Father Surprised With His Corvette Cleaned For The First Time in 30 YEARS EMOTIONAL REACTION

Inside this garage, we found a Corvette that's been sitting untouched for over 30 years. This has not been opened since the car's been in there, so this has been closed for 30 years. And it's been completely neglected, but then the owner came outside and told us why. It was just my dream car. I had to make a decision, pay $3,000 a year insurance or contribute that $3,000 to my daughter's education. So he stopped driving it because instead of paying for the insurance, he wanted to put his daughter through school. And now for this deserving man, we're going to bring this car back to life. All right, so the Corvette's right in here, right? Yes, yes. And it was your father-in-law's? Yes, it is. How long has it been in here? At least 30 years. This has not been opened since the car's been in there, so this has been closed for 30 years because we had to cut this one off to get in. Just to get in. Oh, man. Yes. I'm thinking if maybe we pick up on these at the same time. Oh, there we go. Wow. Holy smokes. You know, we haven't featured too many C4s on the channel. They're almost a little too new to be in conditions like these. This one's perfect. And like I said, it has not been touched at all since it came in the garage. At least 30 years. He drove it for about five years, then he started getting prepared for his daughter to go to college, and it was more of a liability, the cost of it compared to him having to spend for her to go to college. So he sacrificed his sports car for his daughter's college. Sounds like a good man. Yeah, I mean, that's basically the type of person he is. He's the go-to person, even for his wife, for every friend that she has. He's the go-to person. Fixes the tile, that paints the houses, that does everything for every single body else. So this is basically like, I guess, my gift to him. Oh, yeah, I'm excited. I haven't seen my baby in a long time because I was too fat to get in here. This is the owner of the car, Mr. Taylor. I'm RJ. Very nice to meet you, sir. When was the last time you drove this car? 30 years ago. Wow. And you were telling us just a moment ago that every Saturday, you'd wake up, pull her out, clean her up. Everything. Yeah. I mean, one Saturday, I worked on this car so long that when I got finished and got ready to start it up, I ran down the battery because I had the music playing. Yeah, it sounds like you had a lot of fun with this car. It meant a lot to you. Yeah, it did. I couldn't afford the insurance. I had a car, my wife had a car, and this was my play toy. I took the money out of my pension plan and paid cash for it. It was just my dream car. And I drove it, but then I had to make a decision. Pay $3,000 a year insurance or contribute that $3,000 to my daughter's education. And I'm proud I did that. And I parked it then and never got around to it. Then I got too old. Well, I don't think you're too old yet. At least not for us to clean it up and bring it back and hopefully get it running and driving so you can drive it again. At least once, you got to get back in it. And then I know that- Oh yeah, I'll get it in once. Yeah. But somebody's going to have to help me out. You sound like an amazing father, amazing man. And we're happy to do this for you. And we have another challenge now that we got the garage door open is we have to move this van out of the way and then snake my trailer in here and drag this thing out. So now the first thing we need to do is get everything out of the way of this van and put it up on dollies so we can actually move it because it hasn't moved in a few years. But while we're doing this, all I want to ask you guys is to see if we can get to 10,000 likes on this video. We do all these videos 100% for free. It would really help us out if you took a second to hit that like button. All right. So we have a pretty narrow driveway and we weren't able to get the trailer back here. So I went ahead and backed the truck up and we're going to pull the Corvette out using every strap that we have. And we have two flat tires and two tires that are holding air. I'm really hoping they all roll. Otherwise, it's going to be more challenging than I'd like. And with the Corvette out of the garage, look at how cool this thing looks all dirty. I know that's a weird sentence to say, but for some reason, this thing just looks so cool. I want to ask you guys, what is your favorite Corvette? I don't think C4s are the most popular of the Corvettes, but hey, maybe some of you watching, that's your absolute favorite. So I'm not going to count you out. We figured now would be a good time to let you guys know that we are traveling around the United States looking for cars just like this to feature on the channel. So if you have an enthusiast vehicle that looks like this or is dusty and dirty, reach out to us at our email here or our Instagram and let us know what you got and where you're at. And we might just come out, pick up your car, and detail it completely for free. All right, we're back at the shop with Mr. Taylor's C4 Corvette. And we're going to run this video a little bit differently than we usually do because we really want to get this car running and driving. What we're going to do in this video is we're actually going to try and get the car started first. So I think our first plan of action is to hopefully locate the lug key for these wheels because these wheels are not holding air. They are super dry rotted. And obviously if it's going to drive on the road again, we're going to need some new tires. If you come over here, Brent, you can see that we have a wheel lock, but we don't have the actual key. So we have to search the interior of the car and really hope that we find it. Problem one, this door won't open. Oh, Mike, I'm sorry. I got the thing. You hurt me. You have the key? I think this is the thing we need for the wheels, which I thought we would not find. So that's actually kind of incredible. First, we have to get rid of all this raccoon poop and check out what's going on under the engine bay. I have quite a large nest up front over here. That's a pretty large nest and a ton of poop. So luckily raccoons aren't able to get so close to the engine bay, but we do have a little bit of mouse house action going on