Keeping classic vehicles up and running isn’t always easy, and these days, that’s just as true for shops as it is for DIYers. I recently talked to four owners or operators of restoration shops to find out what their top business challenges are in 2024. Some of the answers I received were not a surprise. Frankly, everyone has been talking about finding qualified labor in almost every field. But some of the answers I got were eye-openers. 

Every independent restoration shop operates differently. Some shops are very well-established with a long track record, and a few have major national or worldwide concours wins under their belts. Some are more focused on their local area, building a reputation as well as a customer base. Many shops also tend to specialize in a particular field, such as engine and transmission rebuilds, paintwork, or a specific type or decade of cars. In 2024, even full-service shops tend to utilize independent rebuilders or repair shops for specific skills such as radiator repair and rebuilding, powder coating, or rebuilding clocks or radios.

The repair, not just restoration business is also thriving at many restoration shops. Those services that might have been handled by a local service station 20 or 30 years ago—tune-ups, hose and belt replacement or air conditioning repairs—now represent part of the day-to-day work docket of many restoration shops.

Adam Hammer, owner of Hammer and Dolly Automotive Restorations LLC in Traverse City, MI, sees the value in doing many of the small jobs alongside the full restorations that they also perform. The “small work adds more volume, and helps to make sure that everyone in the shop keeps busy” says Hammer.

Hammer, a graduate of the McPherson College Automotive Restoration program, has been in business as Hammer and Dolly for 13 years, has 10 employees and offers services ranging from full restorations to maintenance. Challenges include increasing costs for parts and equipment, as well as labor. In addition to increased cost, backorders for those parts is also an ongoing issue. Hammer also mentioned environmental challenges, as some regularly used compounds such as paints and solvents are no longer sold, making substitutions, often seen as harder to work with, a necessity. As to finding qualified workers, Hammer says “find the right person with aptitude to grow the skills, and we can teach the skill.”

Husband and wife Ed and Melissa Sweeny are the co-owners of Proper Noise, LTD, a restoration shop located in Mount Penn, PA that specializes in both postwar British and Brass Era cars. In business for seven years, there are six employees including the Sweeneys. They specialize in the mechanical side of a restoration, and will outsource paint as well as some other areas of restoration if needed. When asked about current challenges, Ed focused on a few areas such as the quality of parts that they source from vendors. The issue is serious enough that Sweeney has turned in-house to scanning and 3D printing parts when necessary. Another challenge? Finding correct tires post-pandemic for those cars that use odd sizes, including many of the Brass Era vehicles he works on. “No one can go into production for just a small amount of tires, making it too expensive for the supplier, it becomes impossible for them to make any money,” says Ed.  

Another problem facing all of these small shops? “It’s always hard to say no to clients, but sometimes scheduling work can be very tough.” Sweeny is talking about “job creep”, where a car comes in for brakes, for example, but, upon inspection, tie rods and shocks and more are needed, turning a few days repair into a week, or longer.

Mechanical Arts, located in Tenants Harbor, ME, is owned by Philip Reinhardt, also a recent McPherson College graduate. In business for four years, the shop has three employees. Specializing in repairs and restorations of pre-1980s vehicles, with a sweet spot for cars of the 1930s through 1960s, Reinhardt is facing another common problem in the restoration world: Running out of space to work on client’s cars. Their 3000 square foot shop is overwhelmed with customer cars, forcing staff to “play musical cars.” Although he characterizes this as a “good problem to have” Reinhardt hopes to expand soon, with plans to more than double the size of Mechanical Arts. Reinhardt also sees the “job creep” on client cars which can make effective scheduling tough. “Maine doesn’t have a State Inspection for older cars, so a car coming in for a routine service can have a completely worn out front-end” said Reinhardt. This type of problem is especially important to owners who are new to the old car world, some of whom have grown up in an era when going 10,000 miles between services is expected.

Finally, Eric Peterson is the manager of Leydon Restorations in Lahaska, PA, a shop that has been in business for just over 50 years. Peterson has worked there for 16 years, and been manager for 13. Leydon is known almost exclusively for mechanical restorations, which you can expect to see (or hear) at concours lawns around the globe. Peterson has a bit different take on finding talent. With the advent of television “rebuilder” shows and pop culture expectations of the mythical 30-minute total restoration, occasionally managing expectations of potential new hires is a challenge. “The realities of the work-a-day life at a shop is much different than what some might expect. You can’t have someone who is only interested in the glitz and glamor side of  the restoration.” That said, Peterson reminds us that good people are an investment, and that he feels very fortunate to have a great crew aboard.

Like other shops, Peterson laments the quality of parts that are currently available. “The quality keeps getting worse. I have one car that has had three ‘bad from new’ condensers. Few things are of the lasting quality (that we used to see). Manufacturers are just looking for the cheapest way, the least expensive supplier. Charge us more the first time if you have to, but give us a part that works!” 

Peterson also brought up a theme that ran through just about all of my discussions with restorers. Perhaps the biggest problem facing restorers in 2024 is simply finding the right specialty shop that can do the smaller jobs that used to be easier to farm out. A town that used to have three, four or five radiator shops might have one remaining. The owner is usually older, too, and often looking for someone to take over. It’s the same deal at a radio repair facility or that automobile clock repair shop. Finding someone who can reline brakes, grind cams or even make replacement keys is becoming increasingly more difficult.

The takeaways are twofold: For the consumer, understand that constraints are tightening for the shops that keep your ride on the road, so once you’ve found a good one, be patient with them. For the entrepreneurs who might be reading:  Perhaps you should set your focus on becoming a specialty supplier. Find a need and fill it. And do it soon, because the demand is strong.

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Phil writes:

I have a beautiful 1956 Ford Fairlane Victoria Town Sedan. I would like to get the car re-chromed, but cannot locate a service provider in Maryland. I’m trying not to drive the car too much, because I am not interested in adding a huge amount of mileage to something with 31,000 original miles and great paint.

Sajeev asks:

What a beauty!  Sedans don’t get enough love in my book, and I am glad you are caring for this one. Would you be comfortable removing the chrome and shipping it to a business? That might help me with your answer.

Phil answers:

My current mechanic is dealing with health issues, so I’m not sure he could help remove parts and ship them off for re-chroming. The car is in phenomenal condition, and perhaps I’m just being picky.

I’m happy with this car so please do not spend a huge amount of your time on this.

Sajeev concludes:

Here’s the perk about emailing pistonslap@hagerty.com with your automotive questions—it’s my job to spend a huge amount of time on this! And if there ever was a car to go out of my way for, this is definitely it!

But the term “huge amount of time” is relative. I’ve already discussed the need for auto enthusiasts to embrace the Google Near Me search, and Chrome Plating Near Me is no different. When I click on the second link in my last sentence, my preferred plating shop in Houston shows up first on the Google Maps, and is the second website in its list of suggestions. The reviews are overwhelmingly good (but not five stars, as that’s often a red flag). Their website gives you the right amount of insight into the work they do, the company history, and how they operate as a business.

So I did the same search, except for a chrome shop in Maryland. One company ranked as high as my shop in Google search, so I was immediately intrigued. Their website has the right amount of content, and they seem willing to get the ball rolling (i.e., send pics of your chrome issues) via their contact page.

Another good website served up to me by Google was this one. While they have five stars, that’s not really a red flag because they only have six reviews collected. So you have at least two options in your area, but you can scroll down the “near me” search and see if other shops work better for you.

In case it needs to be made clear, I am not specifically naming or recommending any shop, as I can’t verify their work from my position as an armchair quarterback. This is where I pass the ball to you, so you can send them photos of the trim, and see what vibes you get back. Tell them your needs and concerns, and see how good they are at reassuring you. My biggest concerns would be quality and turn-around time, so you might ask pointed questions about those in particular.

If these two businesses aren’t as rock-solid as you’d like, expand your search by using the zoom feature on the Google Map or enter a different location in the “chrome plating near (location)” search.

Now you need to find someone willing to remove the parts from your Ford that you can trust. Is a Classic Car Mechanic Near Me search also in order? (Same principles apply, quality and turn-around time is important, because you don’t want your classic put on the back burner while they work on newer cars.)

Best of luck in your hunt! Or maybe just “happy motoring,” if these flaws aren’t worrisome enough to address? Sometimes they aren’t, especially on a car so original.

Have a question you’d like answered in Piston Slap? Send your queries to pistonslap@hagerty.com—give us as much detail as possible so we can help! Keep in mind this is a weekly column, so if you need an expedited answer, please tell me in your email.

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There’s never been a better time to be a steward of the obscure, rare, and obsolete. The steady rise of 3D printing seems to have followed an inverse path from the trickle-down of tech in decades past; while major automakers continue to utilize it on a relatively small scale, the democratization of the technology has led to a massive hobbyist community. Within this, automotive enthusiasts lead a collaborative, grassroots movement in spinning up all manner of tools and componentry for collector cars at every level.

Indeed, it’s the professional restorers, speed shops, and small-batch manufacturers who appear to benefit the most from 3D printing. In some ways, restoration and modification is the same as it ever was; metal fabrication and OE parts sourcing is as relevant as ever, but as cars once considered “modern” begin to slip deep into “classic” territory, a vast amount of plastic components—both vital and superficial—are only becoming more brittle and faded with each passing year.

And as much as we hoped modern production technology and OEM classic support from automakers like Porsche and Mercedes-Benz would guarantee an unbroken line of quality OEM replacement parts, a major European and Japanese parts shortage is brewing. And, when these parts reserves run out, some cars might be jerry-rigged lest they be permanently put on jackstands. 

This is hardly a new phenomenon—dwindling support has required creative solutions from generations of enthusiasts, and while 3D printing has been around for a long time, in its early days it showed more promise than result. To wit, Steve Dibdin, co-owner of Additive Restoration (AR) and one of the foremost experts on 3D printing in the automotive space, has seen the technology evolve from the get-go. He’s used 3D printing since its relative adolescence in the mid-1990s, when he says the end product could only be used for prototyping. “The early ones were incredibly brittle, and very expensive. I remember working on a product, it was a small plastic part—about three inches by four inches by half an inch—and it cost [about $2,000] in the 1990s,” he laughs. “I remember putting it on the table, and it just shattered!”

The tech has come a long, long way in the decades since. One of his first projects under the banner of AR was a twin-spark rotor arm for an OSCA MT4, a component that leaned heavily on 3D printing for both prototyping and actual production. A week after the first rotor arm was installed, the recipient OSCA was shipped abroad for a successful 500-mile endurance rally. 

AR still offers that OSCA rotor arm for sale on its website with a $750 tag. Hardly cheap, but as Dibdin explains, the alternative is your MT4 running poorly, or not at all, not to mention the actual production cost of the part is higher than you might think. OSCA built an estimated 72-79 MT4s between 1948 and 1956, and given these were hard-lived race prototypes, quite a few were lost to both time and tragedy. Prior to AR’s work, most OSCAs just “made do,” either with adapted off-the-shelf ignition or with time-consuming custom-fab parts. Dibdin says previous efforts from enterprising owners include a small batch of rotor arms hand-dremeled from a block of Bakelite.

With so few cars in existence and traditional means of parts production, it hardly made sense to produce even a limited run of production rotor arms. Economies of scale mean a minimum order for this part might have run into the hundreds, if not thousands of units, necessitating a unit price far, far beyond AR’s $750 ask. “We do a lot of one-offs, of course. But below between 1,000 or 2,000 parts, there’s this gray area that’s been difficult to make things efficiently, especially in plastics—until now.” 

He holds up a small, blue plastic component on our video call, apparently a 3D-printed prototype for a carburetor linkage for a Sunbeam Tiger. As he tells it, the nylon doodad is likely stronger and will last longer than the original part while maintaining the same appearance. I ask him if that’s the case for many now-ancient plastic parts. “Absolutely! Take the column switch repair kit for [Ferrari 330s]. If you have one of those, there’s a good chance your indicator stalk is going to fall off at some point.” He mentions poor injection molding done in-period that that produced a plastic part that was weak, brittle, and full of inclusions. 

“It was destined to self-destruct at some point. With 3D printing, we can make sure we don’t have those [imperfections], and I can predict exactly how something is going to fail,” he explains. “The technology we have both on the design side and the implementation of that is far advanced from where it was even 10 years ago.”

So, at the current state of the art, proper implementation of 3D printing produces components that are often better and far cheaper to produce than it was when it left the factory. For the smaller parts, is there still even a need for traditional restoration methods? “Machining still has its place,” he says. “What [3D printing] does is take out much of the man hours and required expertise of actual production. The design and development time is still the biggest expense.”  

Shucks—I was rather hoping each hobbyist 3D printer came with a button marked “Press here for 1950s Maserati wheel cap,” but I digress. Of course, plastic isn’t always the answer. “If we’re doing something like suspension or brakes that’s safety critical, we’ll machine it from billet,” Dibdin explains. “We can get parts printed in 3D metal, and they’re very good. But, there are significant considerations.” He mentions post-processing is a large part of the current output of 3D printed metal, both aesthetically and structurally. And you’re limited in the material and application, whereas machining is settled science. 

“When you machine something from metal, you know the material, you know the process, and the tolerances are far, far tighter,” Dibdin continues. “Though they can sometimes 3D print in metal or other material and then throw it on the CNC to finish it off.” The best of both worlds, then. 

Still, even modern material cannot out-maneuver poor design. Dibdin mentions a previous project involving 3D printing a commonly failed part found in a Ferrari 550 seat. After a full development period, AR’s recreation part failed a short while after installation. “You have to know where the technology is appropriate and compatible. It’s the difference between getting a microwave-ready meal versus going out for a sitdown meal,” he laughs.

Dibdin was keen on stressing that 3D printing, no matter how advanced it may be, is still just another tool in your workshop. “It helps us get to a point, but it’s still very much about human interaction and understanding how things go together. It’s sort of sexy with lasers flying around, but to get to that point, someone spent time developing a product, going through iterations, prototyping it, testing it, and making sure it’s suitable,” he says. “At the end of the day, it’s just a fancy hammer.” 

So, things are looking way, way up for micro-scale production of better-than-factory direct replacement components. But 3D printing has also irrevocably changed the aftermarket, especially when builds turn both restomod and big money. 

In a similar vein to Icon 4×4 and Gateway Bronco, Texas-based Vigilante 4×4 thoroughly modernizes and powers-up your choice of SJ-platform Jeeps, including ‘70s family truckster hotness like the OG Cherokee, Gladiator pickup, and Wagoneer. These are serious builds, and with a price tag starting at $300,000, each build is incredibly detail-rich, with little touches the Vigilante team says wouldn’t be possible without 3D printing.

Actually, the whole enterprise likely wouldn’t exist. “It’s important to say that it’s a very critical moment for us, as Vigilante is about modern technology, and we wouldn’t be able to do what we’re doing without 3D printing,” says co-owner Rachel van Doveren. “A lot of other vehicles can order [modern] parts straight from a catalog. Jeeps don’t have that luxury.” 

Like most shops that utilize the tech, Vigilante primarily 3D prints test components as part of prototyping ahead of machining. “As of right now, we have an FTM printer in-house that we prototype everything from handles to brackets before we machine the metal part to make sure it looks right and fits correctly,” explains 3D printing specialist Nick Douglass. But, where there is no old part to restore or modify, and the component sits more-or-less behind the scenes, Vigilante will create something wholly new. 

Jeep never installed rear air-conditioning ducts on any SJ-chassis vehicle, so some clever 3D printing ensures rear passengers are either frosty or toasty. Among Vigilante’s signature details are the repositioned (and modernized) air-conditioning controls, now made to look entirely original via careful post-processing. “We start with determining the need for the custom solution,” says Douglass. “We ask, ‘Are there factory parts we can restore and reuse?’ When there aren’t, we begin the process.”

It could be as complex as the A/C or as simple as a tiny bit of trim. “Take for example the clip that holds the sun visor in place. That’s not a complex piece. It just had to do its job and look good,” Douglass says. “Trying to get a factory piece sanded, repainted, and installing it with a screw without cracking that plastic can be a huge challenge.”

I ask Douglass about what developing 3D printing advancements he’s most looking forward to. He mentions metal printing, and material with integrated carbon fiber. Then, he pauses for a moment to reflect, thinking back on our discussion. “I wonder, personally, when it will become so hard to find a decent donor [body] panel, that the technology for sheetmetal reproduction will become more popular,” he muses. “There is a technology I’ve seen videos of, where a CNC-type machine uses a hammer-type object to form sheetmetal panels almost like a 3D printer, working a layer at a time. I wonder if that’s going to be the only option in the future.”

A fancy hammer, indeed. 

***

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Retard the ignition, give it a smidge of hand throttle, and a thumbs up to engineer Dietmar Krieger. He braces and swings the starter for this supercharged four-cylinder race car and it explodes into stentorian cacophony. The single oval exhaust under my elbow jets out against the concrete walls of the Mercedes test track in Sindelfingen and straight back into my ears. Really should have worn those ear plugs…

I grip the big wooden wheel and press the leather cone clutch, wait a couple of seconds for things to calm in the four-speed crash ’box and push the soup-ladle–sized lever down by my right leg into first with a tiny graunch. Lift to the engagement point, press the center throttle and then straight up with the clutch. With a jerk and a growl, we’re off. You don’t slip cone clutches and my riding mechanic, museum engineer Manfred Oechsle, nods his approval. 

Second gear almost immediately, then double declutch into third with just a bit of rattle from the gears and smoothly into fourth; now we’re travelling and the square-set bonnet lifts like the snout of a hunting hound at the sound of the horn. This is where it wants to be, on a racetrack, giving its all, but it’s been a long time since it was last caparisoned for battle—100 years in fact. 

