The first bit of the car arrives!

Well, the documents and the first it of the car arrived via FedEx today. The first bit was the original gear shift knob which had been replaced with a stainless steel version on the car. The other documents consisted of the owners handbook, original dealers list, EPA certificate and original 1981 promotional brochure. All in great condition, especially considering their age. The EPA certificate is a copy, and I'm not sure its for VIN#10719 as the cars VIN doesn't feature anywhere. I'll have to ask the seller what the
story is on these.

The gear shift knob was like many of the other DeLorean ones I'd seen before. They always seemed to let the interior of the car down in my opinion, looking drab and boring by comparison.The original from VIN 10719 was no exception, so I can see why this one had been replaced with a stainless steel number. It also sported some nasty marks on both sides where over the years objects had been bashed into the gear stick and left their mark. These really made it look both rough and unloved.

So, as the first real repair job on VIN#10719 I decided to see if I could give it a face lift and role back the years on this sad looking bit of automobile history. Now, luckily for me I have access to some polishing machines, similar to the type of thing used by jewellers to polish precious metals. Having previously been both a jeweller and silversmith I new the gear shift knob could be polished using the same polishing compounds used for metal (I think its made out of a cast resin compound). Plus, these machines could be used to carefully "polish out" the scrapes picked up over the years. Care had to be taken not to polish out the shifting pattern embossed into the top of the gear shift knob. The polishing mops come in a firmer and "softer" version, so I needed to alternate between the two to get the desired final finish, making sure each time not to take too much off, or alter the overall shape. While doing the polishing the gear shift emitted an interesting "old car" smell.

 

After a fair amount of careful polishing this was the final result. No scratches, and a nice polished appearance. Much better than the pitted original example. Now, I'm not sure than the original factory examples had this level of finish, but considering how easy the main surface of the ball was to polish I can only imagine it did. As for the gear shift pattern I'm not sure. It did make me wonder if the pattern was picked out in another colour, such as white. One thongs for sure this will make a nice "original" feature in the car.