Rich H
Member
Registered: 26th Oct 05
Location: West Sussex Drives: E46 M3
User status: Offline
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Yes it's another detail from me 
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Bit of blurb courtesy of Wikipedia first for you all:
In 1961, Citroën began work on 'Project S' - a sports variant of the revolutionary Citroën DS. As was customary for the firm, many running concept vehicles were developed, increasingly complex and upmarket from the DS - eventually becoming a halo vehicle for the brand. Citroën purchased Maserati in 1968 with the intention of harnessing Maserati's high performance engine technology to produce a true Gran Turismo car, combining the sophisticated Citroën suspension with a Maserati V6 engine.
The result was the Citroën SM first shown at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1970. It finally went on sale in France in September of that year. All produced were left-hand-drive, although 3 official RHD conversions were done in the UK, and recently also Australia.
The origin of the model name 'SM' is not clear. The 'S' likely derives from the Project 'S' designation, the aim of which was to produce what is essentially a sports variant of the Citroën DS, and the 'M' perhaps refers to Maserati, hence SM is often assumed to stand for 'Sports Maserati', but others have suggested it is short for 'Sa Majesté' (Her Majesty in French), which aligns with the common DS model's nickname 'La déesse' (The Goddess).
The SM was Citroën's flagship vehicle, competing with other high performance GTs of the time from manufacturers such as Jaguar, Lotus, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Alfa Romeo and Porsche. It was also Citroën's way of demonstrating just how much power and performance could be accommodated in a front-wheel drive design.
The SM's six headlight set up was illegal in the United States at the time and consequently, US specification cars were fitted with four fixed round exposed lamps.
It placed eleventh on Automobile Magazine's 2005 "100 Coolest Cars" listing.
So on with the write up...
As you will probably spot, this had the 4 exposed headlights so immediately makes it clear that it's a US import - due to this, the car is in brilliant condition - no visible rust at all, and is never driven in the wet to ensure it stays that way. The owner purchased the car 2 years ago and contacted me to see what I could do with it to try and bring the paintwork back to life (it's seen various pieces of paint over the years so is a bit of a patchwork) I have been working on this on any free days I have, and spent around 4 days on it in total - the longest I've ever spent on 1 car before!
Befores:
The swirls :doublesho :
The paintwork is a patchwork of 2pak and clearcoated black making each panel behave differently towards polish and pad combos, there are numerous RDS and sanding marks that have remained due to them being beneath clearcoat etc - despite cautious attempts to remove them with 3000grit wet & dry by myself ( I didn't want to risk anything stronger)
My first task on day 1 a couple of weeks back was the engine bay - I managed to forget to take any photos for a couple of hours so I didn't take any of the engine before. It wasn't horrendous - some light traffic film and oil / grease on various components. I took a good 90 mins wiping and brushing down with AS G101 and polishing metal components with the britemax twins, paintwork was polished by hand with AG SRP. Fiddly components were cleaned with cotton buds and AS G101. The results:
Not a pretty engine bay by any means!
Next up was the wash & clay stage. Due to the car never being driven in poor weather, it was pretty clean, but it was given a precautionary wash down in situe with Optimum No Rinse and dried off using Elite Ultra Soft drying towels. The paintwork was marring very easily so I opted for a very fine poly clay with AS Reglaze as lube. The paint again was pretty contaminant free, which surprised me, but better safe than sorry!
I then went around the car taking hundreds of paint readings. I forgot to take a photo of the sheet I wrote all the recordings on, but it varied on individual panels from 200ish up to 1000. Lowest reading on the entire car was 189, highest 1350 :doublesho
Still on day 1 I decided to tackle the interior. Again no before photos, this time because there wasn't anything to really show - it was dusty, but not filthy. A thorough hoover of all the carpets and between each crevice in the seat, before a full wipe down of all plastics with AS Multifresh. Plastics dressed with Aerospace 303 to offer to some UV protection. Leather was cleaned using AS Leather cleaner and later conditioned with Gliptone which made the interior smell a lot less musty! Narrow joints were cleaned out with cocktail sticks and a Megs Slidelock brush to leave:
Possibly the coolest and comfiest seats ever!!