So many ways into this story: The winner that wasn’t; the red paint matched from a black-and-white photo; the power of research; the benefits of never throwing anything away; the perils of looking too closely… 

For 20 years, this car, an ex-works Mercedes (not Benz, though, as it was built just before the merger of the two companies) was displayed on a piece of fake concrete banking in the legendary Mercedes-Benz museum. The display card said this battered old warrior was the winner of the 1924 Targa Florio, driven by Christian Werner, the first non-Italian to win the Sicilian classic. None of it quite true…

To begin at the beginning, Werner’s “winner” was part of a team of five cars all driven down from Germany to Italy and across on the ferry to Sicily for this important race. Mercedes had won in 1922, but in 1924, the team was determined to consolidate its success. The 2-liter supercharged cars were fast, with fine handling and narrow bodies to suit Sicily’s narrow roads. The works team consisted of Werner in car no. 10, Christian Lautenschlager in car 32, and Alfred Neubauer—who went on to become the feted Mercedes-Benz racing team manager—in car 23. The fourth car was a spare used for training and reconnaissance, and there was a 1914 Grand Prix car there for show. 

The Targa Florio was created in 1906 by industrialist and auto enthusiast Vincenzo Florio, who had also created the Coppa Florio in Brescia. As an impresario he didn’t muck about, employing local artists to create driver’s medals and publishing a magazine, Rapiditas, which promoted the race and its entrants. 

The original course length was 92 miles on treacherous mountain roads, with over 3600 feet of elevation change and more than 2000 corners per lap, many of them hazardous hairpins with sharp drops. The weather could be highly changeable, the roads were unsealed, and the cars would slide around and create columns of dust. In those beast-like cars, drivers needed pluck and skill, and the first-ever race was won by Alessandro Cagno, an experienced racing driver in an Itala.

By the mid 1920s, the course had been changed in length, but if anything the event had gained in popularity. This was a time when the motor industry was still in its infancy. Big-ticket races were scarce. The 24 Hours of Le Mans was only inaugurated in 1923 and the Italian Mille Miglia was started in 1927. Grand Prix racing was nothing like the current Formula 1 championship, and hill climbs and speed trials were equally as important. Yet the public had an insatiable appetite for the spectacle of these early automobilistes, wrestling their huge, unwieldy, aero-engined brutes. 

By 1924, the Targa Florio was actually two races: the 268-mile Targa Florio, comprised of four laps of the bumpy, 67-mile course; and the Coppa Florio, a 336-mile race that was simply five laps of the same course.

Werner’s was the first victory by a non-Italian since 1920, and he led race from the start against fierce opposition from Giulio Masetti’s Alfa Romeo. He set the fastest laps in both races, and if you add in the Coppa Termini, the prize Mercedes claimed as the best team, then 1924 was a clean sweep for the Stuttgart firm. The extensive Mercedes archive reveals old files with the original gushing press reports of victory, as they praised the team’s practice strategy, running the length of the course several times and honing its pit work with well-drilled tire changes and refueling, which had reduced each pit stop to under three minutes. 

And it mattered. At this time, private car sales volumes were exploding and the development of reliable, high-speed engines and electrics in racing really did improve the breed—and also sold cars. 

What better automobile would there be to celebrate a century of Mercedes’ racing prowess than this red winner? So, in 2022, it was taken off its banking and rolled into the museum workshops. 

And why was it painted red? The international convention of the times was that German cars were white, British cars green, Italian cars red, and French cars blue. On the Targa Florio, however, there were tales of skullduggery, with partisan locals throwing rocks and other hazards in front of non-Italian, non-red entries. Red paint was Mercedes’ way of trying to confuse the issue; from a distance, its cars would look like Italian entries. 

“It’s not a disadvantage in an Italian street race to have your car painted red,” says Marcus Breitschwerdt, the boss of the museum. And you can see how last-minute this decision was, from the fact that in the original pictures, Werner’s car used mudguards borrowed from another car with the underside left in the traditional Mercedes white.  

Despite the importance of the victory, Werner’s “winning” car didn’t stay long in the works. In 1925, it was sold to privateer Wilhelm Eberhardt. It was entered for various races, but Eberhardt so loved driving it on the road that he had the narrow body widened to better accommodate his wife as a passenger and fitted a full windscreen and lights. Thus modified, it was repurchased by the factory in 1937, displayed in various museums, and then moved to the factory museum in Untertürkheim in 1961. 

Two years ago, once it had been moved into the museum workshops, the research began in earnest and it soon became clear that what was hoped to be just a “freshen up” would in fact be an extensive rebuild, as the car hadn’t run for many years. The archive also revealed a surprising and not entirely welcome discovery… 

Poring through the records it became clear that this wasn’t Werner’s winning car; it was the tenth-placed Lautenschlager car, number 32. The fate of Werner’s car is still unclear, but the archive revealed photographs of it smashed almost beyond recognition, so it seems likely it was scrapped. Was Eberhardt sold a ringer? No one seems to know.

Notwithstanding its marginally less glorious history, the museum decided to continue with the restoration of the Lautenschlager car. The body and drivetrain were removed from the frame and the body was placed in a full-length hot box to re-anneal the metal so it could be worked on without it cracking. The drivetrain was carefully stripped and the archive found the original engineering drawings and contemporary reports. 

“We never throw anything away,” says Breitschwerdt.

Repainting the car posed its own set of problems. For a start, the paint was a turpentine-oil–based coach enamel hardly used these days. The second issue was that, although the car was still red, it had been repainted at some point long ago. That paint had weathered over the years, and all the original photographs were in black and white. What, exactly, was the original’s proper shade? 

Experts were hired from the art conservation departments of local universities and paint samples carefully examined and analyzed. “We looked in places where the painters don’t like to sand,” says Volker Lück, a master furniture restorer who was charged with hand-painting the little racer with original-style paint of the correct hue.  

Trouble was, the turpentine-based paint had to be mixed by hand with the pigment, then applied and laid off with a brush, and there were 10 layers, each taking a couple of days to dry.

“Of course, on the days I did the job, there were squadrons of suicidal flies,” says Lück, “but in the archive there were stories of Mercedes having the same problems.” 

The engine had been designed by Paul Daimler, known as the “the king of kompressors” and his replacement, Ferdinand Porsche, who had joined Daimler in April 1923. This two-liter, twin-camshaft four-cylinder was lighter than the six-cylinder equivalent and with forced induction, it produced a healthy 125 hp. The clutch-actuated Roots-type blower merely needed a refresh, as did the roller-bearing crank, but one of the cylinder liners was damaged, the water jackets were badly corroded, and the camshafts had to be metal sprayed and ground back to original spec, together with new pistons and bearings and much hard work. 

“We had to do a lot,” says Krieger, a museum engineer. “It was a sobering experience.”

That was my first introduction to the car, stripped and battered, with much still to do, and with a clock ticking, for a serious program of appearances had been planned for the old racer in its centenary year. 

There were several false starts, but I finally got to meet the car for a drive at Sindelfingen on May 8. It felt like an appointment with destiny, no public relations fanfare, no pomp and circumstance, just this red car and a team of engineers from the museum. Truth be told, I felt as if I were Werner testing the machine for the first time over 100 years ago. 

A mizzle sweeps across the track and through the circular pits. The Mercedes looks millimeter perfect, with proportions straight out of a child’s picture book. Spattered with droplets of water, the claret-red coachwork undulates gently, showing every brush stroke and blow and scrape of the old charger’s life. 

“No build-and-block and no filler,” says Gert van der Meij of Dutch specialists MCW, which has done a fair bit of the heavy lifting in this restoration. They retained as much of the original car as possible. 

The museum engineers greet me like an old friend as I pull on overalls and a flying helmet. They’ve warmed the engine but it’s so cold they’ve had to blanket half the radiator to keep the heat in. 

A century on, it feels every inch a Mercedes works racer, from the reverence the mechanics show it to the obvious care and love that has gone into its restoration and conservation, without overdoing it. This was, after all, a race car. 

Frames back then were smaller, and they have to take the entire seat padding out to accommodate my generous six-foot build. I’m sitting on bolt heads in a bare aluminum seat shell. Apparently, former F1 ace Karl Wendlinger had to do the same, so I’m in good company. 

First job is to get the photographs, and while it’s geared down for the tight Sicilian corners, the old Mercedes hates the speed-restricted running, pulling and hunting at the leash anxiously to escape the attentions of Max Balazs’ Nikon. 

Then we’re on our own, Oechsle and I, a whole test track to ourselves. The old car exits one of the banked turns and as I enter the straight, it’s now or never…

“What amazes me is how responsive this car is,” Oechsle yells in my ear as I open her up on the long straight. He’s so right, this little Mercedes feels every inch a thoroughbred as it tears up the concrete, the engine rasping, the car vibrating and twisting, almost alive in my hands. 

It feels far from vintage—anything but a hundred years old—as I push the brakes into the banking and the nose dives toward the apex. There’s progression and precision here, with little lost movement, and the wheel can be minutely adjusted with none of the see-sawing required of some of its contemporaries. On the wide track it feels tiny, but as I push the throttle again for the next straight, it’s so eager, every inch the racer as it noisily dashes between the curves. Back on the race circuit after so many dormant years. 

“You won’t leave it to rot again, will you?” I ask Oechsle as we go for a cheeky next lap (it’s that sort of car). He shakes his head. Not at all.

You’ll see this amazing survivor, the winner that wasn’t, at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed and then again at Pebble Beach. Before that, it’s headed to Italy for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix at Imola, where Mercedes-Benz F1 driver George Russell will take the wheel. 

As I write, thinking back to the drive, Oechsle is right. The little car belies its 100 years and feels really quite modern in the way it drives. I hope he’s right and Mercedes does keep this Targa Florio racer in good running condition, if only to remind us where we’ve come from and the peaks of what we’ve attained. 

***

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In case you’re new to the ongoing saga of me being completely in over my head with cars, and now in decrepit real estate, let me offer a quick recap: I bought a defunct centenarian foundry in historic Statesville, North Carolina. I plan to fill it with my oddball, garbage cars. The path thus far has been neither easy nor straightforward, but I’m inching closer to my imaginary goal: a parade of my sh**box cars driving through town and into their new home.

After two days of sweeping the crusty floor, emptying the ex-municipal trash cans, and two trips to the scrapyard, my train of weird and deplorable vehicles was nearly ready to pull into this station. Though I very much wanted the en masse entrance of my dreams, it didn’t look promising. Due to the gradual nature of my cleanup efforts, a one-at-a-time approach—bringing the car to the foundry in piecemeal fashion—seemed most prudent.

Part of the foundry’s appeal is that it’s just a few minutes’ drive from my house. The first driving stint featured my fleet’s champion of both water solubility and moisture intrusion: a 1971 Citroen Ami 8. This one had been protected from the weather under cover of a mule barn at my house, and its ease of movement earned it immediate shelter privileges. Getting it to the foundry didn’t seem like it would be a real challenge. Other than the car’s tendency to gush fuel out of the fuel filler hose on left-hand turns with anything over 3/8ths of a tank, I didn’t have any major concerns.

I turned the ever-reliable ignition and bumbled my way down the road from my house, into the foundry property gates, over the drainage bridge, and through the main entrance. For the return trip home to get the next car, I found myself staring at a red, flat-tired, and fixed-gear hipster bike. Perfect for my next transport leg! At first, the Presta valves weren’t keen on taking new air but after I got PB Blaster and channel locks involved, the tires held air with merely a slight hiss. My first pitstop and mandatory celebration point would be Statesville’s defacto town hall—Red Buffalo Brewing—to replenish my hydration and proteins.

Next up to move was the Hobby 600—my space-shippy Fiat-based 1990s camper van. That one had been parked outside, in my yard. Each and every time it rained, my mind feared the future in which I’d have to one day fix water damage behind the carefully stitched headliner. Also, the diesel FWD drivetrain resting over its tiny front tires sometimes caused it to sink into the ground.

Being made out of aluminum honeycomb, the Hobby van might not seem robust but my experience proves otherwise. It drove over to the foundry without issue. However, I neglected to measure the size of the van’s doors, nor did I test driving inside the facility, before purchasing the storage property. I skated by, in the end. With a handful of inches to spare, I backed it under a precariously hanging double gantry. I walked home so as to not push my luck with the vehicle gods.

I figured the next up should be my quirky yet surprisingly unfussy ’58 Moskvich 407-1. How this car continues to run, drive, and stop with zero attention constantly baffles me. I chucked the fixie bike in its trunk, mostly full of East German roadside breakdown tools, and headed off.

It dawned on me, as I was pumping the brakes and bouncing down the road on cart springs, that after the Moskie things were about to get a lot more difficult.

I won’t use the term “daunting” to describe the remaining vehicle moves, at least not yet. But here’s where things started to get more tedious. As you may have read, I pulled the radiator out of my Studebaker Gran Turismo Hawk after it failed and stopped me from making it to work. Well, ol’ Rex at the radiator shop was still waiting on a core. Breaking out the tow dolly for such an insanely short ride seemed to me an admission of defeat. Attempting to be resourceful, I rummaged through my collection of radiator hoses, trying to find something to loop the upper and lower connections on the block and run things demo derby style.

Nothing that wouldn’t make contact with the fan turned up, and I really didn’t feel up to further disassembly for such a foolhardy cause.

Finally, I succumbed to the pressure, drove it up on the ratty blue dolly, and unloaded the Stude a totally lame 0.7 miles later.

And what was waiting for me there? That’s right, another immobile Studebaker! You’ll read more about my beautiful ’61 Lark Cruiser in future articles, so I don’t want to spoil things too much. I can say that it doesn’t run and has no brakes due to some of my own idiotic decisions. More on that later.

While we’re on the topic of dumb things, I remembered that my comealong was still dangling from the foundry’s rafters after hoisting and reuniting that ’87 Chevy 1500 bed with its cab. I dislike using ratchet straps as winches, but I despise running needless errands. So, click by click, on it went with my improvised winch and a scant six blocks later, off it came with the help of the park pawl and a brief tug of the trailer out from under.

A few weeks prior to discovering the foundry as a potential storage location, I made my annual soft commitment to turbocharge my Australian-market Holden VL Commodore. Doing so more in earnest for 2024, I started pulling apart the cooling system and realized that I had made a pretty serious error about five years ago.

At that time, I had filled the cooling system with water before moving to Germany. Once I returned to the U.S., I faced a long list of parts to order for the car, which were all sitting in my online shopping cart for months following the foundry happenings. This left the Commodore in a compromised position, with the cooling system completely open and dry. It was, however, mobile, and I was growing tired of using the dolly.

Long ago I had heard that it was possible to run a Studebaker V-8 without coolant for 45 seconds starting from room temperature. I know that advice isn’t totally pertinent to this Holden application, but I was willing to try anyway.

I rode over to the sock factory—my somewhat failed attempt at finding a local storage solution—on my bicycle of choosing and hopped into the Commodore. Avoiding the typically long warmup time, I cranked it out of there in a quasi-running state, with the clutch out. That spent three seconds. After slinging the factory the doors shut, I hopped back in the car, started again, and motored up past the farm and garden store, up to the stop sign, and left in front of First Presbyterian. Eighteen seconds of run time and then off. Seeing the light go yellow, I keyed off and coasted up to the next stoplight. If I could hit 30 mph and get lucky at the following light, I had a good chance of coasting to within 100 yards of the foundry. The 3.0-liter Nissan six roared through the signal, allowing me to key off and coast, only to unlock the steering column at 28 miles per hour and approach to the foundry gate. Off. Total time: 39 seconds. I used a further 10 seconds getting into the front bay, but I figured with all the on/off shutdowns I was probably still in keeping with the framework of oral tradition.

Moving on. It was time to start transporting le French stuff. As long as I could keep the driver’s side window from breaking loose from its duct tape tethers and smashing itself to bits in the bottom of the door, the Renault GTA seemed relatively straightforward as my next candidate. Earlier, when I started it up to make sure it ran, a toasty smell and orange glow coming from a pile of acorns sitting on the catalyst flange caught my eye. But I’m pretty sure they burned all the way up.

The hurdles with the Renault were primarily bureaucratic, rather than mechanical. When purchasing a vehicle in North Carolina with an out-of-state title, some additional hoop jumping is required. Namely, one must guess when the local License and Theft Bureau of the DMV is open; it’s something like 2 hours in the morning on three days of the week and I can’t ever remember any specifics. Therefore, the Renault is still plateless and on its Connecticut title. (Obviously, it’s insured.) I figured a bit over a half-mile wasn’t going to invite any undue risk or attention from local law enforcement. I pulled my beloved yard-sale-find Masi Gran Corsa road bike out of the shed and chucked it in the back; under the cover of broad daylight, the trip took place without incident and I biked home yet again.

At this point, I was starting to see serious progress both at the foundry and in what now looked like a far less crowded home garden! With solely a Wheel Horse and a Yamaha Chappy remaining at home, I believe the real winner of the sh**box triathlon was my wife, who now has room for her flowers.

Lest you worry I’ve gone soft, dear reader, you know I still have oddball vehicles sprinkled elsewhere in town. The move continues!

Matthew Anderson is a Carolina-based engineer with a penchant for backyard wrenching, weird and unloved cars, and crudely planned adventures, with a bit of harebrained world travel mixed in. We don’t ask him too many follow-up questions.

***

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April 17 marks 60 years since the Ford Mustang’s public debut at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. The original pony car immediately became a pop-culture and automotive phenom, and it remains one of the most impactful cars in history. We’re celebrating with stories of the events surrounding the Mustang’s launch, the history of the early cars, and tales from owners. Click here to follow along with our multi-week 60 Years of Mustang coverage. -Ed.

