We admit, we’re suckers for a great detailing video. There’s something really satisfying about watching James from Stauffer Garage’s YouTube channel transform a filthy, unloved, trash-filled interior into something you’d love to climb inside. Or seeing a badly faded original paintjob rescued with some cutting compound and TLC.
The best of those videos are strangely hypnotic, too, just like this one from the unambiguously-named I Am Detailing. This is no normal detail, though. Here the car in question, a 1971 Porsche 911 T, is treated to a dry ice cleaning session that gently peels back years of oil, grime and underseal to reveal the original Viper Green paint on the floor and in the wheelhousings.
Dry ice blasting is a way of cleaning parts without any of the abrasion you get using traditional media blasting. And without the associated mess, too. It works by sending a stream of dry ice pellets, the solid form of carbon dioxide, through a hose under high pressure. When the pellets hit a surface they turn to a gas, gently removing any dirt, which simply falls to the ground.
Related: Dry Ice Blasting Helps Keep This Pre-Production 959 As Original As Possible
The blasting team starts with the 911’s floorpan, a job that’s been made easier by the prior removal of the flat-six engine. And when they start directing the dry ice at the car’s body the paint is revealed so easily, it’s like watching one of those TV ads for a kitchen spray where 12 years of untouched stove grime disappears with one wave of a cloth.
Then the bumpers are removed to make sure the duo can reach every single square inch, before the wheel arches get the same treatment. Of course, this is all happening in Costa Mesa, California, which has a bearing on how the video turns out.
If this was being filmed in Canada or the UK and the car had lived its life on cold, wet roads, we’d probably be watching the I Am Detailing team uncovering a bunch of rusty plates tacked onto what’s left of the floor with a load of pigeon-snot welds. Instead, the result is a beautifully clean, classic 911, showing only the appealing patina that comes with age.