Meguiar's Ultimate Compound History by Mike Phillips

[Mike Phillips]

Meguiar's Ultimate Compound History by Mike Phillips


Meguiar's Ultimate Compound and SwirlX

Notes

The 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL on the label of Ultimate Compound was detailed at a Thursday Night Open Garage or TNOG class taught by me.

The 1991 e34 BMW M5 on the label of SwirlX was personally detailed by me for the 2002 Bimmerfest in Santa Barbara.


The backstory....

When it comes to Meguiar's and other large companies that offer multiple lines for multiple markets, i.e.

Professional Line for the refinishing industry
Detailer Line for the reconditioning industry
Consumer Line for the enthusiast market
Marine Line for the boat detailing world


The products are formulated more specifically for their intended use and their intended user.

It's assumed that anyone working in a body shop has a higher skill level when it comes to machine polishing paint than the person first starting out washing and waxing their Ford Focus.

As such, the Consumer Line, Ultimate Compound, is formulated for ease of use by the masses while still accomplishing the task the name on the bottle says it will tackle.

I find UC much more user-friendly for the average person than M105 and most important, if UC doesn't remove the defects you're trying to remove then chances are very good they're too deep to safely remove using any compound and as a follow-up it's time to start looking at how the deeper defects are being inflicted into the paint and stop the problem at the root cause.

Just to note... the car on the label of Ultimate Compound is one of the many Extreme Makeovers I head up while working for Meguiar's and in charge of the TNOG's also known as The Thursday Night Open Garage classes. Most people don't know that when I started the Thursday Night Open Garage classes they were actually on Wednesday nights and then I moved them to Thursday nights. It is also the TNOGs that I first met Michael Stoops as before he worked for Meguiar's he attended many of the TNOG's.


Here's some pictures showing the Mercedes-Benz on the label of Ultimate Compound.

Taping the hood off at a DIAGONAL
Like all others, normally I place the tape line down the middle to showcase a Before & After results. But in the moment, I just thought,

Let's do something different!

So instead of taping off the paint the normal way, I taped off the hood at a diagonal. I've actually never seen anyone else to this, but it is a tick on the wacky side. But it does get your attention, if for no other reason because it's different than the norm.

Here's the results after machine buffing just the driver's side.

And here's what the marketing team at Meguiar's did!

Meguiar's Ultimate Compound

Note: The graphic artist at Meguiar's removed the Mercedes-Benz emblem off the hood to make the car appear more generic.

Here's that Mercedes-Benz looked like when it first arrived to the shop...

After....

My Thursday night guys did the Mercedes, I personally did the BMW
And again the marketing team at Meguiar's used this BMW I detailed on the label of SwirlX.

Kind of cool to have two cars, one I was in charge of and one I detailed end up on millions of bottles of Meguiar's products.


There's a little car detailing history for the Car Detailing Coffee Table Book.


Mike

 

[Setec Astronomy]

When it comes to Meguiar's and other large companies that offer multiple lines for multiple markets, i.e.

Professional Line for the refinishing industry
Detailer Line for the reconditioning industry
Consumer Line for the enthusiast market
Marine Line for the boat detailing world


The products are formulated more specifically for their intended use and their intended user.

It's assumed that anyone working in a body shop has a higher skill level when it comes to machine polishing paint than the person first starting out washing and waxing their Ford Focus.

As such, the Consumer Line, Ultimate Compound, is formulated for ease of use by the masses while still accomplishing the task the name on the bottle says it will tackle.

There's a little car detailing history for the Car Detailing Coffee Table Book.

I'll make room on my coffee table for that one.

That's a great explanation for the critics of Meguiar's having too many overlapping products and product lines.