A Detroit man, who quit his job and started detailing cars in his driveway full-time, purchased a building for his business after it went viral on TikTok

By BOTWC Staff

A Detroit man, who quit his job and started detailing cars in his driveway full-time, purchased a building for his business after it went viral on TikTok, Detroit Free Press reports. 

Daviant “Dae” Palmer has been enamored with cars since he was just three years old. In April of 2020, Palmer quit his job as a cable installer and by August, started detailing cars full-time in his driveway. Putting her marketing expertise to use, Palmer’s mom Typhany Jones decided she would start filming her son, posting videos of his cleaning techniques to TikTok. 

They would post the usual and the unique, chicken nuggets in car nooks and sauce on seats, even posting one video where they had to cut a slinky out of the vehicle’s ceiling. Palmer started detailing in his driveway, cleaning his friends’ cars while his mother posted away. Around the sixth or seventh video, traction started to pick up tremendously. Jones then jokingly made a video of the before-and-after cleaning process, morphing the Cadillac into a Porsche. Palmer was on his honeymoon at the time and by the time he woke up, the video had gained more than 3 million views. 

“He’s calling me from his honeymoon like, ‘Mom, everybody is calling me. My phone won’t stop ringing. That’s what started business coming in really, really good,” Jones recalled. 

Before he knew it, Palmer’s driveway and street filled with cars lined up to get cleaned, revenue growing nearly 70%. Jones quit her marketing job to give all her time to marketing Dae’s Detail, a no-judgment detailing service for Detroit’s local community. 

Last October, they decided to purchase a building to move the business to an official space, taking over a formerly Black-owned dry cleaners. Now Palmer owns the business, Jones serves as marketing manager, his uncle, veteran detailer Stevon Ferrell serves as his business partner, and they share the building space with Palmer’s father, Kenya Jones, who runs Rubin’s Plumbing. 

To date, Palmer has raked up more than 238,000 followers on TikTok, his most popular video reaching 16 million views. Palmer says that the success is a dream come true and something he could’ve never even fathomed. 

“It’s always been a dream to do something like that and it feels awesome to have people working with me – people that I know and people that I can trust,” said Palmer. 

Customers can come in to get their full interior and exterior cleaned for less than $200 depending on the size of the vehicle and extra add ons. Dae’s Detail also offers a quick turnaround service that includes a wash and vacuum starting at $45. While he’s transparent that not every stain might come out, Palmer makes sure to clean to the best of his ability. 

The family hopes to one day expand, opening more locations in the Detroit area and out of state. But right now, he’s focusing on servicing the people that made him and really creating lanes for more Black entrepreneurs in the city. 

“I really want to give back to this community. I really wanted to see Detroit come back to what it used to be back in the day, and I want to help that,” Palmer explained. 

Dae’s Detail is located at 8141 Gratiot Avenue in Detroit, Michigan.