About OCDetails

OCDetails is the brainchild of Anthony Elgan. When Anthony moved to the Salt Lake City, Utah area from Dallas, Texas in 1997, he met up with a man named Dylan Hardman. Dylan and Anthony shared a passion for cars and began exploring different aspects of their hobby. Anthony focused on the appearance and Dylan focused on the mechanics. Between the two of them they were able to polish and wrench their way across two years of really enjoyable times. The time finally came that Anthony decided to take his passion to the next level and he began detailing under the business name ProAuto Detail.

ProAuto Detail was a really cheap way to get your car looking good. For $40 you would get a full interior and exterior detail including engine detail and hand wax or sealant. You simply can't beat that. If Anthony really worked hard at lining up the cars and getting them done in a hurry, it was possible to earn $150 in one day. The level of quality was only limited by the tools and the products that Anthony had access to.

In searching online for information on something called 'Teflon Sealants' Anthony came across a detailing community known now as Autopia. Registering under the moniker of Jngrbrdman (Gingerbread Man), Anthony quickly became a regular contributor of the forums. Autopia was still relatively young and didn't have much in the way of moderators or rules. Being the first successful real dedicated detailing message board for enthusiasts had quite a draw and the population grew very quickly. Soon David Bynon, the owner, had to organize a staff of moderators to help keep up with everything. Anthony was in the first batch of moderators and was assigned to cover several forums including the Product Review forum.

Anthony took his duty very seriously and read every post that came through. He tested and posted about as many products that he could get his hands on. Always posting his honest opinions and doing his best to avoid beoming biased toward any particular product or method quickly built a reputation for Anthony as an expert in the subject of detailing. Applying what was discussed and learned from message boards like Autopia enabled Anthony to grow his detailing business to the point where $40 wouldn't even get your windows washed. $40 became the hourly rate that was charged for his services instead. The days of ProAuto Detail were over and OCDetails was born.

OCDetails.com began as a response to a question asked on Team-Integra.net. A member asked him if he could describe his entire process for preparing a car for show. Ever being a verbose sucker, Anthony proceeded to write a lengthy response that outlined his process from top to bottom and inside and out. He discussed products, processes, prices, methods, and order. It turned into a ten page essay on detailing according to Anthony. In order to provide the resource to others so that he didn’t have to keep rewriting it, Anthony posted it in the detailing forum as “Jngrbrdman’s Show Car Detailing Tips”. That was posted in January of 2004 and eventually evolved into the first article on the OCDetails.com website in May of the same year.

Currently there are several more articles on the OCDetails.com website including guides for the beginner detailers, leather care guides, and explanations on the difference between waxes and sealants. There are also other resources available on the site that may or may not survive the next update that should go live in fall of 2008, but we shall see. OCDetails.com sees an average of 500 hits per week from all over the world. It is cited regularly on detailing forums in Australia, the Philippines, and the US, of course. In the new version that will be posted there are hundreds of links going out to a dozen sites that carry the best detailing products on earth. The whole purpose of OCDetails is to spread better detailing knowledge to everybody in a language that is easy to understand.

Anthony is still active on several detailing forums and still details cars in the Salt Lake valley. While product testing and reviews aren’t as regular as process posts or simple question answering, he is still concerned that people have the information they need to do the job right the first time. Now that it is over ten years since he first started thinking about detailing seriously, there are few situations involving car care that he hasn’t encountered and developed a solution for. However, no matter how much knowledge he has or will obtain as he continues to learn about his art, he never forgets that there was a time when he knew next to nothing about detailing. Anthony will always remain happy to help whenever someone has a question that needs an answer. No matter how long the answer may be, he is always willing to take the time to make sure the information is communicated clearly. And that is what OCDetails is all about.