Yeah actually surprised me how dirty the paint was on a convertible streetrod? A car that you wouldn't think would be exposed to road film and air pollution enough to get that dirty. Convertibles without tops are not normally driven in the rain where most read film comes from and cars like this are always kept in garages, so yeah... kind of surprised me.
Common bit of confusion there.... a paint cleaner is an
either/or type product. You
either use a paint cleaner to prep paint before applying a non-cleaning wax or sealant
or you polish the paint but you don't do both.
Applying a paint cleaner after using a high quality fine cut or ultra fine cut polish would not add anything and in some ways could even be walking backwards in the process considering how good many of the polishes are today.
If it were me I would use either a compound or a medium cut polish or a fine cut polish. I rarely and never use paint cleaners because I can accomplish the same end results only using an actual product with some type of abrasive technology in it.
By using a real polish not only will I "clean" the paint but I will also remove at a minimum fine swirls and scratches. Most paint cleaners are non-abrasive so they will only clean the surface not remove defects.
Since it will take the same amount of time, work and energy to apple either, (a paint cleaner or a polish), might as well get the benefits of a polish for your time, energy and work.
Make sense?