In 1979, while living in Columbus, Montana, my wife and I purchased our first Mustang, a rust-free ’66, and spent several thousand dollars having it restored to show quality. The car spent many months in and out of various garages for extensive work—an engine and transmission rebuild, new brakes and fuel system, new interior, and a beautiful new paint job.

Five days after picking up the Mustang from the paint shop, our daughter was driving it to meet a bus at school when an oil truck turned left in front of her and she hit the truck broadside. Luckily, our daughter wasn’t seriously injured, but the accident totaled the Mustang.

I wanted another Mustang, so I started searching almost immediately. I looked at several 1965–67 models, and while many looked good from the outside, up on the lift I noted severe problems. I wanted a straight, rust-free original, and after nearly four months of looking, I found a 1965 GT—an original A-code with a 289 V-8 and automatic transmission. The car looked sharp in its original Springtime Yellow paint with black GT stripes.

Over next five years, we drove it periodically on sunny days, but in 1985 we relocated to northern Ohio, and I drove that ’65 across the country with no problems. In 1990, after another move, to southern Ohio, we put the Mustang in storage, driving it 100–200 miles a year just to keep it running. In 1998, those periodic drives stopped and the car sat unused until 2016, when we decided to give the Mustang to our 40-year-old son, who had wanted it for many years.

Over the next 13 months, we had the car completely restored, and today it is again a beautiful GT that looks like it just came off the showroom floor.

***

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This article first appeared in Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. Click here to subscribe and join the club.

The first thing you should know about Snowball Bishop is that he was a racer. It’s also the second and third thing you should know about him. Don’t ask how Snowball got his nickname; nobody knows. The eldest of 10 children, he grew up in the hardscrabble hills of southwest Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, where Snowball’s daddy and his daddy before him gouged a living out of the lead and zinc mines of Wythe County.

Although they worked the mines for a living, the Bishops lived for racing. Snowball’s youngest brother, Biggen (nicknamed because of his stature; Snowball gave everybody nicknames) remembers their daddy taking the motor from an old washing machine, fitting it to a shaft with a drill bit, and using it to bore out the intake of an old flathead Ford.

Snowball inherited his daddy’s talents. One year, he took the rusted-out shell of a ’37 Ford coupe from the open field of his farm there on Major Grahams Road, stuffed a big Mopar engine in it, then headed out to the local dirt track and won—often. But after a few racing seasons, and for reasons nobody can quite remember today, Snowball hung up his helmet and parked the old coupe.

It sat for more than 30 years, until Tom Cotter, host of Hagerty’s Barn Find Hunter, entered the picture. Cotter first met Snowball in 2008, when he was searching for 427 Fords and happened upon Snowball’s field full of Galaxies. Five years later, while working on his book, Barn Find Road Trip, Cotter found his way back to Snowball’s farm again and met the old race car. In a drawl as thick as the fog that hangs in the Blue Ridge’s hollers, Snowball told the tale to Cotter:

“I was running a flathead in this coupe until the small-block Chevys got to be something I couldn’t beat. I decided I was gonna start running a Mopar engine. Richard Petty had started to run Hemis, and I found out he had a bunch of stuff left over at his place, 426 wedges and stuff. I thought maybe I had better learn more about that.

“When I pulled up in the driveway, Lee Petty [Richard’s father] was sitting on the front porch. Lee said to me, ‘Boy, can I help you?’ I said, ‘I’m looking for some parts. I’m thinkin’ about runnin’ Plymouth. I been runnin’ Fords and I can’t run with the Chevrolets.’ Lee yells back into the shop, ‘Hey Richard, how much do we want for that stuff?’ Richard comes out, wipes his hands on a towel, and says, ‘Would you give me 12 hunnerd for it?’ I said, ‘That sounds reasonable enough, but I ain’t got 12 hunnerd with me.’ Richard said, ‘How much you got?’ I said, ‘I got a thousand dollars, all my money right here.’ Lee said, ‘Richard, would you take a thousand for that stuff?’ Richard said, ‘Yeah.’ But I said, ‘Now wait a minute here. I got to have some gas money to get home. I’m a hunnerd and 50 miles away. And I’m gonna need a meal.’ Lee said, ‘Gimme nine hunnerd dollars. Load it up.’ And that started the ball rollin’. We won the championship in 1972. I run ’em and run ’em till we run outta 426 stuff and then I run 440s.”

Snowball always wanted to return his coupe to its racing glory. That dream started to become reality when Jordan Lewis, a cameraman for Hagerty Media, came up with the idea to bring the car back to Hagerty’s headquarters in Traverse City and have Davin Reckow restore it as part of our Redline Rebuild series. Snowball—after some convincing—agreed to the project. Reckow hooked up the trailer to Hagerty’s Ford F-350 and headed south to collect Snowball’s coupe. “I raced dirt track for almost 20 years, so that made the project appealing to me,” Reckow recounted to us later. “And being an old car made it even cooler.”

Once the car was in his shop, Reckow took stock of it. “It’s a ’37 split-window coupe with the rear-window divider and window center posts removed,” he said. “They used the frame from a ’55 Chevy and a front solid axle from a Ford. Leaf suspension all around.

They had a beautiful roll cage in it. I didn’t change a thing on that. You could tell they were very close to NASCAR country.”

The 440 engine, likewise, was a mix of vintages. “We could tell by the date code on the block that it had been cast on the night shift of January 3, 1972,” recalled Reckow. “One of the heads was from ’68 and the other was from ’78. I found a pair of ’68s, cleaned them up, and installed them.” Once the engine was back together, it was time for the dyno. Reckow was surprised by the numbers the stock motor made—403 horsepower and 489 lb-ft of torque—but knew he could do better. After tweaks and upgrades—long-tube headers, an MSD distributor, a new intake, and a Holley 750 carburetor—the engine cranked out 489 horsepower and 532 lb-ft.

With the engine installed and the car completed, it was time for the coupe to head home. But time had passed, and the checkered flag had dropped for the last time for Snowball when he died on October 14, 2021. He was there in spirit on the farm, though, and with the family and friends who had gathered for the coupe’s homecoming. “When Davin fired it up, it was just like back when Snowball would get the car ready for racing back in the day,” son Jimmy said, his voice breaking up from the memories. “He would rev that thing up and you could hear it for miles.”

***

Having reunited with the family, it was time to reunite with the dirt—specifically, the dirt of the track at Wythe Raceway, where Snowball and the coupe had opened the racing season in 1970. “A static display of a race car is fine,” Reckow noted. “But to really enjoy it, it needs to run on a track.” And run it did, with Jimmy Bishop taking the first turn at the wheel. “Back then, I never did drive the car, I just warmed it up for Daddy,” he told us. “It was exciting. The adrenaline was up there—whew! You wanna go faster, but hey, I wanna take it home!” Jimmy’s younger brother, Ricky Joe, was next. “It wasn’t that bad for noise,” he said as he took off his helmet. “But it was right there where you know it was at.” Then Jimmy turned to his niece, Amanda—Ricky Joe’s daughter and Snowball’s youngest granddaughter. “Hey, you aren’t gonna be satisfied unless you go around here, girl.” Amanda hesitated at first. “It wasn’t even in my mind to drive it,” she recalled to us. “I was just happy to be there, to be honest.” After a few laps, she was glad she got a chance. “I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a 440 before, being around Fords all my life. I try not to cuss, but it was badass!”

That night at the track, Snowball’s coupe ran a few parade laps with Reckow behind the wheel and an American flag flying off the rear bumper in a holder he had modified for the purpose. Later that evening, the ’37 coupe ran as the pace car for the Modified feature race. “Having private time at the track was great,” said Reckow. “But putting it in front of the public and running some laps was really special, because there were people there that night who remembered the car racing back in the day.”

The fans will certainly remember when Snowball’s coupe came home, as will Jimmy, Ricky Joe, and especially Amanda. “After I finished my laps, I asked Davin, ‘Can I do a donut?’ And he was like, ‘Heck, yeah!’ So he showed me what to do, and I did a donut. That was the highlight of my life!”

Somewhere—probably where the cars are fast and the tracks are hot and the dirt-track racing never ends—Snowball Bishop is laying a smokin’ patch of rubber in celebration.

***

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The post Snowball’s Second Chance: We Save a Barn Find Race Car from Rusting into the Virginia Soil appeared first on Hagerty Media.

This article first appeared in Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. Click here to subscribe and join the club.

Still in high school in Athens, Tennessee, Betty Lou Parrish has found her calling: restoring vintage prewar vehicles. “Whenever you bring one back to life,” Parrish said, “you feel so accomplished.” She started young. According to her grandfather Stefan Ronnebeck, a German immigrant and accomplished craftsman who married into the family before Parrish was born, the teenager has experience welding, fabricating, panel shaping, painting, and completing electrical and engine work. The two bonded over projects, including building a log cabin and working on everything from 1920s Marmons to a 1979 Ford. “He’s supported me no matter what,” Parrish said.

Other interests have come and gone—Parrish considered becoming a veterinarian or a cosmetologist—but vintage vehicles have remained a steadfast constant. With help from the nonprofit RPM Foundation and the support of her family, Parrish was invited to work alongside LaVine Restorations in Nappanee, Indiana, for two days of rigorous job shadowing to see how a world-class prewar restoration shop functions.

Parrish was excited yet nervous. She felt like she didn’t have “what it takes to do what they do.” Those feelings quickly waned after she met Travis LaVine and his crew and became engrossed in their work. Parrish learned how to use the English wheel, a Dake multi-hammer, a planishing hammer, and a shot bag and mallet. She also helped pour the dash mold on a classic Packard and detail million-dollar collectibles.

Travis LaVine was impressed with Parrish’s maturity. “She is a very inquisitive and intuitive young adult, which is also impressive in today’s world,” he said. “Restoration work is unequivocally a thinking person’s game,” he added. “She has the right foundation to build upon to play it well.”

The experience went well enough that Parrish will, upon graduating high school, join LaVine Restorations as an apprentice. The RPM Foundation will be there to assist her with gap funding and the necessary guidance she needs to navigate through the learning process.

“This is a great example of how the RPM network can benefit individual students,” said Nick Ellis, the executive director of the nonprofit organization. RPM has a volunteer ambassador corps of more than 25 collector vehicle professionals and enthusiasts across the nation who act as its “boots on the ground.” One such ambassador, Kevin Jackam, connected with Ronnebeck at a car show in Tennessee.

Parrish’s apprenticeship will, LaVine says, introduce her to all aspects of a restoration shop, including technical skills but also research and writing, project management, and financial analysis. “We need to encourage women who have an interest in the history of the automotive industry to feel connected any way they can,” said LaVine, who added that his shop has benefited from talented women since its beginning.

“Mom and Dad [Eric and Vivian LaVine] started this company in 1974 and worked in the shop together, but Mom’s the one who really took this from a one-stall business to one of the premier restoration facilities in the world now,” LaVine stated.

Parrish, for her part, was thrilled to do meaningful work in a restoration shop and is excited for her apprenticeship. “They trusted me that I knew what I was doing,” she said. “I felt honored and special.”

***

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Readers: I have failed you.

In June 2020, I wrote a story about a 1978 Citroën 2CV that I bought for about 300 euros, used as a daily driver, and parked when it no longer passed inspections in 2012. Since then, I’ve dragged it from house to house, like you might drag a piece of furniture that’s been in your family for three generations and that you can’t bring yourself to get rid of. Sometimes the car would sit in a garage; other times it wasn’t as lucky, and it would sit under an olive tree.

“This is the year I return the favor to my 2CV,” I concluded, in that 2020 article. I meant it! I got the car running by replacing small parts like the coil, the spark plug wires, and the fuel pump, and I reached out to a local, 2CV-only shop with an excellent reputation called Maison de la 2CV about the body repairs.

In hindsight, 2020 was the perfectly wrong right year to make promises or return favors. Maybe 2021? Nope, that wouldn’t be the 2CV’s year, either. In late 2021, as society carefully resumed moving after careening off its tracks, my own world went boom like the valves hitting the pistons when a timing belt decides to take its last spin. At 32, I found myself adapting to living alone for the first time since I was 20. In the months that followed, nearly every aspect of my life changed.

The small collection of classic cars that I had meticulously assembled since my early 20s—in some cases, I had waited for years to buy the right car—became an encumbrance. I didn’t have the time, the money, or the motivation to deal with any of it. At best, the cars were parked; at worst, they were sold.

Maybe it’s the other way around, actually. “Best” and “worst” are relative terms; I suppose the cars might argue it’s better to be sold than parked, if they could voice an opinion. They can’t, so you’ll have to take my word for it. Regardless, in 2022, I put fewer than 50 miles on my 1979 Mercedes-Benz 300D, fewer than 10 miles on my 1972 Volkswagen Beetle, and the 1972 Mini 850 franken-zombie departed to start its third afterlife somewhere in southwestern France. Three other cars also left my fleet. I don’t like selling cars—they always seem to end up in the wrong hands—but it felt good to offload some of the ones laced with fragments of my past that I wanted to catapult out of my mind.

One of the few things that remained was the 2CV. It was still there, a decaying monument to both Citroën’s genius and a life I’d long left behind, like one of those faded statues that you see in big cities of a random bald guy with a sick-looking pigeon shitting on his head. It was still parked under a tree (a cypress, this time), it still had four flat tires, and it still needed floors, rockers, and a frame to pass inspections. Hail had poked dozens of holes through the soft top, so that needed to be replaced as well, as did whatever else had managed to dry out, seize, rust, or otherwise fail from what was now about 10 years of not turning a wheel on a public road. And yet, the flat-twin engine still started. Sometimes I’d move it a few feet to mow and joke, “At least I’m keeping the mileage low.”

That’s not to say I had a plan to get the Citroën back on the road; I didn’t. For all I knew, and admittedly for all I cared, it could sit for another 10 years. Selling it wasn’t an option—the 2CV has a lot of sentimental value—but fixing it wasn’t on my radar. I had other things to worry about and far bigger problems to solve.

Life’s surprises aren’t always ugly. I randomly ran into the guy who runs the 2CV shop I’d contacted in 2020 while halfway through my third beer at a county fair-type event in a tiny village up in the mountains. I’d paid for the beers using the worn, blue plastic coins of a local “currency” created specifically for the event. The conversation turned to my car. Yes, I still have it; no, it hasn’t been fixed yet; sure, it’d be neat to get it going again sooner or later. He told me there were several cars ahead of mine in his restoration queue, but that he would pencil me in and reach out when its time came.

Suddenly, and unexpectedly, I had laid the foundations of a plan for the car. I also had a goal.

The length of the restoration queue wasn’t a surprise. It had taken me a while to connect the dots, but the shop’s owner, Felix Hoffmann, is the son of Wolfgang Hoffmann, the German coachbuilder who made a name for himself by turning 2CVs into full convertibles. The black and gray example that appeared on Jay Leno’s Garage? That’s the family business. Felix’s knowledge of 2CVs approaches the surreal. That his shop happens to be about 10 minutes away from my house in France is an inconceivable stroke of luck: I’m from Salt Lake City, Utah, and he’s from the Munich area.

When the call came, I had to figure out a way to take my 2CV to the shop. I’ve always kept it insured, but it wasn’t registered and I didn’t trust it to make the three-mile journey under its own power. Felix kindly offered to let me use his trailer, and I started looking for a tow vehicle … which I found in my garage. My trusty 300D has a hitch and aftermarket rear air springs; the elderly couple I bought it from in 2014 had used it to tow a camper in the 1990s. I didn’t like the idea of pulling such a heavy load with the Mercedes, but I didn’t have a choice, and the sedan didn’t miss a beat. It also made for one hell of a picture.

I started hanging out at the shop after work and on the weekends with Felix and Seb, a mutual friend who is also a walking encyclopedia on anything flat-twin-powered. I enjoyed spending time with like-minded enthusiasts and learning about 2CVs—I’ve forgotten more about these cars than most folks will ever know, but Felix and Seb are on another level. They’ve beat the game. They can pick a bolt off of an engine and recognize that it’s rare because it was only used from, say, July 1955 to January 1956.

On a cold, gray day in late December 2023, as everyone’s work was slowing down for the holidays, we decided to push my car into the shop. Teardown went quickly: The hood and the fenders came off first, then the headlights and the bar to which they’re attached, and finally the engine and the transmission, as one unit. I went back the following day and removed everything attached to the engine, such as the fan and its shroud, the alternator and its bracket, and the manifold. I spent hours cleaning over 40 years of sticky grime with a mix of brake cleaner and old gasoline.

As I drove home, it dawned on me that I’d gotten more done on that car in two days than I had in 10 years—more than I’d gotten done on any car in over two years. The realization was eye-opening. It produced a strange feeling, too: this little engine hauled my ass around for years, and now I was hauling it around (to move it in and out of the shop, for example). I was finally returning the favor to my 2CV.

Cracking the engine open was fairly straightforward; it likely had never been apart. I’m pretty sure the last person who saw the teeny pistons I took out was the line worker who installed them in 1978.

Once the flat-twin was in pieces, Felix and Seb confirmed what I suspected: the engine needed to be rebuilt. I knew this because when I drove the car daily it lacked power, even for a 435cc-powered 2CV, and it coughed out so much smoke that you’d think it had just elected a new pope. Maybe that’s precisely what it was trying to tell me, but the emissions people would disagree.

Working out of Felix’s shop helped motivate me to get the engine done in a timely manner. He was nice enough to let me take advantage of his space, his tools, and, crucially, his brain—I don’t want to hog a spot on his workbench for years on end. About two months after the engine came out, including the holiday break and a couple of weeks spent waiting for parts that got stuck in transit in a depot, I had the two-cylinder back together with new pistons, piston rings, cylinders, valves, and every last seal and gasket. The rebuild wasn’t finished, though. I fitted electronic ignition, replaced the flywheel (the old one was chipped), and Felix repaired a stripped thread on the passenger-side head.

