What you’re looking at here might just be the most ambitious 50/50 project we’ve ever undertaken. You’ve seen us do specific panels in the past – especially bonnets – but never have we split a car right down the middle to give a before & after. Confused? Don’t be, it’ll all make sense in a few minutes!

We’ll be bringing you a full in-depth blog post covering the exact methods involved, but here’s what you need to know in a nutshell. Mitsubishi Evo VIII spends over five years laid up on a barn collecting dust and never being used. Petrolhead (Danny Coe) finally convinces the owner to sell the car after months of deliberating. Cue one happy new owner, but one very sorry-looking car in need of a trip to Meguiar’s…

Now mechanically the car runs brilliantly, especially having been left standard which is a rarity for Evos in the UK. But that exterior… to say it needed some TLC was a massive understatement! For most people, they’d take two looks at the paint and assume the worst – a full re-spray needed. But tired paintwork isn’t the end of the road for a car; with the right products you’ll be blown away by what can be achieved.

So why only clean half the car? This weekend it’s a little show called Japfest over at Silverstone, and we wanted Danny’s Evo on our stand to showcase just how far the Meguiar’s consumer range can be pushed to revive a car. Cleaning the whole car would’ve resulted in a very nice, standard display car… but when you see just how bad the untouched half is gives it far more impact!

As we said earlier on in the post, we’ll be bringing you a full detailed look into every step and product used (including cleaning the other half of the car for Danny!) but if you’re heading over to Japfest make sure you hit up the Meguiar’s stand to see it in the metal. Trust us, you won’t believe your eyes… but it’s been achieved with nothing but consumer products you can buy (and use) right now.