A Cybertruck owner had his stainless steel truck polished to a mirrored finish, which he claims solved the vehicle’s oft-reported dust and fingerprint issues.
Tyson Garvin, a boating enthusiast from Joplin, Missouri, knew he wanted to polish his Cybertruck from the moment he pre-ordered it nearly five years ago.
“When we ordered it on Tesla’s announcement day, I knew I was going to polish it that day,” Garvin told Business Insider in an interview.
Finally, after years of patiently waiting, Garvin got his truck in April. But, after seeing it in person, he told BI there was much left to be desired.
“I didn’t like it when I first got it,” he said. “It was actually very dirty when I picked it up. It was a very bad delivery experience. And just the look of it — the dull stainless steel isn’t evenly brushed.”
That’s when Garvin tapped Brylee Waits over in Neosho, Missouri, just south of Joplin.
Waits began a polishing business about three years ago. He named his company after what his former coworker used to refer to him as at his old job: The Polishing Guy.
“It just kind of grew from there,” Waits told BI. “It’s something that I could pass down to my kids and we could live a lifestyle where I don’t have to struggle everyday.”
Waits’s business mainly specializes in semi-trucks — not stainless steel EVs.
But Waits said he hates saying no, so when Garvin approached him in early May at a local lifted-truck show requesting to chrome out his Cybertruck, The Polishing Guy took the challenge.
“I wouldn’t say it was the hardest project,” Waits said. “I guess it was a tough project just because it’s never been done.”
Overall, Waits estimated that the job took about a week and 120 man-hours with three other employees.
Garvin told BI that the outcome was a vast improvement to his truck — not just aesthetically but also practically.
“It doesn’t have all the porous stainless steel that holds all the oil from your fingerprints,” he said, adding that the bugs and dirt also make the truck hard to clean.
But with the polishing job, Garvin said the vehicle is much easier to maintain.
“The more you clean it, the shinier it gets,” Garvin claimed.
A Tesla spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment sent over the weekend.
After Garvin shared the finished product on social media on May 27, Waits told BI that he received more than 60 inquiries about Cybertruck polishing jobs. He now has four trucks waiting to be polished.
A disco ball on wheels
Some skeptical commenters wondered if the mirror-finished would pose a road hazard. So far, Garvin said he hasn’t run into any issues.
One of his concerns was if the headlights from a car behind him would reflect off the truck’s tailgate while driving at night, giving the appearance of another car facing the driver.
Garvin told BI that, thankfully, the Cybertruck’s tailgate slightly faces downward toward the road. When his wife followed him while driving, Garvin said that all she could see was the reflection of the ground.
“There’s been a lot of talk on the internet from people saying whether someone could polish the Cybertruck or not,” Garvin said. “Most people said you couldn’t because of certain kinds of stainless steel used in the manufacturing process, but none of that mattered.”
“They just didn’t know any better,” he said.
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