Nissan's Miniature Car Wash Is a Dollhouse for Boys

What we don't think about is how much abuse the paint on the vehicle has to go through. Whether it's a no-touch car wash that uses high-pressure cleaners or an automatic one fitted with those giant spinning brushes, the car's body is still exposed to one type of battery or another.

We doubt car manufacturers talk to psychiatrists and shrinks about the current lunacy trends, but they pretty much have to be a little paranoid themselves. That means preparing for the worst because you never know what crazy idea your client might get and then spread the news on the Internet that your car is crap because the paint didn't survive a battery acid bath or something.

It's better to prevent bad publicity than to have to deal with it, which is why manufacturers run so many tests before releasing a new model (which, incidentally, is why we have to wait for so long for them). Since it's one of the first things a person sees when looking at a car, the quality of the paint is very important.

To make sure its products can get through a high number of washing cycles, Nissan has built something that, if we were ten-year-olds, we could spend days playing with. Oh, who are we kidding, we could still lose a few hours of our adult lives right now.

It's a miniature car wash where painted strips of metal get exposed to water, detergents and the mechanical contact of the spinning brushes simulating the life of a car in just a fraction of the time. For dramatic purposes, Nissan included a scale model of its 370Z sporty coupe in this video, which had us thinking: wouldn't it be cool if Nissan rented the thing during off-hours and turned it into an actual scale model car wash? We're pretty sure some hardcore collectors with hundreds of models would be happy to skip having to dust them every now and then.