The Devil Is in the Detailing

T he fact that car washes dot nearly every corner of the San Fernando Valley should tell us something: We love our vehicles, but not enough to get our hands dirty buffing and polishing them.

Arsen Stambultsyan, owner of Triple Shine Auto Detail in Glendale, found it gets worse. There are some who don’t even want to drive to the car wash, so Stambultsyan will pick up and return cars to owners in Burbank and Glendale. That’ll double the price of a car wash, to $20, but it’s free if the car gets a $90 to $120 detailing. “People are lazy,” Stambultsyan said. “But that’s OK. It’s good for business.”

For those who do it themselves--drive, that is--the reward is a chance to see some of the few remaining Space Age-themed car washes in the area. They were built when aerospace was king and Googie wasn’t kitsch. Entrepreneurs bought the car wash pieces from sheet metal companies, stuck them together, and opened the doors. The stylized shells, with towering fins and pylons, remain intact at places like National Car Wash in Valley Village, Magnolia Car Wash and Lakeside Car Wash in Burbank.

“They’re a very significant set of artifacts,” said Matt Roth, historian at the Automobile Club of Southern California. “They’re a testament to people’s faith in technology after the war.”

The mechanized guts that were de rigueur at the time, though, have been ripped out and replaced by hand washing. A throwback, or the ultimate in modern paint-job-sensitive sophistication? Doesn’t matter, as long as it’s not our hands, right?

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Triple Shine Car Wash & Auto Detail, 6533 San Fernando Road, Glendale, (818) 545-8323.

National Car Wash, 5950 Laurel Canyon Blvd., Valley Village, (818) 762-8304.

Victory & Magnolia Car Wash, 910 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank, (818) 845-4821.

Lakeside Car Wash, 3700 W. Riverside Drive, Burbank, (323) 849-5310, (818) 845-4550.