Surprisingly, his red van is given a shiny surface (9)
I believe the answer is:
varnished
'given a shiny surface' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with contact as well as being past participle verbs.
Perhaps they are linked in a way I don't understand?
'surprisingly his red van' is the wordplay.
'surprisingly' indicates an anagram (a surprising ordering of the letters).
'his'+'red'+'van'='hisredvan'
'hisredvan' is an anagram of 'VARNISHED'.
'is' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for varnished that I've seen before include "given protective coating" , "Put on a hard transparent coating" , "glossed over" , "Stained and protected" , "with a coat on" .)