New Kirkham Owner

[twobjshelbys]

As a non-owner but observer of plenty of the unpainted cars I can tell you that I've seen many more poor examples than shining ones. Two stand out:

At the Shelby American Collection a few years ago someone drove up in one and it was in pretty bad shape. The guards to the Cobra section huddled over it for a few minutes and the driver was asked to move it to the general parking area. They said the finish was so distracting (in a negative way) they didn't want it in the judging area.

At Barrett Jackson Shelby American had one of their 50th editions in bare metal on display, it looked like it needed a lot of TLC. Later that afternoon I watched them move it to the Mothers booth and they had two guys start on it. Later i saw it parked under a cover. The Mothers booth guy said it would take much more time than they could afford to spend on it since they had other vehicles that had to be done before they crossed the block. It sat covered the entire week.

A bare naked lady is the equivalent of black paint. It's never clean and you are never done cleaning it. Do you want to spend your time driving it or preening its feathers? Your choice. I never regretted selling my black Mustangs, but never regretted never having another black car. PS. The British Racing Green Cobra was just as bad as black and at car shows looked dusty within minutes.

Third, an owner of a BNL, who sold it, told me he wished he had painted it to begin with but was "too far into the culture" to change it.

And finally about pools: I also have a salt pool and cleaner. Sure, it keeps chlorine in it, but you forgot that you have to feed the chlorine generator lots of muriatic acid. The salt system generates chlorine by electrically tearing apart a salt atom (NaCl) into a Sodium (NA) and Chlorine (CL) atom. The CL becomes the pool CL. The Na returns to the water where it interacts with the Muriatic Acid (Hydrochloric Acid, HCl). The Sodium atom has a higher valence than the H, and so it steals the Cl from HCl to become salt (NaCl) again, leaving a free H to return to the atmosphere. (This is the net chemical reaction, there are intermediate compounds involved but it boils down to the fact that the salt pool never consumes salt, only Muriatic Acid. And LOTS OF ELECTRICITY!!!!) In the winter when the salt cell is out of the system I use a quart of Muriatic Acid and two chlorine tabs every two weeks. In the summer I use a half gallon of Muriatic Acid every three to 4 days to maintain a 5ppm Cl concentration. It is said that salt pools have increased pH. Now you know why - the acid is what feeds the system and is a consumable.