Richard Tipper has the skills and passion to get a classic not just nearly clean, but really clean
WORDS CHARLIE CALDERWOOD PHOTOGRAPHY MALCOLM GRIFFITHS
I’ve always been a detailer,” says Richard Tipper, reflecting on the term that defines his business, but which didn’t exist in the UK when he started out in 1989. “It’s a terminology that came across from America,” he says. “There, car cleaning is detailing; over here it has been adapted to refer to a cleaning service that is to the extreme.”
The clientele is often exceptional, too. He counts off the models he has cleaned on a checklist, in much the same way collectors might with vehicles they own. “Over the years I’ve hunted down cars that I’ve had a desire to work on,” he says. “The first Ferrari that Michael Schumacher drove and won in; Colin McRae’s championship-winning Subaru – I’ve worked on the entire Prodrive heritage fleet.”
Yet it was in the early days when Richard came across the car that remains his favourite. Just a year after he began valeting, a friend left the industry and passed on a client who owned a new Ferrari F40. Richard has looked after it ever since, through successive owners, and tackled a further 25 F40s. “I’ve done almost every iteration of Ferrari road car,” he says.
Having started out washing neighbours’ cars at the age of 14, Richard considers the moment he turned professional to be when he passed his driving test. With a Vauxhall Astra to get around, all he needed was the equipment. “My dad said we should visit the bank to get a loan, and that I needed to put together a business plan to work out if there was a profit,” he says. But the plan turned out to be for his father, who loaned him the money that he soon paid back.
Working on an MGB GT today, the first step is to look over the vehicle and get an idea of expectations. This is crucial for older cars, where there may be patches of flaking paint that need to be treated gently, or even areas of patina the owner would rather weren’t corrected. Richard points at the riveted headlamp covers on the MG: “They’re going to annoy me, because there is no way of getting underneath.” Each opening is checked to make sure it is fully closed, then he feels in the arches for loose paint. “There’s a lot of negative press about jet washers, especially on classics, but if use