As of writing, the engine is pretty much done. I need to reinstall the carburetor, the alternator, and the fan to call it a day. The car, however, is far from done.

The second part of the project started on a windy day in March 2024, when we took the body off the frame. I knew the rust was bad—the factory jack once stabbed a hole through the underbody while I changed a wheel—but it’s worse than I imagined. One of the previous owners riveted a big metal plate over the front floors, and I figured out why when I removed it: beyond the holes in the floor, most of which I could see from underneath, there is a colossal amount of rust on the inner part of the passenger-side rocker panel that was hidden by the plate. Puzzlingly, the space is filled with the kind of insulating, spray-foam sealant folks use in houses. “I can’t believe I used to drive this daily,” I thought as I took out chunks of hardened foam coated with rust. This car has the structural integrity of tofu. The suspension cylinders, a crucial part of the 2CV’s offbeat suspension design, are shot as well.

All of this can be fixed, however. I’m not making promises this time around, or even giving myself a timeline, but it’s coming along.

***

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Two funerals are now part of my car’s restoration story, a sad twist I never imagined when I started this project three years ago.

The shadow of death has marked these cars from the outset: Dino was Enzo Ferrari’s short-lived sub-brand that was named after his son. Alfredo Ferrari, nicknamed Dino, worked for his old man until he passed away from muscular dystrophy in 1956. He was just 24 years old.

In January 2021, I paid $25,000 for a 1975 Dino 308 GT4 that spent some 20 years hibernating in a SoCal garage. That 25 large was, I knew, only a down payment on this project car. I’ve had some success with previous machines and realized a long time ago that I enjoy the DIY portions and getting to know the craftspeople I hire for the jobs I can’t do, like painting and interior work. There’s the learning aspect, too—a chance to practice and improve my self-taught mechanical skills.

While the car was with a semi-retired painter in 2022, he unexpectedly passed away. I had known him for about a decade, and I always enjoyed stopping by to catch up on my car and life. One thing that I’ve learned over the years is to look for people who enjoy their craft and cars as much as I do. The shared enthusiasm brings added joy to any project.

Scrambling for another painter revealed years-long waiting lists. Through a friend, I found someone with excellent references and an opening for spring 2023. The week before I brought my car to him last March, a fire destroyed his paint booth.

Meanwhile, I’d identified a similar late-career trimmer to restore the interior. This gentleman had a one-man shop and took jobs he enjoyed rather than ones that merely paid the bills. He saw my 308 as a way to hone new skills and experiment with different interior materials. We debated colors and fabrics with vigor and I usually deferred. He took great joy in a technique he developed to replace the destroyed driver’s-seat foam. Last summer, he unexpectedly passed.

Oh, man. What is it with this car?

I’m not superstitious, but you have to wonder. My wife declared she wouldn’t ride in the car even if I finished it. Her aversion to exhaust fumes suggests, however, that the car’s potential curse might be a convenient excuse.

How does one press on? I’ve now had two painful episodes in which teary-eyed families helped me dig through soon-to-be-empty shops for car parts. How does one be respectful, but also make sure parts weren’t lost? In one instance, a shop landlord locked the doors, imprisoning my seats until the estate was worked out. I know that the GT4’s sun visors are gone. What else?

All this on top of the fact that, as regular readers may remember from my last dispatch, I had to get the engine rebuilt twice due to it burning too much oil—and smoking out my entire neighborhood in the process. Is the GT4 karmic retribution for past sins?

Last summer and fall, I waited for the new painter, who also had some family emergencies, to regroup. A June delivery date was pushed to August and then to November. I wanted to be understanding and felt like I had been, but at the same time, I was eager to get the car back. My car friends all told me to just let it ride, as the waiting is part of the game. By December, I prepared a mental script to inform the painter that I was coming to get the car in January, painted or not. I called, and before I could say anything, he told me he was painting the car next week. The pictures here were shot a week before the end of the year.

I also found another trimmer, who plans to finish the interior this winter. With any luck, I’ll drive the car this summer. Is it misguided to feel hopeful? The evidence suggests, no surprise, that I am probably the fool. My car—and some subsystems—has sat for months at various places despite assurances of reasonable timelines. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard, “In two weeks,” only for that time to come and go without even an acknowledgment of the missed deadline. To be clear, I’m not talking about every shop I’ve worked with, but at least half have operated in this way. It’s no secret that the pool of skilled automotive craftspeople is aging. One of the consequences, it seems to me, is that those who remain in the field have lots of power and the paying customer has surprisingly little. More often than not, the deadline is, “When I get to it.”

Am I simply the jerk or pushover who is repeatedly pushed aside for other projects? Possibly. I seek out the small, one-person operations because I get closer to the actual work and talent than I would with a big operation. I usually ask to work alongside for a day or two as a dumb set of hands so I can learn. I cherish those days. The downside, I now know, is that my strategy leaves me vulnerable to life events and capricious schedules.

Since I’ve never worked with larger organizations on a car project, I can’t advise on the difference. These restorations look straightforward, and maybe they are for well-known and popular cars like Corvettes and 911s. Oddballs like the GT4 truly are ventures into the unknown, so it could be that I’m merely a victim of bad luck.

I hope the car’s not cursed. I met another GT4 owner last fall and asked to drive his car, which refreshed my memory that I love the car not only for its controversial design, but also for the driving experience. That short jaunt brought back all the enthusiasm I had in January 2021 and reminded me why I had searched for the right Dino for many years.

For now, my Dino restoration experience offers two seemingly opposing lessons. On the one hand, we don’t know when life will end, so get moving. At the same time, perhaps, it’s a reminder that we should be patient—because sometimes, we just don’t have a choice.

***

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Twin brothers James and John Kryta, 54, and of Romeo, Michigan, are professional car enthusiasts. They own over 40 collector cars, and their livelihood is derived from a popular restoration support business. Their extracurricular activity of choice, oftentimes, is to invest endless hours polishing their rides for the show circuit. Their latest concoction, for the 2024 Detroit Autorama is a prototype 32-valve Oldsmobile V-8 engine that they rebuilt with extremely rare vintage parts and dropped into a yellow 1970 4-4-2. Oldsmobile called this engine the W-43, but the Kryta brothers call it “The Killer.”

Even though they’re identical twins, according to James they do have a few differences. “Yes, we shared a womb and a room. But during our teen years, when we both became hands-on car enthusiasts, our father wisely informed us we’d never earn much of a living with grease under our fingernails. So, I obtained an aircraft powertrain mechanic’s degree at the Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics, and John studied architecture and engineering at the University of Detroit.

“My father’s advice was dead nuts. When I was 16, I bought my first car, a ‘71 Olds 4-4-2 W-30, for $2200. A few years later, my second car purchased after I had begun working cost more than ten times that amount.”

Following graduation, James was employed by aviation services company DynAir at various U.S. locations. “One day, while inspecting an extensively damaged aircraft wing,” he recalls, “I noticed it was packed full of fluid lines. When my boss offered me the chance to learn how to fabricate those lines, I wasted no time saying ‘Yes, sir!’”

The knowledge he subsequently gained moved James to create the restoration business Inline Tube in 1995. Brother John joined the enterprise a year later. What began in a two-car garage grew into four buildings staffed with 50 employees shipping a thousand packages per day. Inline Tube currently offers the restoration hobby’s finest brake and fuel lines, hoses, cables, fittings, fasteners, and attachment clips galore.

Much of the sparkle that Detroit Autoama attendees witness is attributable to Inline Tube’s products and the cars the Kryta brothers frequently enter. It’s not unusual to see John’s Pontiac GTO competing against James’ Oldsmobile in the hard-fought Restored class. This year, the year of The Killer, is an exception.

With John’s current project in the paint shop, it was James’ job to bring home this year’s bacon. His Olds had a humble beginning: It was parked outside for years in Indiana, the engine was gone, and it took five years to refurbish. That said, its most remarkable attribute is what now lies beneath the twin-scooped hood.

“Twenty years ago, while shopping RacingJunk.com,” John explains, “I stumbled across a listing for some prototype Oldsmobile engine equipment. While I’d never heard of the 455-cubic-inch, 32-valve W-43 V-8, I was intrigued to say the least. The asking price for this gear was $10,000; naysayers called it a boat anchor and insisted it would never run. Nonetheless, we grabbed that prize for $5000 and what we dubbed ‘The Killer V-8′ will be showcased in James’ 1970 Olds 4-4-2 coupe at this year’s Detroit Autorama.”

The plot thickens. “In the early 1970s,” John says, “shortly after the W-43 lost all hope of entering production, several Olds engineers and PR personnel flew out to California to tout their project for Petersen Publishing Company editors at Car Craft, Hot Rod, and Motor Trend magazines. At that time, this wasn’t a complete running engine but rather a hollow shell suitable for photography and a collection of internal parts highlighting the W-43’s attributes.” (Read our technical breakdown of the Oldsmobile W-43 V-8 here.)

“The trip to California was to gain publicity, after the engineering project had been terminated by GM’s upper management. Given that, the Olds folks asked the writers to chuck these engine parts in a dumpster after their stories were completed. Lucky for us, that request was ignored. These priceless W-43 components went home with someone from Petersen in 1971, only to resurface decades later.

“Cajoling the vintage parts into a running engine was no small feat. The first problem was a parts shortage. One cylinder head was missing, so we had to reverse engineer it and a few other components. Extensive machining was required. All told, 20 people got involved, including one ex-Oldsmobile engineer who requested anonymity. Scott Tiemann, the CEO of Supercar Specialties in Portland, Michigan, quite capably handled final assembly.”

So, what kind of power does this 32-valve V-8 produce? “We were prudent during testing to avoid blowing up our irreplaceable parts. Imposing a modest redline, we measured 560 hp at 6000 rpm and 540 lb-ft of torque at 3600 rpm,” James Kryta notes. “But eliminating the significant restrictions by adding multiple carbs and efficient exhaust headers would easily have improved those figures.”

To inspect the W-43 engine and James’ yellow 1970 4-4-2, we visited a clandestine detailing shop located 50 miles north of GM’s long-gone Lansing assembly plant where this Olds was built. The facility’s proud owner began the tour with an inspection of the car’s sparkling underside. At the rear, there’s an interesting final drive consisting of an aluminum W-27 center section creatively welded to steel axle housings. The driveshaft has twin paint stripes replicating marks that would have been applied by the factory during its spin-balancing operation. Like W-30 4-4-2s of the day, the transmission is a Muncie aluminum-cased four-speed stick. I was amazed at how many undercar parts left the factory without a hint of paint or rust protection, but James insisted this was standard practice back in the day.

This 4-4-2’s scooped hood combines a fiberglass outer element married to a stamped-steel liner ramming cold air to a 750-cfm Rochester Quadrajet. The broad silver-and-blue valve covers pierced by spark plugs will surely attract drooling admirers at Autorama, along with the bright red fender liners. The W-43 emissions sticker, created by James, is another fastidious touch. When asked how or from where he found a perfect vintage battery, he reported, “I made those filler plugs with my 3D printer. In addition, I attend lots of shows to buy up new-old-stock parts for our cars.”

My hour-long inspection revealed that this factory experimental Olds 4-4-2 W-43 is perfect down to the tiniest detail. I will be on hand at Detroit’s Huntington Place, formerly Cobo Hall, to applaud what I suspect will be its victory.

***

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Michael writes:

My 1997 Porsche Boxster steering wheel gets very sticky on hot sunny days; it can even leave a black residue on the hands. It is not a leather-covered steering wheel, though. The stock wheel is some kind of synthetic material, almost a super dense foam rubber. It is somewhat springy to pressure. I was hoping some chemical would transform the outer surface to its original.

A cover feels too thick, and I don’t really want to buy another wheel. Cures?

Sajeev answers:

This should be an easy one, unless the comments section tells us otherwise! I’ve addressed the same issue on the airbag cover of the C5 Corvette. So before we proceed, can we all enjoy the irony of the Porsche with premium materials having the same off-gassing issue as the Corvette with an inferior interior? (The Porsche indeed has nicer guts, but age conquers all opinions of plastics and vinyls.)

Back to my experience with successfully cleaning off-gassed “goo” from the airbag cover of a C5 Corvette. Long story short, my experimentations ended after just a few minutes, thanks to a can of carburetor cleaner (yes, really) and a plastic scraping tool (like the ones used for drywall) to shed off that gooey mess. After I was done, the airbag cover looked perfect. Even the detailing in the embossed Corvette logo looked like new.

Maybe you’ll get lucky and treating your wheel won’t require such an aggressive chemical. To avoid overkill, I would start by slapping on some latex gloves, getting some shop towels, and trying these chemicals in an inconspicuous area first.

1. WD-40 (least aggressive)
2. Brake cleaner
3. Carburetor cleaner (most aggressive)

Once you’ve ascertained how aggressive your chemical needs to be, then you can turn your attention to the steering wheel. To start, I’d turn it upside down (rotate it 180 degrees) and work on the bottom of the rim, just to validate the investigation you did on the inconspicuous area first.

Follow up your work with a dab of abrasive hand cleaner to get any residue off the wheel, then rinse with water to finish it off. I have done this exact procedure three times now and #3 has always done the trick. Be conservative on how much cleaning agent you use, and work in small areas to keep the residue from making a bigger mess in your Boxster’s interior. Good luck!

Have a question you’d like answered on Piston Slap? Send your queries to pistonslap@hagerty.com—give us as much detail as possible so we can help! Keep in mind this is a weekly column, so if you need an expedited answer, please tell me in your email.

***

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TG writes:

I like this column and I’ve been racking my brain for a good question. I finally have one. (I could always use more like this, so everyone please email me questions at pistonslap@hagerty.com – SM).

There is a lot of internet lore out there that you can assemble an entire car from scratch from mail-order parts. I believe this has actually been done for a ’69 Camaro, and this may be true for a handful of specific model years for a handful of specific model—but generally it isn’t the case, particularly for body panels.

I have a ’65 Impala SS, of which there were 200K built. If you go more general to just a ’65 Impala, the number is 800K built. As I worked through my body woes, my mind was blown on exactly how many rusted body sections that my car had which are completely unobtainable. I ended up firing up the ol’ MIG and pushing through it one little piece of metal at a time, but what are the options for custom-fab body parts? Think trunk seal gutters, window frames, etc.

So who out there has gone this route, and what generally does it cost?

Sajeev answers:

See the photo above? Those 1967 Mustang fastback bodies are part of a plan to recreate the iconic Pony Car for modern times. And they only need an owner to provide a VIN from a 1967 Mustang to make it road legal. The company behind it is Relic Restorations, but I’m not here to promote them.

No really, I only mention them because their owner works firsthand with every type of restoration vendor in this space. For simplicity’s sake, let’s put them into three buckets. You’re gonna dip into one of these buckets if “firing up the ol’ MIG,” as TG suggested, is not a choice.

Bucket #1, traditional vendors: These are the names you’d commonly find at a SEMA show, and they regularly get media coverage by the hot-rodding side of automotive journalism. While their products may never apply to a “not Camaro/Corvette” Chevy like TG’s Impala, sometimes buying reproduction sheet metal from a place like Dynacorn is your best bet, as it already has some of the correct bends, holes, and shapes for your project because of platform interchangeability.

This was absolutely the case for my Fox chassis based Project Valentino, as rust underneath the battery tray was cheaper to fix when I handed aftermarket patch panels for Fox Mustangs to Relic Restorations’ metalsmiths. The quality was decent, the price was right, and it saved me a lot of labor cost in the process. A big win all around.

Bucket #2, factory direct suppliers: You really got to have your act together and your wallet open if you want do a short run of any reproduction part. You can’t make just one part, so organizing a group buy with fans of your vehicle is ideal. While I don’t have any specific prices, they would be irrelevant anyway as commodity prices, labor rates, shipping costs, etc. change quite regularly. Just know that it will be exponentially higher than buying something off the shelf and metalsmithing it to fit.

You will likely hire a specialist contractor that can work with factories in China/Taiwan on your behalf to get a batch order of parts designed, manufactured, and shipped to you. Which still requires you to create a digital version of whatever you want to make. That work isn’t necessarily easy at the quality levels required for a factory to utilize for production, so an experienced professional might be needed. But don’t take my word for it, as we discussed this previously with new engines made for Ford’s Model A.

Even if you can find a suitable manufacturer in the USA, the same steps will likely apply. After discussing the finer points of this with a former boss/friend with experience in managing contracts like this, I’d consider this option a last resort for most folks. Though it could be a great idea for someone replicating parts for modern classics with a potential upside in future restorations; Tesla Model S and X restoration parts anyone?

Bucket #3, 3D printing: This is the most likely avenue for reproduction parts for low-volume restorations like the aforementioned ’65 Impala SS. If a part cannot be found by any other means, perhaps the pieces on your project car can be scanned into a digital image and printed into a 3D hunk of plastic. Since we are still talking about sheet metal for an Impala, the printed product can be used as a die for reproductions.

Once you have a plastic die, it can be replicated in metal, which can make the sheet metal bits by anyone with a large enough press. Well, in theory, as that’s usually a big ask for someone owning a press. And this is still cost prohibitive, thanks to the equipment and talent required to make a 3D rendering. Perhaps fiverr or a “makerspace near me” search can break down some barriers, or this is the time to learn to 3D print in your own home.

What’s my advice? Don’t bother restoring a car like Project Valentino or any non Muscle/Pony/Sports car with a large following. Buy the project-worthy Mustang, Corvette, etc. and enjoy the fruits of someone else’s labor for a classic car restoration that everyone can appreciate.

If you can’t follow my advice, welcome to the club. We feel your pain and we are always looking for qualified fabricators to fix our rusty junk. The good ones never come cheap, and that might be reason enough to learn to fabricate in your spare time.