Day 2:
Started off by taping all vulnerable panel gaps, rubber seals and brightwork before splitting each vast panel into sections and establishing a suitable pad and polish combo. As the paint had marred so easily during the wash stage I presumed that it would only require a soft approach, but it laughed off Lime Prime, Megs 80, Menzerna 203s, Megs 83, 3M Extra Fine and even Menzerna Power Gloss on various polishing and light cutting pads!! I ended up settling on 3M FCP mixed with a small amount of Ultrafina on either 3M Green or Orange compounding pads depending on the panel. Various sections of panels were also wet sanded with Megs 3000g wet & dry paper in order to try and remove deeper defects (with limited success  ) Some before and afters and 50/50's from around the car:
(Note all the new polishes appeared  )
This took me through day 2 and half way into day 3. The remainder of day 3 was spent refining the finish with 3M extra fine on a yellow pad which only left minor hologrammes, which were to be removed at the end of day 3 and beginning of day 4 with 3M ultrafina.
Day 4: Refined the finish with 3M Ultrafina to remove any remaining hologrammes, then applied Poorboys Black Hole glaze by hand using a lake country finishing applicator pad. LSP of choice was Dodo Supernatural (2 coats) left 30 mins to cure before buffing and 90 mins between coats. In between curing times I tackled brightwork with Briliant polishes (failed to get quite the results I wanted as they were very scratched by what may have been a brillo pad in the past) wheels with Britemax final shine and tyres dressed with AS Vinyl shield, rubber trim and wing mirrors were dressed with AS Trim Ultra.
The weather over day 3 and 4 has been appalling so I was unable to wheel it outside for some final photos as hoped Here's the afters though from in the garage where it's been sat:
Road presence?!:
Quite a cool but quirky speedo imo:
(note the dry stopping distance meter related to speed!)
And some arty reflection / glossy shots:
Levels of correction in all honesty probably were around 75% - near on all the swirls and marring were removed, but I struggled to remove most the RDS and previous sanding marks due to the amount of paintwork it's had - a lot was under the clearcoat I feel. Probably my most challenging detail to date - purely because each panel behaved so differently. But I enjoyed it overall 
Hope that wasn't too boring for you all! Thanks for reading. Comments, constructive criticism and questions welcomed as per usual :thumb:
Rich
[Edited on 11-11-2009 by Rich H]
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gavin18787
Premium Member
Registered: 22nd Feb 05
Location: Basildon, Essex
User status: Offline
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Ace work as always, black always shows epic results 
That speedo is clever
Drives supercharged Tec with torque 
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Matt L
Member
Registered: 17th Apr 06
User status: Offline
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didnt read just looked at pics and  the difference is amazing  top work as always.
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Marc
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Registered: 11th Aug 02
Location: York
User status: Offline
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Looks like an old Citroen!
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DannyB
Premium Member
Registered: 6th Feb 08
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by Marc
Looks like an old Citroen!
That's because it is.
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smcGSI16V
Member
Registered: 26th May 03
Location: Farnborough Drives: Thurlby 888 CDTi No.98
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Excellent work as always Rich.
These old shitrons are very quirky and the sm is quite a nice car.
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sxibeast
Member
Registered: 6th Aug 03
Location: Milton Keynes
User status: Offline
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What a cool car! Excellent work aswell Rich!
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jr
Member
Registered: 20th May 02
Location: Kent
User status: Offline
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by far the coolest car so far
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jamez_zz
Member
Registered: 9th Nov 06
Location: Hullywood
User status: Offline
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Looks expensive, Whats it worth?
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Rich H
Member
Registered: 26th Oct 05
Location: West Sussex Drives: E46 M3
User status: Offline
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Thanks all
Marc - it is  but not quite your average one lol.
Jamez - Enough 
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Daveskater
Premium Member
Registered: 29th Apr 08
Location: Oxford, UK Drives: Jap wagon
User status: Offline
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Impressive stuff, Rich
Transformed tbh.
Btw, you have a few of the same pic in a row
Numberwang!
Originally posted by AlunJ
I like you Dave, you are a man of men
Originally Whatapp'd by Neo
Dave's maybe capable of a drive-by cuddle
Look at my pictures
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ed
Member
Registered: 10th Sep 03
User status: Offline
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Love these cars. They look a lot better with the European headlights on them though
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SVM 286
Member
Registered: 13th Feb 05
Location: pain
User status: Offline
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Glorious in black. Shame about the headlights though.
Much prefer the faired in variety, they look pretty.
Those exposed ones are quite ugly and spoil the front of the car I think.
Wanted one of these for ever. Mine would be gold.
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Rich H
Member
Registered: 26th Oct 05
Location: West Sussex Drives: E46 M3
User status: Offline
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Cheers for all the comments guys.
Dave - Thanks for pointing that out - dodgy wireless keyboard! All fixed now, so a couple of new pics which were meant to be in the write up to start with!
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