Graham Greene once wrote, “There is always one moment in childhood when
the door opens and lets the future in.” That door opened for Marshall
Cook while in
a teenage snit. “Out of eight children, I was the one whose chore it
was to wash and detail the cars. They were big cars, too: a Cadillac
and a Lincoln. Oh, how I hated that job,” he recalls. “So one day, I
decided to give them a good waxing.”
Perhaps it was just young Marshall being a little
over-zealous? “No. I was being a smart aleck and I waxed everything on
those cars whether it was conducive to waxing or not. I even waxed the
door jambs!”
Marshall’s Dad was not amused. “He whipped my butt,” Marshall
laughs, “Oh boy did he beat my butt… after I cleaned up the mess, of
course.”
It is funny how one crosses over that
cloudy threshold into enlightenment. “I started doing the neighbor’s
cars, then friends of the family and friends of the neighbors. I got a
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lot
of compliments on what a fine job I did,” Marshall muses, “and I woke
up one morning and realized I enjoyed it!” Marshall rode his bicycle to
jobs all through high school. “Remember when bicycles had those baskets
on the front? That was me, with my car cleaning tools and equipment.”
Marshall graduated high school in 1980 and after a couple
of shortterm jobs in a hospital, in a restaurant, and later in a
grocery store, Marshall found himself working at a carwash doing
detailing on the side. There he met a detailer from California who
introduced him to techniques that were more professional. “I discovered
a shampooer and buffer. What a great piece of equipment the buffer
turned out to
be! It really cut down on the elbow grease. Of course, I made some
mistakes along the way.”
By 1986, Marshall was making a living, washing
and detailing cars. He started his own business, Harborside Mobile
Detailing in Safety Harbor, Florida. He covers much of Pasco County
down to
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Trinity
and finds the bulk of his business in commercial business parks.
If you have your doubts about
the car detailing industry being awarding in terms of notoriety,
Marshall Cook is proof that this is a fallacy. Of course, Marshall
himself is quite a character. His personality and positive attitude has
afforded him some exciting opportunities. He washed and detailed the
original Bat-Mobile, as well as the Herman Munster jalopy. “I’ve been
everywhere,” he says. “Word of Mouth has taken me to Miami where I have
had the pleasure of detailing $200,000, and $300,000 cars at the big
car shows.”
He made his first trip to the Mobile Tech Expo this year where his
mobile unit took Third Place in the mobile unit competition. “It is the
biggest and best mobile detailing unit around,” he says. “I’m proud of
winning, but of course I felt it should have won first place!” In 20
years, how much has the industry changed? Marshall feels the biggest
advancement in
CHORE
continued on page 17
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