Have a question you’d like answered on Piston Slap? Send your queries to pistonslap@hagerty.com—give us as much detail as possible so we can help! Keep in mind this is a weekly column, so if you need an expedited answer, please tell me in your email.

***

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Though restorers hold otherwise, immortality lies beyond the reach of ordinary automobiles. Of course, for every hard and fast rule there is an exception. Tip your hat to the recreation/revival/return of the 50-millionth car built by General Motors—this “Golden” 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air sport coupe.

Seventy years ago, GM was the world’s largest industrial enterprise. On November 23, 1954, the city of Flint, Michigan, where GM was founded, closed schools and halted traffic to host a mile-long parade called the Golden CARnival, boasting nine brass bands, 18 floats, and 72 noteworthy GM vehicles. An estimated 200,000 spectators cheered GM’s success and their own good fortune.

• First GM production car—1908 Cadillac
• 1-millionth GM car—1919 Oldsmobile
• 5-millionth GM car—1926 Pontiac
• 10-millionth GM car—1929 Buick
• 25-millionth GM car—1940 Chevrolet

The star of the CARnival was GM’s 50-millionth production car—a gold-painted 1955 Chevy Bel Air two-door hardtop. Barely an hour before the start of the parade, employees at Chevrolet Flint Assembly lowered this car’s body onto a gold-painted chassis while company president Harlow Curtice blessed the marriage. All the interior and exterior trim parts, including front and rear bumpers, were gold-plated!

Turns out that the Golden ’55 was in fact three distinct automobiles. Car number one, assembled a month in advance of the parade, was used in period publicity photos. It also starred at the five Motorama shows GM hosted in 1955 before being sold to some lucky customer.

Thirty-some years ago, that car was tracked down to a North Carolina owner who had no interest in selling, or even talking, about it. Unfortunately, this Bel Air was destroyed in a garage fire in 1996. The owner chopped the burned body into several pieces, scattering them about his property. Last summer, the charred remains, some of which were gold-plated, were purchased by Joe Whitaker of Real Deal Steel (RDS), an enterprise in Sanford, Florida that, last April, began creating the tribute vehicle shown here.

The second Golden ’55 Chevy, also built in October 1954, starred in a GM film entitled Achievement U.S.A. It hasn’t been seen since, and its whereabouts are unknown.

Car three was the ’55 Chevy assembled in November 1954 which rode atop a float in the Golden CARnival parade. Regrettably, this actual 50-millionth car has also been lost to the ages.

Immortality is not beyond the reach of the truly resourceful car enthusiast, however. Proof comes from the RDS enterprise founded in 2011 by Joe Whitaker and Randy Irwin, two of the most dedicated revivalists in collector car history. Over the past decade, they’ve sold hundreds of their products—1955–57 Chevrolets, 1967–69 and 1970–81 Camaros and Firebirds, plus various Chevy IIs and Novas—in the form of brand-new steel bodies to restorers who won’t be stopped in their pursuits.

Rather than starting with a donor Chevy built by GM, the gents at RDS began this project with spanking new electrophoretic-painted steel panels provided by their primary sponsor Golden Star Classic Auto Parts of Lewisville, Texas. Golden Star is the uncontested leader in the manufacture of fresh, top-quality sheetmetal replicating American and VW classics. Headquartered in Texas, they’re backed by a Taiwanese arsenal of CAD/CAM technology, stamping dies, and metal presses. This firm also supplied the new steel frame underlying the Golden 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air.

Paul Hsieh, who founded Golden Star and is now 58 years old, began working in a Taiwanese stamping plant as a young man before immigrating to Georgia where he spent eight years at Goodmark Industries, a leading restoration parts house. He began Golden Star in 2003. He explains how a fresh car body is manufactured from flat sheet steel:

“We start by shipping a complete vehicle to Taiwan. A plaster mold is made for each part before the original donor body is cut apart. A second mold is created after that piece is removed from the donor vehicle. Both plaster castings are digitally scanned and the two images are compared in software. Subtle human interpolations yield one final smooth, symmetrical design.

“That scan data is used to create a full-size foam model of each part. Next, we convert the foam model to a sand casting. Molten steel poured into the casting becomes a stamping die after all its surfaces are milled (using scan data) and hand-polished.

“The typical die set consisting of a male component, a female piece, and a top hat to hold the steel sheet in place for forming weighs 7000 to 8000 pounds. To achieve the desired final shape, multiple press strokes are required. The typical fender takes three to four hits requiring nine to 12 separate dies. Some of our larger presses are two to three stories tall. Excess metal is trimmed after stamping by means of a laser [that is] guided by the digital data file.

“Stretching a flat sheet into a curved, final car panel increases both strength and rigidity. Before we commence volume production, we ship prototype parts to end users to confirm perfect fits. If necessary, die adjustments are made to achieve perfection before we begin manufacturing parts for sale.

“We also supply restorers with steel frames, chrome-plated bumpers, complete glass kits, fuel tanks, door handles and latches, and heater boxes.’

Given this painstaking process and the effort required to assemble panels into a complete body, it’s easy to see how RDS charges $21,150 for a 1955 Chevy body shell fitted with doors, decklid, and dash.

The cadre of other contributors to the cause of the Golden ’55 Chevy include Shafer’s Classic Reproductions, American Autowire, Gene Smith Parts, Auto City Classic, and Ciadella Interiors.

All told, more than 4000 hours of effort and several hundred thousand dollars were invested into the project.

Snodgrass Chevy Restorations of Melbourne, Florida, handled assembly, fitting, and painting of the new body. Steve Blades of Falmouth, Kentucky, served as the project’s historian and researcher, gathering 300 period photos from GM’s Heritage Center, the Sloan Museum of Discovery in Flint, Michigan, and several private sources. He plans on documenting this 10-month restopalooza in a coffee table book.

Snodgrass personnel constructed a new chassis carrying a 265-cubic-inch (4.3 liter) V-8 engine rated at 162 (gross) horsepower, a two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission, and a 3.55:1 rear axle. Tires are 6.70×15 US Royal bias plies from Coker Tire. Instrument panel, steering column, and steering wheel parts are original GM. Interior trim is new old stock (NOS). Nearly a thousand enthusiasts followed the recreation project on Facebook.

The paint used here is a custom Axalta mix logically dubbed Tribute Gold. The finish consumed 5.5 gallons of paint costing $1200 per gallon. The list of 24-karat gold-plated parts includes interior and exterior trim, ID badges, both bumpers, the grille, wheel covers, and over 100 nuts, bolts, and screws. The plating tab alone topped $100,000!

Last December, a few weeks before the Golden body was finished, its chassis was unveiled at the Sloan Museum along with notable memorabilia and salvaged debris from the original Motorama ’55 Chevy. A grander reveal will occur at the 71st Detroit Autorama scheduled for March 1–3 this year at the Motor City’s Huntington Place convention center.

Steve Blades notes, “We believe that our Golden ’55 Chevy Bel Air Sport Coupe needs to be seen and enjoyed by the public at large on a daily basis. The ultimate goal is for it to be housed at either the GM Heritage Center in Grand Blanc, the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, or the Sloan Museum of Discovery in Flint.”

Yes, indeed: Homing in on this immortal ’55 Chevy would be well worth your time.

***

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This Ford fanatic found, restored and ultimately lost a Shelby Mustang race car. Today, his ride pays homage to that very special machine.

Phil Jacobs is a Ford guy. A one-time dealer tech, he proved outstanding in that role, so Ford brought him into the mother ship to answer service and repair questions for dealer mechanics nationwide. He has a particular fondness for Mustangs and has owned several, including a 2006 Mustang GT that is the current object of his affection.

That Mustang GT stands out in a crowd. Sure, it’s a pretty red car in pristine condition, but that’s not what draws your attention. Rather it’s the car’s dressage, a near-perfect livery of the Shelby Trans-Am Mustang in which Jerry Titus won his class at the 1968 24 Hours of Daytona. Why? The simple answer is that the ’06 Mustang’s graphics are meant to honor Titus, the Trans-Am Mustangs of the late ’60, and, most importantly, a very special Shelby Trans-Am race car that Jacobs will never forget.

Titus was a journalist who had shown promise behind the wheel of several race cars when Carroll Shelby offered him a place on his SCCA National Championship Trans-Am team. I can attest that those kinds of offers seldom come to those of us who wield the pen. But Titus quickly proved his worth, winning the Trans-Am series driver championships in ’66 and ’67 while helping clinch the manufacturer’s championship for Ford in that second season.

Titus’s successful ’67 season made him solidly number one on the ’68 Shelby Terlingua Racing Team, and, along with his co-driver, he began the campaign with a class win at the 24 Hours of Daytona. A big number 1 on the door would later identify his red Mustang as the car to beat. A second Shelby Trans-Am Mustang was prepped for Horst Kweck and various name racers who opted in for a single event or more. Ford provided a third Mustang for the Shelby team, but it was never raced and probably never fully prepped for battle. Instead, it gathered dust in the Shelby garage.

The Shelby team suffered multiple engine failures and a rash of DNFs during the ’68 season. According to Jacobs and other sources, the engine failures were largely the result of Ford’s insistence that the race car engines could only be built at company headquarters in Dearborn. In ’66 and ’67, the Shelby team had developed its own engines. To further complicate things, the ’68 engines were a new design that used tunnel-port heads similar to those used on the big-displacement NASCAR engines, and they initially proved difficult to tune. With the lack of team control over assembly, and problems dialing in the tunnel-port engines, the results were disastrous.

By the end of the season, with no Mustang championship in sight, Titus jumped ship and signed on with the Pontiac Firebird team. He saw some success in ’69, once again winning his class at Daytona but again frequently failing to finish. He was tragically killed in an accident while practicing for the 1970 Road America Trans-Am race.

Jacobs was still a youngster when Ford dominated Trans-Am early on, but he was old enough to relish their success. With a passion for Mustangs, he bought his first, a ’71 Mach 1, shortly before starting as a Ford dealer repair technician in 1977. He put his mechanical skills to work on that Mustang and had it running 12-second elapsed times at the Milan, Michigan dragstrip. But he was a road racer at heart and longed to take to the track in a car like those his heroes drove in the late ’60s.

Meanwhile, the third ’68 Shelby Mustang Trans-Am, the one that had never seen a racetrack, was passed from one owner to another. Shelby first sold it to an independent Trans-Am racer by the name of Bill Pendleton. Before Pendleton could prep the car for competition, he signed on with a race team and sold the unfinished car. In subsequent years, it apparently went from one owner to the next, all planning to complete it but never succeeding. After nearly 20 years of foster care, it went to John Hancock, an Oregon enthusiast.

Hancock knew he had what was likely a historic automobile but was unable to document it to the satisfaction of the Shelby American Automobile Club (SAAC). At the time, the club, which was founded in 1976, had yet to develop a comprehensive registry. Frustrated, Hancock decided to sell it. Jacobs heard of the car through his Ford connections and suspected it was truly one of the Shelby race cars. In one of the great automotive bargains of all time, he purchased the rusting hulk for $1500 in 1987. The price for shipping it from the West Coast to Michigan was a hundred bucks more than the cost of the car.

With the bare bones of a Trans-Am Mustang in his garage, Jacobs went to work learning as much as he could about the Shelby race cars, traveling to swap meets to hunt for parts, calling former Shelby crew members, and more. To say he was thorough would be an understatement.

“I didn’t start working on the car until I had a full picture of exactly what an authentic ’68 Shelby Trans-Am Mustang should be,” said Jacobs.

Several years of research provided that picture, and in 1990, he got to work. Some of the metalwork was completed by a respected restorer of Ford automobiles, but Jacobs did much of it himself. The finished car was exactly what it would have been in ’68 had the Shelby team completed it.

Jacobs was as particular about the powertrain as he was with the sheet metal and was able to obtain a tunnel-port 302 cubic-inch Ford engine that was a duplicate of those that the team struggled with in ’68, but he also built a standard-port engine, an identical copy of the ’67 version that had earned Ford and Titus a championship. That engine generated 442 horsepower and 372 lb-ft of torque, using only the hardware on which the Shelby team had relied. With more modern systems, the engine could have been more potent, but Jacobs is big on authenticity. Despite not having as much power as some vintage racers, he was still able to win four of the 12 vintage races he entered.

It wasn’t only Jacobs’ engine that was a copy of the one that took Titus to championships. The paint scheme and graphics were what Titus used as well. Although the ’68 car was red at Daytona, yellow was the predominant Shelby team color. Jacobs duplicated that yellow paint and made exact copies of all decals and trim.

Although completing the restoration was rewarding, authentication and affirmation were important to Jacobs as well. His extensive research and efforts to fully document the car finally paid off in full when SAAC acknowledged that the Jacobs Mustang was one of the three cars that Ford had provided for the Shelby race team.

Jacobs continued to race the Shelby ‘Stang for 15 years, enjoying every minute of it. In a Trans-Am vintage race in Waterford, Michigan, he held the lead until the last lap when he braked late and ran off the track. Although he lost the overall battle, he got back on track in time to win his class. In a Shelby event at Tulsa, Oklahoma, he beat a big-block ’69 Mustang for the overall win. And in a mixed-field vintage race at Mid-Ohio, he was sparring with an L88 Corvette that would put bus lengths on the little Mustang in the straights, only to be passed in the corners. As Jacobs recalls, the Corvette owner was both distressed and impressed.

In 2005, divorce changed everything. Given Michigan’s divorce laws, the Shelby Trans-Am was community property. Without the funds needed to buy out his ex-wife, Jacobs was forced to sell the Shelby ‘Stang. It went for $125,000, a substantial amount thanks to the extensive provenance that Jacobs had developed and the authenticity of the car’s restoration. Had the Shelby team used the car in competition, it probably would have sold for twice that.

Jacobs missed his very special car but got on with his life and kept on smiling. “I was a mechanic,” he says. “I never had much, but the funds generated from the sale of the car enabled me to buy a house.”

In that house, he put together an elaborate race-themed man cave with many photos of his race car, hundreds of models, and a wealth of Ford racing memorabilia.

Although he was no longer the owner of a Shelby race car, Jacobs had developed a love of road racing, so he rented a spec ’95 Mustang GT race car from a friend and ran several Camaro Mustang Challenge races sanctioned by the National Auto Sport Association. At Indiana’s Putnam Park Road Course, he qualified number one and set a new lap record but was experiencing health issues and couldn’t continue.

Those health issues were revealed to be due to a cardiac problem that required surgery and left Jacobs ineligible for a competition license.

While he could no longer rub sheet metal on the racetrack, he bought the slightly used 2006 Mustang GT and dressed it in Titus livery. Jacobs was, and so remains, a committed Mustang lover.

But old racers rarely hang up their helmets for good. And they don’t have to, thanks to track days where one can enjoy the thrill of hitting the apex and roaring down the straightaway without serious risk. So, these days, Jacobs can be seen at track days throughout the Midwest, driving a beautiful red Mustang GT dressed in the livery of a car and driver long gone.

***

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Tiny McPherson College in central Kansas, with its 850 students and 27-acre campus, may never go to the Rose Bowl or get a team into the NCAA Final Four. But it has achieved milestones that no other institution of higher learning can boast: It has put a car on the lawn at Pebble Beach, and it has taken a class award there. For the eager young minds enrolled in the school’s Automotive Restoration Technology program, there is no better trophy to stick in the case. Or, indeed, no better line to put on a résumé.

Among the cars entered in the Postwar Luxury class at the 72nd Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance this past August was an obsidian-black 1953 Mercedes 300S Cabriolet. It represented the culmination of a 10-year plan by McPherson’s staff and students to enter a student-restored car into the world’s most prestigious concours. The plan was audacious in its conception and unique among plans in that, except for the unplanned class award, it went exactly according to the plan.

“Back in 2013, we did a strategic planning retreat and set a goal of being at Pebble Beach in 10 years,” said Amanda Gutierrez, McPherson provost and vice president, of the auto restoration program. It enrolls about 150 students in a four-year undergraduate degree program that instructs pupils on everything from chrome plating to torquing connecting rods to automotive history, valuation, business accounting, and project management. Alumni go on to jobs in top restoration shops, in museum curation, at auction houses, and as managers of private collections. (Hagerty editor Kyle Smith is a McPherson graduate.)

The next step was to find the right car, one to “challenge the students but not break them,” said Gutierrez. That meant no French art deco bolides with electronic preselector gearboxes and hide-away sliding roofs, but a car elegant and distinguished enough to qualify for Pebble as well as eligible for one of the event’s classes. That narrowed the list of potential candidates. One of the program’s longtime advisors, Massachusetts-based restorer and Pebble Beach regular Paul Russell, suggested the relatively straightforward Mercedes 300S as a good candidate.

“It was Mercedes’ first clean-slate design after the war and their statement that they were back,” said Brian Martin, McPherson’s director of automotive restoration projects. The imposing 300S sold new for $14,000 in 1953 and, like most other cars eligible for Pebble Beach, is now mostly the province of wealthy collectors. “We were attempting to do Pebble Beach on a ramen budget, but we couldn’t wait for someone to donate a car,” Martin said.

A three-year search culminated in a 35,000-mile candidate that was complete and came with spare parts and a spare engine, but it needed a thorough overhaul. The sellers, Richard and Mary Hopeman of Pennsylvania, were attracted to the idea of a student project and offered a good price, and a donor stepped in to cover the purchase as well as provide seed money for the project.

The car appeared in unrestored condition at a McPherson event at Pebble Beach in 2016. “It presented much better than it was,” quipped Matt Kroeker, a 2023 McPherson grad from Longmont, Colorado. He was a freshman in high school when the project started and completely unaware that a 70-year-old Mercedes would come to dominate his young life and launch his career. He heard about McPherson from a Fox News item, and when he arrived at the school in 2019, the car was in bare metal and bits were scattered all over the school’s workshops.

