Well done, I wasnt knocking you and do appreciate looking at the finished product of all that effort.

Life being (too) short or long, it boils down to what you want to fill your life with - and to what degree the chosen life fulfills your needs, dreams, desires. Detailing your car including cleaning wire wheels is no more or less meaningful than rose gardening, building up to perfection an aquarium, making ship models, setting up a miniature electric train or the like. It is all about creating something, mastering a task, enjoying the beauty of your finished work. And in this case, enjoying the very complex and wisely thought out a machine such as a car is. Standing there with a polishing rag I can let my mind wander, I am contained in my little bubble for a while, I find it very meditative and refreshing.
Yesterday I changed my rear brake cylinders, first time, alone - after reading quite a bit on the net resources, learning both the mechanical principles behind a drum brake and how to do it. Sure, I could have paid my local garage to do it, but then I would have missed the wonderful feeling and good mood when I surfaced after the job was sucsessfully completed.
Lordofthewings, congratulations with a wonderful car, enjoy - both driving it and caring for it. It gives you peace of mind.

Thanks for the supportive messages. There are plenty of other TM'ers whose cars are far better turned-out than mine, and who have greater mechanical skills too.

I've always been a bit in awe of the lengths to which concours folk are prepare to go in order to achieve levels of perfection beyond anything the cars knew when they left the factory, but I've personally never felt the need to achieve particularly low levels of miles driven per hour polishing. It comes from the days when I used to use my car to go to work, and the idea of washing the dirt off and drying it before putting it away didn't really hold any appeal on a filthy wet dark night in November after a long day at work.

One question that has occasionally crossed my mind is why there isn't a 'Mechanics' concours, for the engineering rather than the cosmetics. I completely get that people like not having dust behind their throttle pedal or the pile on their carpet all brushed the same way, but I'm wondering why there isn't the same market for stuff like beautifully made alloy brackets, or nicely turned fittings, or stunning bits of welding like you see on SimonH's SiFab stuff. What we used to call 'Trick' stuff on bikes. Stuff that on a concours that would lose points for non-originality.

Not polished necessarily, no gaudy 'dress up' alloy covers over cheap hose clamps, just lovely engineering. Stuff that makes you drool when you're wandering around a race paddock.

Do not worry, you will get there if you whish. When I bought my Roadster in 2017, I was not even sure how to spell the word "car". Now there is a steering damper fitted, Panhard rod, brake reaction stays, new headlights with relays fitted, modfied wipers and wiper motor, all fluids changed, exhaust wraps, yesterday brake cylinders fitted and many more minor mods, all by me. One of the benefits with a Morgan is that you can open the bonnet and actually understand what is going on. Great fun.

One of the competitive categories is "Pride of Ownership", which takes into consideration just what you have described. It also attracts those who are now a bit too creaky for crawling under the car to clean it (especially those of us who don't have a hoist or an inspection pit).

Robbie's comment about "a good mood" is also well made. I enjoy seeing the fruits of my labours (that includes my roses). And in winter, the badges come off the car and stay on display, that way each time I pass them I'm reminded of summer days. It avoids getting any kind of corrosion on the badges, and note that the screws are all aligned.....

I've organised a few bike shows over the years, and we always have a 'Best Engineering' category - the bike may be a bit doggy, but the innovation and engineering skill is evident. Been some really interesting stuff over the years (think Millyard kind of stuff).

Four cylinder BSA Bantam that won a few years ago

Like lots of opportunities in life, you have to try it once, or twice, or...

The first time was to support the MSCC due to low entries, the second to honour the previous MTW owners history, all my three classics now hold trophies in their history and this has allowed my knowledge to Judge and help support folks giving it a go

None of mine are trailer queens, and those who know me, know they get driven 'properly'

Nice Display LOTW I am sure I have a suitable bit of Teak or maybe even Morgan Ash from the factory to display my growing collection of Morgan badges.👍

I've found that MWS stocks an excellent cleaner for wire wheels:

http://shop.mwsint.com/product_details.asp?id=163

It's not much of a faff, other than it benefits from having the wheels removed while applying the cleaner.