WD is an abbreviation of “water displacement” and 40 because it was on the 40th attempt, in 1953, that the product was created. And since it’s inception WD-40 has never looked back with new uses discovered daily.

Their original brief in was to formulate a product to prevent corrosion on missile and aircraft skins and to eliminate moisture from electrical circuitry.

WD-40 achieved universal prominence around this time when the late, legendary billionaire Howard Hughes tried to back out of a deal to buy a brace of General Dynamics Convair 880 passenger jets.

With the General Dynamics deal in deadlock, the then state-of-the-art aircraft languished for months beside a runway near San Diego Bay with metal in the wings and fuselages steadily corroding.

A retired General Dynamics engineer, Bob Bailey of the San Diego suburb of La Mesa, has since told the story of how a desperate call was put through to “a little outfit called Rocket Chemical Company”.

“They sent over a couple of barrels of this ‘stuff’ and I had to test it before we put it on the planes,” he reported.

The ‘stuff’ worked so well at protecting the valuable aircraft that Bailey and his work mates took home small amounts and applied the stuff to tools and locks, and cars.

“All the corrosion and rusting of my tools just stopped when I sprayed them with the ‘stuff’,“ Bob Bailey said.

A magic formula?

Australian Managing Director, Geoff Holdsworth says the WD-40 formulation remains a closely guarded secret.

“Many have sought to copy but none have made the grade,” he says.

“The formula is our secret herbs and spices...it’s a trade secret which only 3 people in he world know.”

Often imitated but never duplicated.

For more information contact Steve Saboune on (02) 9868 2200 or visit www.wd40.com