As is the case with the restoration of any special, limited-production car, there were problems. It took three years to find a replacement windshield. There was trim that didn’t fit, U-joints that unexpectedly failed, electric windows that wouldn’t wind, and sheet metal perforated by rust and damaged in long-ago accidents. The school deemed it important to pay the students for their work, so it was treated as an extra-curricular internship rather than as classwork.

Once the restoration was completed, there was the monumental task of getting the car accepted to Pebble Beach. The selection committee is notoriously finicky as it winnows down hundreds of applications to a field of around 220 cars. Only six spots were allocated to the Postwar Luxury class. “We were told there was no preferential treatment,” said student Jeremy Porter, who is due to graduate in 2024. “We were on pins and needles like everyone else waiting for the word. We kinda bet the house on it.”

The bet paid off, and the Mercedes was driven by students onto the lawn at dawn last August 20 among a fleet of peers ranging from priceless Figoni-bodied Delahayes to Murphy-bodied Duesenbergs to short-wheelbase Ferrari 250 Berlinettas. There were two other Mercedes 300s in McPherson’s class, as well as a one-of-two 1953 Ghia-bodied Cadillac and a one-off 1955 Chrysler Imperial convertible built for the then-president of Chrysler. When the judges in their straw hats and blue blazers came to poke and prod the Benz, students showed them the car as an unusually large crowd looked on, at least some of it composed of 120 parents as proud as any you would find at a big-time college football game.

At Pebble Beach, all cars are awarded 100 points and the judges deduct from that for mechanical issues, restoration errors, or preparation oversights. The sweat and effort of all the students were good enough to win the Mercedes a second-in-class, which did not make it eligible for Best of Show—only class winners have a shot at that—but is nonetheless a high honor for which many aspiring Pebble Beach entrants have liquidated much greater fortunes without success.

Nobody at Pebble beat the McPherson team on enthusiasm and spirit, which thankfully still counts for something even in an event as fueled by money as the Concours d’Elegance. Speaking of which, the school, which launched its automotive tech program in 1976 but ramped it up considerably with the help of Jay Leno in 1997, recently announced that it has raised a startling $1.5 billion in endowments. Ideas being floated are a second campus and an engineering program.

The Mercedes will be a gift that keeps on giving for those who worked on it. Some 200 students contributed to the restoration over seven years, 40 or so at any one time. The car was challenging enough, even with help from school advisors and the Mercedes-Benz Classic Center, and the students learned skills that will serve them well after graduation. Indeed, several said they were being recruited by shops even before they had graduated.

***

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If you’re a regular reader of this site, you may have seen that we named the sale of a 1954 Ferrari 500 Mondial Series I by Pinin Farina, #0406MD, our most significant of 2023. Ordinarily, an old Ferrari race car changing hands for more than a million dollars would not constitute anything newsworthy in our niche little world. In this case, the car—if you can even call it that—is far from ordinary. It is a twisted mass of bent, dented, and corroded metal, the victim of a racing career, a massive crash, time, and a building collapse amid a 2004 Florida hurricane. As Monty Python would say, “This Ferrari has ceased to be! It is no more! It is an EX-FERRARI!”

The buyer, who did not bid on a parrot, seems to feel otherwise. Yes, it may look like a near-$2M paperweight now, but with at least that much more cash in reserve to pay for the mother of all restorations, this might once again be a 1954 Ferrari 500 Mondial. Even if said restoration involves, as Hagerty Price Guide editor Dave Kinney mused, “every single nut and bolt.”

When most people outside the car world hear about such a plan, they wonder: Is the end product even the same car? Indeed, many people within the car world do too.

That question got me thinking about a centuries-old philosophical paradox, one that may ring a bell. It’s called “The Ship of Theseus.” Some of the world’s most brilliant thinkers have wrestled with the problem and examined it in various ways, but the crux of the question is fairly straightforward.

Imagine a sailing ship whose best days are behind it—rotting planks, tattered sails, empty bottles of grog, et cetera—that gets a complete and total makeover in which every single component is replaced with identical, shipyard-fresh components. Is it still the Ship of Theseus when the final plank is laid, or is it now… something else?

In other versions of the conundrum, the worn parts are subsequently rebuilt into another ship, producing two ships in total, one new and one old. Which, then, is the real Ship of Theseus? In other versions still, pieces are replaced bit by bit over a period of many years, engendering other questions such as, “If the ship at the end of the transition is no longer the Ship of Theseus, at what point did it stop being the Ship of Theseus?”

If your head hurts, don’t feel too bad. It’s a paradox. There is no definitive answer. However, in trying to come up with one, philosophers dredge up all kinds of titillating ideas and explanations. Old cars, it turns out, introduce fascinating nuances to this age-old metaphysical quandary.

“The Ship of Theseus is one of many different puzzles that puts pressure on intuitive judgments about artifacts, starting with the idea that ordinary artifacts survive gradual change,” says Dr. Maegan Fairchild, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Michigan. “Cases of art restoration are already challenging enough, and interestingly, different issues arise when we start thinking about mass production. Classic cars are a tremendously rich intersection of these questions.”

Fairchild admits she is not a car enthusiast, but her study of metaphysics and aesthetics examines how some objects seem to deal with change successfully while others don’t. “In the Ship of Theseus, we’re negotiating how much of the ship we can change. You can take your car to the mechanic for new brakes and when you pick it up a few days later, it is still the same car. But imagine, instead, it was my grandfather’s truck that only he had ever repaired. I’d be quite reasonably furious if you had it fixed at a shop, by some other mechanic, without my permission. It’s a case where an ordinary object is more than just its physical parts.”

Cases in which a car is with its original owner speak to something similar. The moment a car is sold to a second owner, it loses that quality.

Questions of restoration or conservation can get even thornier. Often, the goal of such endeavors is to “protect an artifact from other changes—the rust, for example, that might spread to the rest of the car—that threaten to destroy it,” Fairchild says. “But with mass-produced objects, are we trying to restore their condition or their function?” What’s more important, how it looks or how it actually drives? And what does “original condition” mean? Is it the design? Parts? Materials? How it operates?

Ensuring a car persists with all of its original parts may, in some instances, doom it to never run again if the caretaker does not have the ability, knowledge, or tools to make it work reliably as designed. Certain pre-war cars and technologies come to mind. Is it more “original” in that state, or, if it runs and drives but uses, say, an electric starter instead of one activated by a vacuum switch?

Originality and restoration are concepts that depend on perspective, Fairchild argues. “Going back to my grandfather’s old truck, restoring it to the out-of-box condition would make it valuable to someone who cares generally about that model, but in the process you’d be destroying the thing that I personally care about. The stakeholders matter here—the car may be of interest as a historical artifact, sentimental object, art object, functional object, or even a financial investment.”

Nobody has explored these discussions from an automotive perspective in greater detail than car collector Miles Collier, founder of the Revs Institute and author of the fantastic book The Archaeological Automobile. On the subject of the Ship of Theseus, his mind immediately goes to a 1990 English court case concerning whether a 1929 Bentley race car known as Old Number One could truly claim that title, given all of its changes in the intervening years.

“The car had experienced so many modifications and evolutions in and out of period that there was a real question of whether the new buyer had the authentic item or a pile of parts from subsequent evolutions,” Collier explains. “The judge determined it would be hard to argue the car was Old Number One. But if there was anything that could be Old Number One, this was it.”

In Collier’s mind, it was the proper conclusion.

“Ultimately, the reality of material things in a material world is that everything vanishes and disappears,” says Collier. “The only thing that survives the ages is essential, called The Platonic Aspect—the design and its conception, in the case of a car. We have to accept that matter of any kind is always in a state of becoming, transitioning, into one thing or another.”

Following that thread, Collier has a particular view on restoration.

“All restoration is fictional. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, but when you’re doing it, be aware you’re introducing fictional artifact as the kind of methodology, materials, and choices. Even the very fact that you are a person of the 2020s dealing with a car from 1935 means your values, your perceptions of the world, are limited to the scope of this moment. If it’s an 8C Alfa, you know it’s worth $15 million or something, and that makes you want to be careful and meticulous. But in 1935 the 8C was simply a product that Alfa Romeo needed to go down the road and eventually make some money. The factory approach was to have great fit and finish on what the customer could see, but on what wasn’t visible… not so much. That kind of thing is extremely difficult to replicate in restoration.”

Collier’s view that all restoration is fictional has a parallel in philosophy. Mereological essentialism is the view that no object can survive any change in its component parts—that the moment a car drives off the production line and microscopic bits of rubber wear off the tires, it is no longer the same car.

“From that point of view,” Fairchild says, “the sense that there can be any continuous object in existence requires some kind of fiction-telling. In real life, mereological essentialism is usually plausible only in rarefied cases. What it does is get us a clean view of what is important to objects.” Think of, for example, driving gloves that Paul Newman wore; we understand that the leather may have cracked and aged, but we still treat them as the same pair of gloves. The story that we tell ourselves, the one that matters most to the object, is that this material was once on Newman’s hands.

Still, for Collier, the most intrinsically valuable and culturally significant cars are the super-rare “all-there” examples that survive unmodified from their original state. Unmodified but not unmarred; unlike Han Solo frozen in carbonite, cars are real-world material objects that suffer degradation even in the best of storage conditions. The value of such cars, in part, is their testament to the vehicle’s original configuration that serves both as a historical record and as an example to guide future restorations of similar cars.

“The important thing is to maintain the role of archaeology, which is to maintain the vehicle’s connection to both past and present. However, I’m sympathetic to wanting to make things more practical, usable, convenient. I would much rather have an old car that has had minor modifications but is usable, rather than a technically perfect thing that nobody drives so it goes into the junkyard.”

So what about the destroyed Ferrari? Is it still the same car?

“The 500 Mondial is evocative,” Collier says, “and [after the fact it will be] maybe not so different from cars with what I call anonymizing restorations—in which every element and indicator of the car’s idiosyncratic history make it an individual rather than the one that is one of a series of industrial objects.”

Some in the hobby assign special meaning or value to a factory restoration from, say, Aston Martin, Jaguar, Ferrari, Porsche, or Mercedes-Benz. However, Collier doesn’t correlate those services with any greater authenticity than he would another top-tier operation.

“A replica made with authentic parts on which every original material has been transformed, and in which everything fits perfectly and there is no sign of wear, has nothing to tell us about the car from the past. It can, however, have some value in terms of how that car in the past operated, particularly if the mechanical restoration was done with fidelity to the original systems.”

Despite what some owners and experts deem to be original, there are numerous “documented” cars out in the ether that are anything but. Kinney, the Hagerty Price Guide publisher, remembers one in particular:

“I know of a Ferrari that in the 1970s was wrecked—and I mean it basically fell off a cliff, so it was destroyed. I don’t think anyone who owned the repaired car since then has an idea there was ever damage. The point is that, at the time, it was never a particularly important car, so all of the work was done in an Italian body shop where pieces were either fabricated or parts were purchased from the factory. Now, it’s aged appropriately so nobody would ever come to the conclusion that this has happened.”

Like it or not, money is often a critical factor at this tier of the collector realm. Certain truths are not the sort owners want to go digging for, as any indication a car is not what it purports to be could come back to bite the owner upon resale. We should point out, however, that wholesale bodywork, in particular, makes no difference for some cars while it means everything for others:

“In the world of Cobras,” Kinney notes, “a re-body is a huge detriment to value because people want to protect the authenticity of the originals amid all of the replicas out there. But in other worlds a re-body is an improvement; you can buy body shells for a Mustang and it’s known as an acceptable substitute. The same is true for some British cars.”

In some ships, it seems, an entirely replaced hull is no big deal. However, the status that originality represents, Kinney wagers, can play an important role.

“There is an element of elitism that surrounds the car when an owner is able to declare it all-original. And then, be careful what you wish for: The cars that we covet now, almost all of them, at some point existed as used cars that weren’t worth very much and were treated as such. This is especially true of race cars.”

Race cars, especially those with notable competition history, tend to be worth a lot of money. Big money means big incentive to ensure a car’s survival, and even the most heinous damage, abuse, or modification may be washed over if the financial juice is judged worth the squeeze at the other end of the restoration.

“Look no further than Ferrari Classiche,” says Rudi Koniczek, a veteran high-end restorer with a particular expertise in Mercedes-Benz 300 SLs. “All they need is a chassis number. Fifties and Sixties race cars were trashed, wrecked, burnt to the ground, and generally clobbered. People died in them. However, if a car like that raced at Le Mans and there’s a fender left or chassis number, someone is gonna build a car around it.

“It’s not so different with Mercedes, either. I’ve fixed cars that had been completely wrapped around telephone poles or destroyed in house fires. Cars like that can go on to win shows.”

At this tier, the invisible rules that seem to govern what cars are deemed worthy, or valuable, can seem arbitrary and even alien. As an owner and a restorer, part of the process is navigating that labyrinth and deciding what rules you choose to follow, followed by what constitutes bending versus breaking them.

“Let’s take an alloy-bodied 300 SL, cars that were very fragile,” Koniczek says. “Many were re-skinned and rebodied. If a perfect, flawlessly restored alloy car is worth $7M, what about an original example that is so screwed up you wouldn’t drive it? That’s not an easy judgement.”

As a metaphysician and philosopher, difficult judgments come with Fairchild’s territory. A pretty good heuristic—a mental shortcut for solving similar problems of a type—for Ship of Theseus puzzles is tracing the history of a given object.

“If what is essential to an object is its causal history, the story that we tell about it concerns its path from creation to now,” she says. “Like a winning race car, or a car that belonged to an important celebrity, sometimes that history is what we care most about. Think about sourdough bread that uses the same starter—what matters is not the particular bits of the bread like the flour, but the continuity from the source. Often this is the best approach to apply to complicated objects that by their nature are going to incur a lot of causal change in their lifetime, because of wear and tear. Houses are another good example.”

If history isn’t of primary importance, maybe it’s how the object is used. For race cars competing in period, their chief focus was maximum performance. From that point of view, individual parts did not always matter. A team might swap engines, transmissions, or aerodynamic parts without a second thought; it follows that what is essential to that object is that it continues to be treated that way when it is used on the race track now. Whatever changes it experiences simply become new chapters in the story.

Jazz music, another discipline that cares deeply about what its creators and practitioners intend, offers an interesting parallel. “In many jazz pieces,” Fairchild says, “improvised sections are extremely important. But novelty with each performance is part of the experience—it would not be a proper rendition of the original if the music is repeated exactly from a previous performance.”

A different heuristic might be making sure the object has its essential parts—number plate, engine, transmission, et cetera. This is particularly difficult in cars, though. There are just so many parts, combined with the understanding that some—tires, oil, brakes—are by definition meant to wear, while others are meant to last much longer. Even still, two identical cars with identical parts may not be identical in their significance. The final air-cooled VW Beetle ever built is a lot more important than the twelfth-to-last.

There are no easy answers here, which is part of what makes these questions so interesting. As sold, the Ferrari 500 Mondial in question did not have its original 2.0-liter Lampredi-designed engine but rather a later, still-period-correct 3.0-liter engine. Does this matter? Apparently not to the buyer, and, as collector car analyst Rick Carey points out, it likely helps that Ferrari did sell 750 Monzas with this engine in the ’50s. After all, nobody expects that the car will be original when the entire thing will have to be rebuilt almost entirely from scratch.

What matters is that the car is understood to be what it professes to be. And on the other side of its restoration, the car’s right to call itself Ferrari 500 Mondial #0406MD will be examined, judged, and evaluated by many interested parties. It’s their perspectives that will carry the most weight.

Our guess? Given the dollars and reputations in play, the end product will go over a bit better than Monty Python’s distressed parrot owner looking for recompense:

SHOP OWNER: “Sorry gov, we’ve run out of parrots.”

CUSTOMER: “I see, I see, I get the picture.”

SHOP OWNER: “I’ve got a slug.”

CUSTOMER: (glares) “Does it talk?”

SHOP OWNER: (shrugs) “Not really, no.”

CUSTOMER: Well, it’s scarcely a replacement, then, is it?

***

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It spans 28 feet and flaunts nine doors, six wheels, and 455 cubic inches of front-wheel-drive Oldsmobile V-8 power. The AQC Jetway 707 rests before me like a magnificent, curious creature whose evolutionary traits were arrested in development like an ancient bug in sticky amber.

American Quality Coach’s short-lived effort to create the ultimate airport limousine began in 1968 and ceased in 1970, victim to the expenses of its elaborate design. The Jetway, more than anything else, is genuinely weird. That makes it worth saving.

This battleship grey behemoth, the 12th of just 52 made, sat decomposing for years before recently being rescued by Cleveland Power and Performance, a multifaceted speed shop in Columbia Station, Ohio. The Jetway represents the outfit’s largest and perhaps most complex, involved restoration to date.

Tim Mulcahy keeps busy at Cleveland Power and Performance. In addition to heading up the shop’s online sales and social media presence, while also managing the physical office, on the day of my visit he guides me through the shop’s enormous compound.

“What started as Cleveland Pick-a-Part in 1986 evolved in the early 2000s to focus on salvaged late-model American performance car parts, and we eventually added a full shop turning out custom builds,” Mulcahy explains. He’s leading me past rows of staff, diligently processing orders at their desktops. “A little less than ten years ago, we’d started taking our builds to auctions and shows, so we changed our name to ‘Cleveland Power and Performance’ to more accurately reflect what we do.”

Once past the front office, Cleveland’s interconnected buildings take on the air of a museum’s backroom archives. We meander through warehouses full of neatly catalogued parts carefully pulled from wrecked American performance cars.

