The Origins of Detailing

I'm confident that the origins of detailing came from those who had horse-drawn carriages, as opposed to those who had open or covered wagons. These carriages (by the way, that's where we get the term, "undercarriage" wash comes from. What were they cleaning off? Well, what does a horse do when on the go? In my professional of 25 years opinion is that the underside of your vehicle does not need to be cleaned.) be varnished or painted or covered with some sort of chemical that would preserve the wood. I'm not sure, I didn't google it, but you know it had some sort of shmootz on it to protect the wood. Carriages were fancy and for the rich, so they wanted to keep them looking nice. Anyway, some stable boy probably got out some ointment or balm or a vaseline-type product. Whatever they had on hand until something was made specifically for carriages.

Fast forward to the 90s. Detailing was a hobby-like venture. Very few, if any professional shops. It was being done at dealerships, driveways, and designated outdoor places. We spent 8 hours soap washing, buffing, and applying hand-wax. Why we say hand wax is because in those days, applying it by machine was a short-cut. A hack would do that. An amateur would do so. Only a "fake" detailer would use a machine to apply it. If you don't apply wax by hand you aren't doing it right. Which is absolute nonsense. A machine polisher applied protectant is better and faster, but anyways. We would wipe down the interior, vacuum and apply loads of goopy, greasy, slimy "protectant" to all of the plastic and leather (if it had any leather). We called it interior dressing. I guess we thought the interior was a salad, I don't know. The reason we used a greasy, slimy dressing was because those 90s and older interiors were dull, dingy, and faded. Making the interior drip with grease looked good, I guess. Anyways, after 8 hours we were done. We charged $100 smackers. Some charged more and some charged less, but that's what we all did.

Fast forward to 2026. Detailing is a legitimate career and profession. Some still hold onto that driveway detailing culture and spend 8 hours on a vehicle and charge $100. Seriously, I see prices even today for $100 to detail a vehicle for 8 hours. Insane! Some detailing businesses in the bigger cities are generating revenues well into the seven figures. They achieve this because of tint, PPF, vinyl wraps, and ceramic coatings.

From its humble beginnings of smearing vaseline onto shelacked (maybe they used a wood stain) wood to prevent the wood from rotting for .10 cents to wrapping a vehicle in PPF for 10 grand, detailing has come a long way. Albeit, the last 20 years of professional detailing has advanced far more than the first hundred years.

My name is Tug Bankert. I own and operate Wax On Wax Off Detailing in Hanover PA. I have been doing so since 2013. I have shelacked a lot of exteriors and interiors in my day. Gone are the days of using a soap to just wash and exterior. Gone are the days where we would spend 4 or 5 hours removing scratches from paint. Gone are the days where we would spend hours cleaning an interior and then putting a salad dressing on it to grease it up. Now are the days where we make vehicles shiny. Protect the interior and exterior with ceramic protectants. These protectants make the interior and exterior look their absolute best, stay that way, and easier to clean. Now are the days where we spend half the time we used to, charge 10 times what we used to and produce results 100 times better than we every could 20 years ago even.