I used to use this back in the 70s. It was made by Dupont if I remember right and it came in a flat round can like car wax used to and it had a buffer attached to the lid. This stuff worked great. It gave black walls a nice semi-gloss sheen! Not the silly wet look like the spray on crap they have now. Anybody remember this? Is it still available anywhere?
I could still get Mar-Hide as of about 5 or 6 years ago when I fixed up an old Jetta and sold it. I used it on all the black plastic trim, made it look like new. Basic rule of thumb is, if it worked good from the dawn of time through the 80's the EPA has banned it or made the manufacturers change the formula till it's as usefull as dog pee.
I don't rememeber where this idea came from but I dressed my 55 Dodge up for the high school prom by swabbing a mixture of kerosene and lamp black on the tires. Looked fabulous until we had a flat tire. All that lamp black came off on the rented white tux. My date laughed herself silly and the rental store was less than sympathetic.
Forever black, I've used the trim product but not the tire dressing http://www.forevercarcareproducts.com/products.htm
That was good stuff, almost like shoe polish. ArmorAll made a low gloss product for a while maybe you can find some. Also try an interior detailer spray for dashboards.
A lot of the new formulations seem to turn tires brown after a short time. Does anyone know of a product that does not do this? HemiDeuce.
Personal favorite is still Beech White - spray it on and let it draw the dirt out, scrub with a finger nail brush and rinse, leaving just a nice clean tire rubber - Simple Green works well also adn with scrubbing will get Armour All off as well.
I've used a few different tire shines, if there is any dirt on the tires it seems to do a good job of highlighting this and making the tires brown and nasty looking... Have yet to personally find a tire shine that I really liked.
STP son of a gun is more watery than other dressings and after a day or two soaks in and leaves a nice black look without the shinyness.
I remember it well. I never used it for tire dressing, just for touching up whilewall/white letter tires that found their way into a curb. It was No.7 tire black. Dupont had a No.7 auto products group (No.7 chrome polish, ect.) that was a staple in every auto parts store for years. I was thinking that I may have a can of this and just went out to the garage to look. The can I found says No.7 tire black and was packaged by Borden Inc. (yeah, like Elsie the cow dairy products) I remember using the stuff in this can before, and it's indeed the original stuff. Blackest goo there ever was, get in on your hands and you're tattooed for a week, etc. I think Dupont sold the No.7 line a long time ago, and it may have changed hands several times since. It does appear that it's history at this point though. Could be that it hasn't been gone long enough that an older parts store may still have some. But, I guess all the Mom and Pop parts stores are gone too. Well, now that I've revealed my age, I guess I'll go break wind and nod out again....
I used Pledge for years to give my Harley a quick clean and shine on chrome and painted surfaces like the tank, fenders, handle bars etc . Works really great. In any case one day I got carried away and shot some on the seat. Worked great on the seat too but made the seat kinda slippery. Then I tried the tires. Worked great on the tire too.
Back in the 70s we used liquid floor wax to snaz up tires. Brake fluid works ok. I used to apply brake fluid to the front end bushings in my 59 Belair whenever they got squeeky.
Way back when we used to use water mixed with sugar, wipe it on the tire and let it dry. As I remember it worked quite well. Then I used a white grease pencil to touch up the raised white letters; man what was I thinking!
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