here. But luckily that's almost always stopped by the air filter. So hopefully there's air filters in here to stop them from actually getting into the carburetors or else that's that could be something where we're in big trouble. Let's see. Perfect. This looks, see the mouses were all around it. Around it. Yeah. Wow. We got lucky. Yeah. This must be the same system that was in the late C3s that we were working on. It looks almost identical. And now I'm going to quickly go over the other things that we did, because later in this video, our mechanic Adam's going to come and actually try to get this thing running. So first we sucked all the old fuel out and surprisingly, it didn't smell as bad as you'd expect 30 year old gas to smell. Then we checked the oil. It did have oil in it, although a little dirty, still in there and good. Then we pulled one of the spark plugs to see what shape they were in. They weren't in the greatest of shape, but those can easily be replaced. And finally, we bore scoped one of the cylinders and the one cylinder that we happened to bore scope was in great shape, but you'll see what happened later in this video. All right, guys. 2026 is the year that WD Detailing gets healthy. And that's why we built the WD Gym. And I got to say, I'm pretty proud of myself because I'm already down 18 pounds and I feel amazing. But that's not just because of the workouts that I've been doing or the food that I've been eating. It's also because of the nutrients and vitamins that I've been getting from this video sponsor Gruins. But there's one issue. We ate all the Gruins. But no worries. We asked them to send out another bag so that we can make this ad that just goes to show how much we enjoyed them. Gruins is a convenient, comprehensive formula that's packed into a snack pack a day. And it's not a multivitamin, a green supplement, or a prebiotic. It's actually all of those and then some at a fraction of the price. And the best part is it tastes great. Even Brent's eating these while he's filming me. And Brent's kind of a chicken nugget guy. So if he likes them, you'll like them. Gruins is more comprehensive and accurately dosed than your current nutrition solution. All of the vitamins are at 100% of your daily value and the minerals are at 25%, which is a safe and effective amount. My favorite thing about Gruins is how easy it is to get all of your vitamins and minerals. And I look forward to eating my pack of Gruins every single morning. The best part is sweet little treat instead of having to get a powder and dump it into the bottle and get the water and shake it up. This is easy. You can eat them on the go. I keep them here at the shop. And I'm going to need more because all the guys eat my Gruins. And so it looks like we're going to need like three bags a month. And right now is the best time to try Gruins because you can get 52% off if you click the link in the description below. Guys, I really enjoy using this. I feel great. My sleep's been better. My workouts have been stronger. My skin's getting clearer. Thank you so much to Gruins for sponsoring this video. But now it's time to get back to that Corvette. All right, for the wheels on the Corvette, we're going to be using our WD Auto Supply Tire Cleaner and our WD Auto Supply Purple Rain Wheel Cleaner. So this has iron removing properties. So you're actually going to see the wheel turn purple. And that's the product working and breaking down all the brake dust. Our tire cleaner is actually in this pump sprayer. It works well both ways, but I think this is more fun to use. So while we're working here in the engine, from what I'm told, this crossfire injection is one of Chevy's worst things they ever did with a Corvette engine. My question to you guys is one, why is it so bad? And two, what would you replace it with? Now the next step in the process of detailing this Corvette is after the wash, we're going to go ahead and clay bar the whole entire exterior, as well as remove all the iron in the paint. So when you drive your vehicle, your brakes kick up little bits of iron particulate that get lodged in your clear coat, and you need to remove them before polishing or before waxing. What is embedded in this paint is a lot of contaminants, which is all this dirt that you see. So we're going to start with the least aggressive, which is the clay bar. And hint, hint, this might end up in our store in the spring. So stay tuned for that. But what we like to do is we actually like to do two steps in one. We like to remove the iron as well as clay bar the paint. So I'll show you how I do it. A couple sprays. And usually this stuff smells really, really bad. It smells like rotten eggs because of the sulfur in it. Ours smells like cinnamon, which is the best smelling one that we've ever used. So I'm actually going to have to use a pretty decent amount of pressure. And you can hear it. If you hear my microphone, you can hear all that kind of grit, that sandpaper noise. That's the clay mitt, the synthetic clay. Removing all that from the top layer of the clear coat. Now, I wouldn't recommend pressing this hard if you're not going to polish after. In our case, we are. But look how it strips all of that dirt out of the clear coat. And you can also use it on the window and do the same exact thing because glass holds on to contaminants as well. All right, guys, we are here with our resident mechanic, Adam, who helps us get all these cars running. And this is the first time that he's seen the Corvette. We've actually already taken off the airbox completely so that Adam can take a look at the throttle bodies, which these are super confusing and usually super finicky. Yeah, this crossfire injection isn't exactly GM's best creation. So we're going to see what we can make happen here today. Everything looks looks good. It all moves that the actual inside the intake looks very clean. Throttle blades look very clean. There's nothing missing. There's nothing broken. So I'm feeling pretty good. We already drained all the old gas. I pulled a spark plug. I bore scoped the cylinder wall and it looks super clean. We made sure it has oil. I guess the first step is swap these out and then put the fresh gas in and try and start it. Yeah, let's do it. Went ahead and put new spark plug wires and spark plugs in here. We got some fresh