In tidy rows rest turn-key modern V-8 drivetrains pulled from Mustangs, Dodge SRTs, and Camaros, each packaged to start and run right in place on their pallets. The restoration shop bustles with mechanics and craftsmen working on more than a half-dozen vehicles, including an old Charger with a Hellcat engine swap and a beautifully-restored Chevy 454 SS pickup.

It’s a big place, which means a lot of walking. Beyond the upholstery facility, I take a break on a luxurious, stitched leather couch that’s built into the back end of a metallic yellow ’48 Caddy. (They start at about $10,000, in case your La-Z-Boy needs replacing.)

We eventually arrive at our destination. I walk through the door of the paint shop—one of the few indoor spots with enough room to house their recent acquisition—and the sheer length of AQC’s Jetway 707 envelops my field of view.

It’s a lot to look at, this Jetway, both from its sheer size and from all its intricacies. Everything ahead of the windshield is unmistakably ’68 Oldsmobile Toronado, but the rest is all AQC’s effort to create a spacious and luxurious airport shuttle.

“They went over and above trying to build something right—you could tell they cared about what they were doing,” explains Rick Fragnoli, one of two brothers who own Cleveland PaP. “From my research, they put so much money in their tooling and creating this hand-built product that they just never got off the ground.”

Countless details testify to the time and effort involved in developing and engineering the Jetway. Fragnoli believes the steel roof on early models like his was welded from multiple pieces rather than stamped as a single unit. (Later models used fiberglass.)

The windshield is unique to the Jetway, and so are all those doors. “People think the doors are from a GM station wagon, but all the bodywork behind the front fenders was custom-made by American Quality Coach,” says Fragnoli. The panels, even the roof, are heavy-gauge steel, and though there’s a staggering amount of rust, the Jetway still feels sturdy in construction.

Three rows of three individual seats each, plus a bench in the back and room on the split bench up front, means that 14 passengers could fit comfortably. There’s more than enough headroom for all aboard, and there’s ample space for old-time suitcases in the separated luggage compartment in the back. Dual trailer beam axles on leaf springs help support all the weight out back.

All this capacity is the result of AQC’s founders’ decision to build the Jetway 707 with GM’s full-size front-wheel-drive architecture. The Olds 455 V-8 provided ample power, but more importantly, the lack of a tunnel for the drivetrain enabled a flat floor pan for added occupant comfort.

That comfort, at least in this particular Jetway, was initially offered to GM executives who used it as a shuttle to and from Detroit’s Metro Airport through the late ’70s. It was then used by the airport itself up until the mid-’80s. After that, a limo company took ownership, adding the odd “centipede” graphics down the sides. A family picked up the Jetway in 1999 and put it to their own use. “There’s even a photo of this car at the Woodward Dream Cruise in 2004,” says Fragnoli.

Things took an unfortunate turn not long after 2004 when a younger relative shot out the windows of the old limo with a BB gun. The owner angrily set off in the Jetway to confront him and managed to severely damage the transmission in the process. The Jetway then sat until it was listed for sale in the fall of 2023. When Fragnoli saw the listing, he did not hesitate.

“There’s no doubt it’s pretty rough,” says Fragnoli, pointing out that those shot-out windows are custom pieces. He then motions me toward the front seat, which he demonstrates can move back and forth despite being bolted down—that’s how much rust is in the floor. “It is going to be a lot of work,” he added, “but nothing we can’t handle.”

Fragnoli has a battery cart at the ready, with which he demonstrates to me that the Jetway’s big 455 starts without a hitch. Aside from the abundant exhaust leaks, the V-8 sounds pretty healthy. When he shuts it down, I ask what his plans are for the behemoth.

“I’m not a big restoration person, but I think it might be a little sacrilegious to tear this one apart.  The original plan was to do a front-wheel-drive, twin-turbo LS setup,” he says with a wry smile. “But then we thought about how rare it is—one of only seven left in the U.S. and nine left in the world, unless someone else finds one. It’s not going to be an OEM nut-and-bolt project because there’s no paperwork left on these, but I think we’re going to keep it more original to start.”

Fragnoli intends to drive this Jetway with its existing 455 and share it with fellow enthusiasts. Despite the huge undertaking ahead of the team at Cleveland PaP, he’s already making summer plans. “The goal is to be on the road with a driving, functional car with glass back in it and the interior done,” he says. “But the bodywork, the paint, some of the metalwork’s still going to be in progress. We’ll get out, do some shows, maybe do the Power Tour and let people see and enjoy it. It’s such a massive project that it’ll take years to fully complete, but next winter we can tear it back down and make progress in stages.”

Speaking of progress, the Cleveland PaP crew appears to have rolled up their sleeves in the weeks since my visit. The company’s YouTube channel shows the interior removed and the floor completely cut out. The seats are off to the upholstery staff, and if that Cadillac couch was any indication, cossetting accommodations await this Jetway’s occupants. Judging by the rest of Cleveland’s operation, the whole car is in store for a dramatic makeover. For any necessary airport trips next summer, I know just who to call.

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There are few laws of project cars, but one that is undeniable and rules over every single one of us who enjoys turning wrenches is that there is always more rust than it looks like.

Always.

Rust takes away the ability to enjoy working on a car. It makes routine tasks a battle fought with penetrating oil, heat, and large-caliber impact wrenches. It’s a brutal task to cut out the cancer that is iron oxide once it gets a hold of the steel panels. Leave any rust, and it will only come back faster, spreading like that puddle of oil from the time you forget to put the drain plug back in—slowly, but maliciously.  If you are going to remove rust, you have to remove all of the rust. If you can’t cut it all out, you have to resort to a more involved process: submerging the whole chassis in an acid dip to remove every last oxidized spec.

The idea of dipping cars in large vats of solutions is nearly as old as the car itself. Assembly lines have been using this method to paint unibody chassis structures for decades. In those cases, the end goal of the process is typically additive; there’s more car coming out the other side of the dip than there was going in. Conversely, When you acid dip a car, you’re looking to remove the paints and finishes that were applied to the body during the production paint dip. These chemical baths remove everything, taking the chassis back down to bare metal.

When doing a very detailed restoration you need to get back to the point of totally clean metal. There are multitudes of ways to strip layers of paint, sealers, primers, body filler, or undercoatings that involve abrasives. Pushing abrasives via air or water comes with the side effects of introducing heat and local pressure, which can warp and damage delicate panels, leaving more work than just hand sanding using a random orbital and sandpaper. Instead, all that labor can be put to better use if you let two large containers of chemicals do the work.

The first tank in the acid dip process is an alkaline bath that works to remove the layers of paint and other surface treatments that may be found on an aging car shell. That soak typically lasts a couple of days, and it’s followed by a rinse with a pressure washer to blast off the paint and undercoating. The bath softens and lifts all the paint but takes a couple of soaks to get it ready for the main feature: the acid dip.

If the thought of a large vat of acid is slightly off-putting, know that you are not alone. The tank is filled with phosphoric acid which is not incredibly strong as far as acids are concerned. In concentrations, it can cause burns to the skin, but this is not some vat of liquid where things go to disappear. Instead, the acid is chemically altering the FeO2 of rust to neutralize it. Effectively, it suffocates and kills rust, leaving behind a neutralized surface.

One final quick dip in the alkaline bath is required to make sure that none of the acid continues munching away at the metal from the inside out. Then a soaking with an electrophoretic paint, known as E-coating, seals all that fresh clean metal and sets a surface that can either be prepped for paint or removed with abrasives to make more extensive repairs.

By the end of the process, you know exactly what you have to work with and can be confident that no rust is hiding in the shadows, waiting to come back stronger. Instead, you have a car that can be protected with modern materials and finishes that could last decades with regular use. We like the idea of that.

***

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You might think this one comes way out of left field. The only good reason to think that is because, well, it does. It’s a controversial pick and I’m pretty sure it won’t be a popular one, but the twisted $1.875M hunk of Ferrari absolutely is my choice for Sale of the Year, 2023 edition. But I’m not choosing it just to be different. I genuinely think it was a great buy.

The car, which at one time was a Ferrari 500 Mondial, put a smile on my face when I first read about it. An even bigger smile appeared when I first saw it in person. But the idea of actually buying and restoring it? It sounds both stupid and savvy, impossible and life-affirming, wrong on every level yet just so right. It’s a moonshot, but also one with all the roadmaps firmly in place. It’s a picture of destruction, but also that of a path to redemption. It’s like an O. Henry story, a Dickens story, and a Hemingway story all wrapped up in an old Italian race car.

To be specific, it’s a 1954 Ferrari 500 Mondial Series I by Pinin Farina, serial number 0406 MD. It crashed heavily sometime in the early 1960s, and it sold out of the “Lost and Found” collection at RM Sotheby’s Monterey auction this August for $1,875,000.

First, a little bit about this “Lost and Found” collection, which belonged to Florida real estate developer Walter Medlin. In 2004, Hurricane Charley gave the Sunshine State a Category 4-sized smack, and among the casualties was the barn housing Medlin’s 20 Ferraris (including the Mondial). The structure collapsed, raining debris down on the cars. Later relocated to Indiana and stored for another decade, the cars were finally brought out for sale in Monterey.

The sort of living diorama, set up by the RM staff to display the cars outside the Portola Hotel in downtown Monterey, certainly played to a “Lost and Found” theme. It gave off vibes of a desert island, a long-forgotten post in the outback, or an abandoned junkyard in a remote clearing. Placed as far away from the main viewing area as was possible, it nevertheless served as a celebration of the rundown and wrecked nature of what was on offer. In the Mondial’s case, however, it wasn’t so much wrecked as it was utterly demolished.

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GM was on a roll as postwar America hurtled toward the fabulous ’50s, and in 1949, the dominant American automaker decided to show the world what it could do. The medium for that message was automotive extravaganzas—GM-only car shows—meant to tantalize the car-buying public with a look at what was possible and what was to come.

In 1953, GM created a name for its shows, and “Motorama” toured the country. I recall walking the acres of Motorama displays with my dad in the huge parking lot of Chicago’s Soldier Field. To my five-year-old eyes, nothing could have been more beautiful. This combination of carnival and auto exhibit became a must-see event with entertainment, music, trains, buses, cars, and more cars. Fabulous cars like the Oldsmobile Starfire and Buick Wildcat were featured that year. They had been created under the watchful eye of GM design chief Harley Earl, who recognized early on that styling is a powerful marketing tool.

Because the concept cars caused so much excitement during the first few years of the show, GM realized that it had to prove it could build exciting and enticing production vehicles as well. The result was the trio of limited-production convertibles introduced well into model year 1953: Cadillac Eldorado, Buick Skylark, and Oldsmobile 98 Fiesta.

The Olds Fiesta droptop came at a steep cost. Ticketed at $5715—approximately $70,000 in today’s dollars—it was priced well above standard GM offerings. For example, a well-equipped Olds 98 convertible was only $2963. But Fiesta was meant to impress rather than sell in big numbers, and only 458 units were produced. And impress it did, with a wraparound windshield that was a few inches lower than that of the 98, lots of chrome and stainless steel, beautiful badging, color-coordinated leather upholstery, a padded dash, a carpeted trunk, and much more.

Charlie Grant wasn’t yet among the living when the Oldsmobile 98 Fiesta Convertible made its grand entrance, but some 60 years later, this fan of GM mid-century classics knew he had to have one. Charlie provides transportation for the Detroit Public Schools, so he’s steeped in automotive culture. He also has a large facility in the heart of the Motor City where he can display cars and hold fundraisers for the school district. He currently owns about 25 cars, many of them in restoration or waiting to be restored.

Grant purchased this Olds Fiesta in 2014 after seeing it on eBay. It came out of Arizona, so it wasn’t a rust bucket, but it was definitely showing the wear and tear of 60 years. The owner had intended to restore it, but decided against the project and posted the car for sale. With only 458 produced and 50 said to still be extant, the Fiesta was a once-in-a-lifetime find, so Grant leaped.

Reminger Restorations of Winona, Minnesota, was charged with making the classic Olds droptop new again. Jim Reminger is a meticulous pro who has restored several cars for Grant, including some classic Cadillacs, so there was no doubt he could return this machine to its original glory. Because some mechanical parts were beyond repair, a donor car—a 98 from 1953—was purchased. (The 98 wasn’t equipped with the specialized parts of the Fiesta, but the limited-production car used some brand-standard parts, so the 98 fit the bill.)

All the original body panels and floors were relatively free of rust and in eminently restorable condition. The seats and top were tattered and worn, but they were in good enough shape that Grant and Reminger could determine the original upholstery colors of Surf Blue and Polar White. The 303-cubic-inch Rocket V-8 engine was intact, and its numbers indicated it was original to the car. Boasting a revised intake manifold and a slightly higher compression ratio than the standard Olds powerplant, it was rated at 170 horsepower when new. Thanks to a full rebuild, it starts immediately without smoke and idles smoothly. The engine is backed by GM’s dual-range Hydramatic transmission, which offers four forward speeds, including a low ratio, stump-pulling first gear.

As one might expect after many years of storage, none of the accessories or mechanical systems were operable, but after full disassembly, all components were repaired or sent out for specialized restoration. Both Reminger and Grant are sticklers for authenticity, so all systems were reconditioned to original factory specs. Even the radio tubes are of the original type.

The Olds Fiesta was among the first GM cars produced with power seats and windows, and like other early designs, the windows are raised and lowered by hydraulic units that are electrically activated. This hydroelectric technology was first used by the military prior to World War II. Originally meant to raise and lower the tops of military vehicles, it naturally adapted to raise and lower the windows of passenger cars. GM began using the technology in the late 1940s for both power windows and convertible tops. To restore the windows, Reminger purchased new hydraulic units from a supplier he works with on a regular basis and ran all new lines.

Because the Fiesta came with numerous power accessories, GM utilized a 12-volt battery for the first time. This early 12-volt is twice as long and half as wide as today’s batteries. Thus, for the restoration, a custom retro battery was purchased and installed in its original position under the hood.

The windows that weren’t broken were in poor condition, so all new glass was fitted, and date codes were etched in the windows to match the old glass. All the trim pieces are original and have been cleaned up and replated. The chrome windshield pillars were leaded into the body, so the lead had to be melted before the pillars could be removed for plating. Once finished, they were leaded back in place.

Most car enthusiasts will recognize the Fiesta hubcaps. They’re the classic Oldsmobile spinner hubcaps that were a favorite of early hot rodders. Some of the hubcaps on Grant’s Fiesta were replaced or restored depending on condition. Today, they are a beautiful reminder of GM’s mid-century styling triumphs.

***

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A 62-year-old commercial builder in suburban Minneapolis, Tom McGough is a discerning collector whose stable ranges from ultra-rare sports cars like a Ferrari 166 Inter, a Pegaso Z-103, and an ATS 2500 GT, to two dozen Willys hot rods. But his collection didn’t include any grand pre-war European classics, much to the chagrin of his parents, Tom Sr. and Jean, who often accompanied him to the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.

Five years ago, when she was 83, Jean was diagnosed with cancer. “She’s a tough old Italian,” McGough said. “She said, ‘No big deal. I’ve lived a good life.’ And I’m like, ‘Mom, you’re going to fight, and I’m going to pursue a prewar car, and we’re going to restore it and take it to Pebble Beach.’”

Speed was of the essence, so McGough hired broker Ed Fallon to scour the globe for possibilities. McGough considered about 30 cars over six months—Bugattis, Hispano-Suizas, Mercedes-Benzes, you name it. “I wanted something spectacular. But that’s what everybody wants,” he said. “So as soon as one of these big cars comes up, you have to go fight with a bunch of billionaires to acquire it.”

“It” turned out to be a 1937 Delahaye 135 M Compétition, one of only seven cars sporting exuberant coachwork by Henri Chapron described as a roadster cabriolet and the only survivor featuring sumptuous Grand Luxe styling. Among its many owners over the years was Jean Sage, the former head of the Renault Formula 1 program, and it spent a decade in Peter Kaus’s renowned Rosso Bianco museum.

The car was a stunner. For precisely that reason, it was sure to attract a lot of attention. McGough was granted first dibs, but he was given only 24 hours to pull the trigger. Ratcheting up the tension, he had to make his decision based entirely on photographs. “I stared at that thing almost all night,” he admitted. But in the light of day, it was an easy decision because the car was exactly what he was looking for, and he happily paid $1.35 million to purchase it.

“This car can go toe-to-toe with just about any prewar French car in terms of timeless beauty and rarity,” he said. “It’s not too flamboyant, yet it’s much more sporting than the typical Chapron body styles of that era. I would never say that my car is more beautiful than the [Figoni & Falaschi Delahaye] Torpedoes. But, to me, it’s got this wonderful balance of drop-dead gorgeousness and really tasteful, elegant lines.”

When the car arrived in the States, McGough thought it looked even better in person than it had in photos. But closer examination revealed plenty of flaws that had to be addressed. Some of the bodywork had been damaged. The wood in the magnificent interior—one of the car’s most attractive selling points—was rotting. Under the hood lurked the wrong engine.

Getting the car to Pebble Beach was going to require more than a 2000-mile trip from Minnesota to California.

***

Consider the modern supercar. It offers breathtaking performance, exquisite styling, and the most sophisticated technology this side of quantum computing. Yet a million-dollar-plus price tag doesn’t buy you genuine exclusivity. If you were lucky enough to purchase a Porsche 918 Spyder, there are still 917 other owners just like you. Production of the LaFerrari wasn’t capped until 499 cars were sold. Even the don’t-blink-or-you’ll-never-see-one Pagani Utopia is expected to have a production run of 99 units.

