August 16th 2006 Autocar - World's best car wash - Wax works

This man charges £5000 for a car wash. Colin Goodwin

FREUD's THEORY of anal retentiveness falls short when you try to apply it to Paul Dalton. Here is a man who will not allow his girlfriend to clean his bathroom because she's not prepared to give it the three hours' graft that he puts into the task. You wouldn't want to live with him, but you want him cleaning your car.

FREUD's THEORY of anal retentiveness falls short when you try to apply it to Paul Dalton. Here is a man who will not allow his girlfriend to clean his bathroom because she's not prepared to give it the three hours' graft that he puts into the task. You wouldn't want to live with him, but you want him cleaning your car.

In front of us at the Romans International showroom in Banstead, Surrey, is a perfect 750-mile-old Ferrari Enzo. To me, its Rosso Corsa paintwork is immaculate, but not to Dalton. He has been cleaning cars since he was 13; he's now 30 and has set up his own company, Miracle Detail. He's moved his game on a bit:the ***** ****** polish that he uses costs £7188 a pot, and he offers a service called a Pinnale Miracle Detail, which involves spending up to two weeks on your car and relieving your bank accounts of almost five grand. The process involves 21 operations and four layers of the pricier-than-Doodotears ****** coating.

I have a £4 bucket from Woolies and £2.50 sponge from Halfords. Dalton uses buckets fitted with an £80 filter and natural sea sponges at £35 a pop; even the drying towels are imported from Australia.

Before he starts on the Enzo, Dalton gives it a careful wash down with ***** shampoo. Next, he uses a £4000 ultrasonic gadget to measure the depth of the paint, base coat and top coat. "Only 60 micros in places," he remarks. "Typical rubbish Ferrari paint job; Lamborghini is better. Aston Martin used to be good, but has now gone downhill."

Dalton surrounds himself with bottles of solution, some of which are top secret, and knuckles down. He begins with a special block of clay, which removes small specks of dirt and tar from the paint surface, then rubs it with a solution that's as smooth as moisturiser.

An hour later and one Enzo door is almost finished. It's the shiniest panel on the Ferrari and makes the rest of it look dull. For about £375 Dalton will give your car a Premier Miracle Detail. He'll spend five hours on it, giving it his 21-stage wash and wax job using his second-most-expensive wax. That's a but more than the £6 that my local Kosovans charge, but they, like me, only have a £4 bucket.