gas in the gas tank. We got a battery in place and it's time for RJ to turn it over and let's hear how this thing turns over first and see if we get any fuel coming out of our injectors up here. Let's go ahead and hit it. Ready? Yep. All right, guys. Well, we tried to start it over. We figured it was locked up and sure enough, look at that. Super rusty and pitted sidewalls in cylinder number eight. And we went through and bore scoped the easy to access cylinders and man, they look good. And that's why I gave it the little bump. And when it moved everything, I was like, okay, cool. You know, we'll move forward. Man, that's a bummer. I really wanted to show back up and have this car running and driving for Mr. Taylor. And it sucks that we have to go back and let them know that the car doesn't run, but at least you'll get to see it nice and clean. So don't click off this video. We're still going to finish cleaning this car, take it back to Mr. Taylor. And he gave us an amazing reaction anyways. So we're sorry to you guys, but we're going to keep trying to get cars running when we can. Moving on to the interior of this Corvette. I really want to highlight the instrument cluster. I think it is so eighties and so cool. If I could get the key to work, there we go. Everything is controlled off the panel over here. So if you want to switch things on there, like let's look at, for example, your speedometer, you can switch it to KPH. It just goes over on the other side. And that goes for everything, for oil temperature, for your range. So it's interesting because most cars don't have any more switches on your actual dashboard. One thing that is interesting, we just mentioned the stalks, is that this car does not have a stalk that controls the windshield wipers. It actually has that on the door, which I think is very, very uncommon. Because I don't know any other car that has a control like that. If you know one or you have a car like that, please mention in the comments below because I'd like to know. It's a quirky feature to have that over there. It does have a stalk, but it is for cruise control, which was probably a pretty nice option to have back in the day. Now, I thought this car would have leather seats. Almost all of the Corvettes that we've done in the past have had leather seats, but this has a very retro style eighties seat with a Corvette badge up top. And I know they're dirty now and look kind of grody, but I do think that they're going to clean up really nice. And I do think it's really cool how they have the integrated controls on either side of the seat. Now, with all that being said, it is really gross in here, and I don't have a mask on, so I really don't want to stay here any longer. I'm going to hop out of the car, and then we're going to get these seats out of here and get started on the carpet. Now, for later use to start breaking up some of these stains, first I'm going to use an enzyme solution because I know mice were running around in this car. So you want to use that to get rid of that bacteria. And then a little trick that I was taught by Jason Kilmer, you can use Rust-Oleum Rust Dissolver Gel and spray it into the carpet to sit for a while. And it's going to help get a lot of it, if not all of it out. And while all that sits and starts breaking stuff down, we're going to start working on the seats. That way they have enough time to dry before going back into the Corvette. All right, the Corvette wheels are removed and we are ready to polish. And at first inspection, I see we have some staining that's in the top layer of the clear coat that's left over from our clay bar treatment. And truth be told, the rest of the paint is in pretty good shape. A little bit of oxidation here and there, but nothing too crazy. So there's a couple areas that I'm going to hit with the rotary to remove that staining that I spoke about at the beginning. And then we're going to finish it out with a dual polisher and foam pad to remove any remaining dirt that's embedded into the clear coat so we can surprise Mr. Taylor. All right, guys, we are back with Kenya. The Corvette is all clean and it's in the trailer. Have you ever seen the car clean? No, this is the first time I've ever gone to see the car clean, period. Oh, man. I've never even seen it moved. So this is just going to be the best. All right, well, I think we're going to leave it in the trailer and then we'll back it up into the driveway and get into the garage. But here we go. I don't even know the color of the car. Holy moly. How in the world was I even able to get... Not bad, right? Not shabby at all. I can actually see inside of it. I didn't realize I could even see inside of it. Yeah, right? We couldn't see out the windshield. So now the real question is, do you think your father-in-law is going to be pretty excited? Oh, I'm pretty sure. All right, well, let's get in place and then I guess go and get him. Are you ready to see your car? Yes, I am. All right, let's do it. We're excited for you to see it too. Oh, damn. Oh, excuse me. I apologize. Oh, wow. My God. Looks a little bit better, huh? I can't believe this. How's that paint feel? Feels great. Just like you remember? Better than I remember. Oh, heck yeah. I have never cleaned this clean. Yeah, I gave up a lot to get this baby. Everything that you've done for your daughter, we were happy that... Do you have a little girl? No, no, no, no. One day, I hope. I hope though. No girls? I hope one day. But one day, I hope to be the man like the man you are. But I was going to give you... I build dollhouses. Oh, yeah? And I wanted to give you one. You were like the sweetest guy I've ever met in my life. I appreciate this. Absolutely. This is a family legacy. I never sold it, never attempted to sell it, just stored it. And then my son-in-law found out about y'all and I said, go for it. Well, we can tell... It's gorgeous. We can tell it clearly means a lot. And like I said, after everything we heard about you from Kenya, this is well-deserved. But we want to say thank you to everyone at home for watching. We appreciate it. Love you guys so much. Thank you for giving us the ability to do this as a job. And if you like the video, give it a thumbs up. And if you want to see more like this... I'll give it two. Hit subscribe and we're going to see you next week.