Mr. Tadao Kodate（古舘) is an inventor of many things in the automotive industry.  Specifically, for the detailing industry, Mr. Kodate is the inventor of the traditional clay bar, an industry-changing innovation that not only has affected the professional detailing industry, but has trickled over into the car enthusiast market also.  Joybond’s signature red and blue clay bars are sold all over the world.  Virtually every professional auto detailer, OEM manufacturer, detailing supply manufacturer, and distributor of professional detailing products, still today uses this 32-year-old industry-changing product in their businesses.  It is a staple of our industry that will never go away.

Clay bars were originally patented by Mr. Kodate on October 9, 1987, shortly after the creation of base-coat / clear-coat systems of painting cars became more and more popular.  Mr. Kodate identified contaminants falling onto the clear-coat of the vehicle to be a problem.  These contaminants included paint overspray, tree sap, bug residue, industrial fallout, and other stubborn dirt that were reducing the clarity of the paint finish and causing the painted surfaces to not be smooth.  Prior to clay, you would need to chemically strip or compound off these contaminants, which resulted in the paint/clear-coat then needing to be polished before a protective layer of wax could be added to your vehicle.  This created a minimum of a three-step process needing to be done just to properly be able to add a protective layer to your vehicle.  Mr. Kodate tried many other solutions before finally inventing clay, which was and is still a perfect fit!

Clay eliminated the necessity to do so many steps of paint correction just to remove surface contaminants, creating greater efficiencies in our industry and increasing profits for all detailers, dealerships, and body shops, while also allowing car enthusiasts to increase their paint’s clarity without using expensive tools that have high risks for burn throughs and swirl introduction.  It is a product and process so simple that everyone is capable of doing it shortly after being taught the process.  It has found its way into the SOPs for many professional detailers and dealerships globally, and it is a product that finds its way into both our Certified Detailers exam and Skills Validated exam as well.

The IDA Hall of Fame is for individuals whose lasting contributions to the global detailing industry have affected our lives and businesses for the better.  Mr. Kodate has done a great job of checking off all the boxes with his inventions and most drastically with his invention of clay products.