable for the job. The left rear tyre proved however impossible to inflate, probably because the tubeless tyre had loosened itself from the rim. We mentioned this to Alex De Ridder, so they were prepared for things when they came to collect the car…

Hans Knol ten Bensel