Jump In With Both Feet At International Carwash Association’s Splash!

In keeping with the program theme of “Get Drenched with New Ideas,” the International Carwash Association and the Western Carwash Association are cohosting Splash!—a conference designed to offer quick education, peer-to-peer networking and one-on-one presentations and networking opportunities in a casual and fun environment.

Splash! is scheduled for Thursday, October 10 and Friday, October 11 at The Mirage in Las Vegas, Nevada. The event is open to all industry professionals with a focus on owners and operators of up to four washes as well as managers of multi-site washes and the vendors that support them. The program will include educational stage presentations billed as “Wash Talks”—quick-hitting presentations from successful carwash operators—as well as “Table Topics,” which will provide attendees with unique, table-specific topics for small-group discussions. Also on tap: “Windshield Time,” a rare opportunity to meet directly with exhibitors intent on solving attendees’ wash-related problems, plus a tour of local car washes. 

Registration is $99 per person and includes a reception on Thursday and the full program offering. For details and to register, visit www.carwash.org.

COLORBOND NOW ACCEPTING NOMINATIONS FOR CLEO AWARD

The CLeo Award was established by Color Bond in 2014 to recognize individuals who have shown excellence utilizing ColorBond LVP Refinisher car interior paint to restore or restyle the interior of a truck, muscle car or classic car.

The award is named in honor of Leo Kagan who, as then-chairman of the SEMA Board, was responsible for moving the SEMA Show from Anaheim, California, to Las Vegas in 1977. Kagan, who will turn 103 in November, still works for ColorBond Automotive Paint.

Carlos Medrano won the ColorBond CLeo Award last year, transforming the interior of his Honda Civic from teal and black to all-white using ColorBond’s LVP Refinisher. He previously won the award in 2016 with the same car.

In presenting the award to Medrano last year, the company said, “The results Carlos achieved using ColorBond LVP Refinisher are beautiful, and we are truly honored Carlos chose ColorBond to help convey his artistic expression. Carlos’ 2013 Honda Civic Si turned out incredibly well. The interior was originally teal and black and has been transformed to a stunning white.”

To submit a nomination for the Cleo Award, visit www.colorbondpaint.com.

Carlos Medrano was presented with the CLeo Award during a special ceremony in the ColorBond booth during the 2018 SEMA Show. The award is named in honor of Leo Kagan, whose image appears in the signage behind the car.

Suburban Detroit Event Center Aims for January Auto Show

With the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan, moving from its traditional January dates to June 2020, a new winter auto show is afoot. The Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi, outside Detroit, is organizing its own regional auto show to fill the January void.

Known as the Southeast Michigan Auto Show, the new event is set to take place Friday, January 3 to Sunday, January 5, 2020.  Organizers are calling the show a consumer-focused event as opposed to the glitzy media-driven flair of the Detroit venue held annually at Cobo Center. The new show would include a VIP cocktail kickoff on the night of January 3 as well as seminars, new-vehicle displays, outdoor and indoor ride-and-drive experiences, kid-friendly activities and merchandise vendors.

“The event has been put together with the idea of supporting the dealer community in the area, which is extremely important to our economy,” said Blair Bowman, president of the Suburban Collection Showplace. “This is something that is totally distinct from the new, very cool, reimagined and obviously reinvigorated auto show downtown in June.”

The Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi, Michigan, is poised to launch a new auto show in the Detroit metro area. The Southeast Michigan Auto Show is slated for January 3 – 5, 2020.

Fifty-Five Detailers Spit Shine the Original Presidential Air Force One Jet

Fifty-five automotive detailers from across the country and beyond, including Canada and the Caribbean, recently made a journey to the Seattle Museum of Flight to restore and preserve the very first presidential jet, Air Force One, along with 17 other historic aircraft also housed at the museum.

Now in its sixteenth year, the program got its start in 2003 when master automotive and aircraft detailer and trainer Renny Doyle was asked by a Bush-administration official to help preserve the Air Force One jet, which had served as the flying Oval Office for Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.

Each year, Doyle, owner of Detailing Success in Big Bear, California, assembles a hand-picked crew of highly skilled detailers. Over the course of several days, the detailing team plies their skills, meticulously cleaning, polishing, restoring and preserving the iconic aircraft, which also includes a WWII B-29 Super Fortress Bomber, a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet, the Concorde Alpha Golf and a new addition to the collection, a badly deteriorating Vietnam-era B-52G Stratofortress Bomber.

“The 55 detailers I selected for the team come from across the U.S. and this year from Canada and the Caribbean as well. I have trained them myself for this kind of work, and it gives those detailers experience in polishing and perfecting paint and brightwork, which transfers onto car paint (and which) they would never get anywhere else,” said Doyle.

“It is fitting,” he added, “that the project follows the Independence Day holiday this year, because the work they do is a patriotic gesture to preserve a piece of American aviation history.”

Renny Doyle, Detailing Success, addresses the 2018 Air Force One detailing team.