Thanks for the comments guys ... finishing this model up was a lot of work. I've finally included the wire frame I promised to add last week...
It was actually two renders composited together. One pass was just a standard pass with all the lights, materials, specular highlights, reflections, etc. The second pass was a white Ambient Occlusion pass with an all white material for everything (which took 50 hrs at poster resolution!). I then layered the occlusion pass over the standard pass and multiplied it to get the final look.
Kevin