But the better part of a century ago, assuming you had the requisite savoir-faire and ample disposable income, you could commission a work of kinetic art that would be uniquely yours. Instead of buying a car out of a catalog or off the showroom floor, you would have a bare chassis delivered to the coachbuilder of your choice. There, a team of artisanal metalcrafters would hammer out—literally—a body built to your precise specifications. Depending on your location and aesthetic sensibilities, you would go to Murphy in Pasadena or Park Ward in London or Pinin Farina in Turin. But it was in France during the depths of the Great Depression that the art of coachbuilding reached its apogee.

“At this point in history, the French were the leaders of design and styling,” said Richard Adatto, who has written extensively about French classic cars. “New developments in art, industrial design, and car styling were all centered around Paris. Harley Earl [the longtime styling czar at General Motors] always came over in October for the Paris show to get ideas and digest what was happening in the styling world.”

As the name suggests, the automotive concours d’elegance was a French invention. By the 1930s, car shows had spread from Paris to the tony beach resorts of Cannes, Nice, and Biarritz. Celebrities, members of the nobility, and denizens of the uppermost strata of European society made the rounds of this circuit to gaze at not only automobile designs but also fashion models and socialites showcasing the latest wares from Parisian couturiers such as Elsa Schiaparelli and Maggy Rouff.

Although chassis could be taken to any coachbuilder, a handful of French companies dominated this rarefied market. Among the most inventive were Russian émigré Jacques Saoutchik, who had fled the pogroms in Belarus in 1899; Carrosserie Franay; Henri Chapron, later even better known for his Citroën DS19 cabriolets; and most celebrated of all, Figoni & Falaschi, which treated automotive bodywork as the canvas for some of the most daring shapes and striking color combinations ever seen. “There was a method to their madness,” said writer and concours judge Peter Larsen, an expert in French classics. “Joseph Figoni saw himself as the great fashion designer of automobiles.”

Inevitably, most of the cars these coachbuilders worked with were French as well. The grandest were Hispano-Suizas, while Bugattis sported the most performance cachet. Delage and, a bit later, Talbot-Lago were also major players in this arena. But a company with a more utilitarian history and far less prestigious reputation emerged as the marque most closely associated with the over-the-top art deco creations of the 1930s.

Delahaye was one of the oldest car companies in France, and, by extension, in the world. Émile Delahaye came of age during the Second French Empire, an era of prosperity and urbanization during the mid-19th century. Trained as a mechanical engineer, he worked as a railway engineer before going into business for himself. By the 1880s, he was building engines of his own design for industrial applications. In 1894, he fashioned his first motorcar, and the year after that, he waded into the burgeoning automobile market.

In 1896, Delahaye entered a pair of two-cylinder gasoline-powered cars in the Paris-Marseilles-Paris city-to-city race—10 days and 1062 miles over unpaved roads. Sportsman Ernest Archdeacon placed seventh overall, and first in class, while Delahaye himself was 10th and second in class. Accounting for two of the 14 finishers (out of 32 starters), Delahaye’s cars immediately earned a reputation for robustness that stuck with the brand for the rest of its history.

Delahaye sold his eponymous company shortly after the turn of the century. By that time, the two men who would guide the marque for the coming decades were already in place—business/factory manager Charles Weiffenbach, fondly known as “Monsieur Charles,” and technical director Amédée Varlet, who had helped the Edison Company electrify Paris. Although Delahaye continued to dabble in motorsports, even producing an 80-liter (!) engine for boat racing, the company focused on more practical products such as motorized plows and commercial trucks, which performed heroically during World War I. For many years, Varlet’s designs also monopolized the French firetruck market.

There were road cars, too, plenty of them, in every conceivable configuration. But no matter the size or shape, they offered lackluster performance and humdrum styling. Instead, they boasted more pragmatic attributes of sturdiness and reliability at an affordable price. Solide comme une Delahaye—“Solid as a Delahaye”—was the company slogan. But “solid” could just as easily be read as “stolid.” The cars were dependable but boring.

Of course, dependable-but-boring can be a winning formula; witness the enduring popularity of the aggressively inoffensive Toyota Camry. But Delahaye’s bottom line suffered after the shock waves from the American stock market crash of 1929 spread to Europe. Sales of entry-level and moderately priced cars plummeted, compelling the company to look elsewhere to make up for the lost revenue. “Your cars are good and solid but not sporty enough,” Ettore Bugatti supposedly told Weiffenbach. “You have to aim higher.”

The advice was most likely apocryphal. But as fate would have it, Delahaye had an innovative engineer named Jean François working as an assistant to the more conventional Varlet. Before joining the company, François had designed a car with an avant-garde independent front suspension for a small automaker, now defunct, in Lyons. In an effort to attract a more affluent clientele, François created the so-called Superluxe models that were unveiled in 1932. The next year, the Paris Auto Salon brought the debut of the sportier Type 135, which redefined Delahaye’s essential character and ensured the marque’s survival.

The Type 135 belongs on any list of great sports cars. Even in stock form, it was fast, comfortable, and fun to drive—athletic enough for high-speed touring yet stout enough to thrive in the less-than-ideal road conditions of the period. The chassis served as the foundation of some of the most dazzling custom bodywork seen before or since. Yet the car was more than a mere poseur. Competition versions won the Monte Carlo Rally in 1937 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1938. The Type 135 remained in production until Delahaye itself folded in 1954.

The Type 135 was built upon a traditional ladder-style frame, but with heftier cross bracing than usual. Unlike most cars of the era, the Delahaye benefited from an elementary independent front suspension featuring transverse-mounted semi-elliptical springs and friction dampers. The live rear axle, drum brakes, and worm-and-sector steering were more conventional. Entry-level cars came with a 3.2-liter inline-six rated at 95 horsepower, considered good for the day, though reviewers were even more impressed by the lorry-like midrange torque. Most Type 135s were fitted with an electric four-speed Cotal gearbox—a mechanical wonder that allowed for clutchless shifting.

Inevitably, since the car was designed to be so many different things to so many different people, the Type 135 was offered in a bewildering variety of models—shortened chassis, bigger engines, racing versions, and so on. Enthusiasts generally upgraded to the Type 135 M Compétition, which came with the inline-six punched out to 3557 cubic centimeters. With pushrods operating two valves per cylinder, the cast-iron engine was considered almost unbreakable (though blocks were susceptible to cracking due to cooling issues). Accessorized with three downdraft Solex carburetors, it made 120 horsepower and transformed the Delahaye into a legitimate 100-mph touring machine. A race version with sidedraft carbs and a special head generated 160 horses.

“There are very few cars which offer such superb road holding and steering, such performance, and such instantly responsive controls,” The Motor reported in a road test conducted in 1938. “The Delahaye is a car which cannot fail to please the enthusiast driver. It should be tried by all those who persist in yearning for the great sports cars of bygone days, and see no merit in modern products.”

For various reasons, Delahaye chose not to build its own bodies. A small number of chassis went straight from the assembly line to coachbuilders such as Saoutchik and Figoni & Falaschi, who used them as the basis for some of their wildest explorations of shape, color, and ornamentation. But what might be called the factory bodies were built nearby in suburban Paris, at Henri Chapron Carrossier, and these tended to be significantly more reserved and less polarizing than the one-off creations from the smaller ateliers.

Chapron had opened his own shop after World War I, making ends meet by modifying Model T Fords left behind by the American Expeditionary Forces after the Armistice. Before long, he branched out to more prestigious commissions, customizing everything from Bugattis and Hispano-Suizas to Buicks and Cadillacs. He was especially celebrated for his work with Delage, which Delahaye bought in 1934. At its zenith, the Chapron factory employed 350 workers and built 500 bodies a year.

Although he was recognized for his refined designs and impeccable craftsmanship, Chapron rarely received the breathless accolades reserved for his more flamboyant rivals. Larsen described Chapron’s design aesthetic as “elegant good taste.” Said Adatto: “Chapron was more conservative. That appealed to buyers who didn’t want a wild body and who wanted an elegant car that would do well at the concours.” He was, in short, the safe choice.

Armchair psychology is always suspect, especially at a remove of nearly a century, but maybe Chapron chafed at his reputation for restraint. For 1937, Delahaye ordered seven low-slung open-top Type 135 Ms confusingly designated as roadster cabriolets. Technically, a cabriolet has roll-up windows while a roadster doesn’t. In this case, the term signaled that the cars combined the flash of a roadster with the comfort (and roll-up windows) of a cabriolet. With a lower belt line than the somewhat stodgy standard cabriolet, the cars were very handsome. But Chapron was determined to swing for the fences. So three of the seven special-body convertibles were done up in Grand Luxe trim, which translated into not only more sybaritic interior appointments but also more dramatic bodywork.

The Grand Luxe version of the roadster cabriolet is a bombshell whose sinuous lines and resplendent ornamentation embody the panache and aplomb that characterize the best of French prewar design. With a steeply raked grille, low-profile fenders, and striking hand-formed rocker panels, the car looks remarkably lithe and graceful, like a leopard poised to pounce on its prey. For these unique touches, Grand Luxe buyers had to pay a premium of about 70 percent over the “standard” roadster cabriolet. Sold! Chassis No. 47538 was ordered in October 1936 by amateur Delahaye racers Henri Toulouse, who competed under the pseudonym Michel Paris, and Marcel Mongin, who finished second at Le Mans in another Type 135 a few months later.

After World War II, the car passed through several hands before being bought in 1991 by Jean Sage, who’d been the celebrated sporting director of the Renault Formula 1 team when the French manufacturer scored the first grand prix win with a turbocharged engine. Sage later sold the car to Peter Kaus, who enshrined it in his renowned Rosso Bianco collection in Germany. But Sage thought so highly of the Grand Luxe that he reacquired it after the museum closed in 2006. The car was sold to another French collector after Sage’s death.

In 2018, Tom McGough became the eighth owner of the Delahaye. It won’t be leaving his possession anytime soon. “It’ll sell after I die,” he said. “But I’ll never sell it.”

***

“It’s a very pretty car.”

These were the first words out of Mike Kleeves’s mouth after McGough arrived at Automobile Metal Shaping to finally examine the Delahaye he’d bought sight unseen. McGough immediately reached the same conclusion. “I could tell right away that this was a very special car,” he recalled.

The Delahaye looked great in person, which was a relief. Like many automobiles now considered collectible, the Chapron-bodied roadster cabriolet had at one point during its lifetime suffered the indignity of being treated like nothing more than a used car. (There’s a photo of it slathered in mud from an ill-advised wet-weather outing.) But McGough knew it had already been restored once before. He just wasn’t sure whether this was a blessing or a curse.

Restoration philosophy has changed radically over the past half-century. A generation or two ago, shiny bodywork, bold chrome, and gleaming paint were the sine qua non of a great restoration, and it was considered acceptable to upgrade to modern components and contrivances in the interest of functionality. But nowadays, originality is the holy grail, and authenticity is the guiding principle.

As McGough and Kleeves studied the car, they noticed flaws. “The car had been well taken care of, and when we went up and down an airport road adjacent to Mike’s shop, it drove beautifully,” McGough said. But he hadn’t bought the Delahaye as a driver. He wanted a car that could compete for honors at Pebble Beach, and, by that standard, he explained, “It really needed everything, to be honest.”

McGough and his co-owners—his parents and his wife, Megan—committed to a no-expense-spared frame-off restoration. The tan-leather interior promised to be a particular bear. Although the wood lining the cockpit still looked sensational, it hadn’t been sealed, and it was rotting from within. So McGough split the project into two segments. The body and interior would be redone at Automobile Metal Shaping in Morganton, North Carolina, while the chassis and drivetrain would be overhauled at L’Cars Automotive Specialties in Cameron, Wisconsin.

With about 12 employees, L’Cars specializes in American and European classics. Although master metal-worker Blaine Downer had previously worked on several French cars, this was his first Delahaye. He was struck by the durability of the chassis, which was well boxed and welded. (Bugatti, by contrast, preferred rivets.) “I think that they were probably at the cutting edge of chassis rigidity for that time period,” he said.

Although the frame appeared to be undamaged, the artisans at L’Cars found evidence of several modifications, mostly minor. Fortunately, a cottage industry of shops has sprung up to machine and fabricate period-correct items such as fasteners and gaskets, and Club Delahaye in France maintains a supply of hard-to-find components ranging from brake cables to a unique spring-loaded water pump seal. The most glaring upgrade was an electric fuel pump, which obviously wasn’t original. But it was the engine that emerged as a potential showstopper.

During the restoration, McGough was mortified to discover that his 1937 car actually had been retrofitted with a postwar engine. To replace it, he bought a 1936 Delahaye Type 135 two-door sedan—only to learn that this car also “had the wrong fricking engine.” (L’Cars later restored the donor car for McGough as a driver rather than a concours candidate.) Eventually, he found a 1937 block in a small French town, but he couldn’t locate a head. “I was incredibly passionate about making sure my car was correct and numbers-matching,” he said. “So I was sweating bullets at the end there trying to find the right head.”

After nearly two years, largely by happenstance, McGough unearthed what he’d been desperately searching for, in an Austin-Healey shop in England. L’Cars then freshened the engine, having the camshaft reground, redoing the Babbitt-style bearings, cleaning up the valve lifters and followers, and so on. The transmission—a rare four-speed manual rather than an electric Cotal—was in good shape. Worn bushings and bearings were replaced, but the case and the original gears were reused. When the drivetrain was finished, the car, sans body, ran flawlessly on the chassis dyno at L’Cars.

Meanwhile, the body was being overhauled in North Carolina. In years past, when Automobile Metal Shaping was located in the Detroit area, Kleeves did a lot of prototyping work for the big carmakers. Now, with a crew of eight, he specializes in high-dollar restorations and prides himself on using Old World techniques—there’s a forge on the premises, for example—to replicate the work done by the craftsmen of yore. In some cases, ironically, Kleeves said imperfection is the goal. “The louvers on the hood of the Delahaye aren’t arrow-straight,” he said. “Some of them are jogged over two or three mils, and you can see it if you’re studying it. But the judges like that because it’s the nature of a hand-built car. It’s not a CNC-built car.”

Kleeves had to create new sheetmetal for the quarter panels and the tail, and sections of the fenders had to be replaced. Ditto for the bracing for the wood structure. This work was complex and time-consuming but relatively straightforward; body shaping, after all, is part of the company’s name. The big challenge turned out to be the woodwork.

As in many cars of the period, the metal body sits on an ash structure attached directly to the ladder-style chassis. Because the wood hadn’t been sealed back in the day, much of it was now rotting, and joints were weak because the glue had evaporated. A new wood framework had to be built (and sealed with urethane). A more daunting task was recreating the ornate woodwork featured in the dashboard and door surrounds—a breath-taking amalgam of mahogany accented with a walnut burl veneer. “Everybody we talked to said, ‘That’s going to be tough,’” Kleeves recalled. “One of my guys said, ‘I’ll take it on,’ so we did it in-house.”

Although McGough originally thought the car was black, he was pleased to find photographs confirming that it came from the factory in an appealing shade of midnight blue that pops in the sunlight. Kleeves created a wonderfully translucent finish by block-sanding the bodywork before shooting it with five coats of color and six of clear, then color-sanding the paint with eight progressively finer grits of sandpaper prior to final polishing. The convertible top is a slightly lighter shade of blue that complements the body. The car looks as good, if not better, with the top up than it does in roadster form—testament to the purity and balance of Chapron’s design.

Because the whole point of the project was to give his ailing mother a ride in the Delahaye, McGough had hoped the restoration would be done fairly quickly—“quickly” being a relative term in restoration parlance. Trouble finding a correct engine set him back, and then came COVID-19, with all the supply chain delays prompted by the pandemic. But he got some great news along the way. First, treatment left his mother cancer-free. Later, as the restoration neared completion, he received an entry for Pebble Beach in 2021.

McGough was ecstatic. Then a pair of flies threatened to take up residence in the proverbial ointment. First, the trim was running behind schedule, so Kleeves bought a bunch of sewing equipment to do the work in his shop. Even so, the machinery had to be loaded onto the semi taking the Delahaye to Pebble Beach so the top and boot could be finished in nearby Monterey. “I told my team, ‘We’re going to do an all-nighter,’” he recalled. “One of them said, ‘What’s that mean?’ And I said, ‘It means we’re going to see the sun come up.’” Meanwhile, McGough confronted another unwelcome surprise when, shortly before his parents were scheduled to fly to California, his father voiced misgivings about traveling at the height of the pandemic. So even as McGough was obsessing over getting the car finished in time, he had to charter a private jet to fly his parents to Monterey. Which he did, but not without a struggle. “It was hairy there at the end, for sure,” he said.

And then, against all odds, everything magically fell seamlessly into place. McGough drove the first half of the Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance—the road rally that precedes the car show—with his mother riding shotgun in the Delahaye, while his father enjoyed the return trip. Three days later, the Delahaye received the coveted French Cup, which is awarded to the “most significant” French car at the concours. Last September, after a few “small inaccuracies” were addressed, the car won Best in Show honors at the inaugural Detroit Concours d’Elegance. This year, McGough plans to show the Delahaye at The Amelia.

Naturally, McGough was thrilled. The results justified his decision to invest so much time, money, and energy in a car that wouldn’t have been on his radar as recently as five years ago. But the awards were merely icing on the cake.

“Driving down the spectacular Highway 1 to Big Sur with my mother, healthy, in the Delahaye we’d talked about five years earlier—I have to admit, I was almost crying the whole time,” he said. “I’ll cherish those memories forever.”

***

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There are multitudes of odd and interesting things in the automotive-enthusiast universe. One of the more interesting objects belongs to the world of the concours d’elegance: factory-fit toolkits. The cars least likely to need on-the-go maintenance are often the examples most likely to have these desirable kits: for example, concours-bound Ferraris. Marque expert Tom Yang recently posted a video talking through all the finer points of the vintage tools that were meant to keep Maranello’s finest on the road, tools that now are the final touch for examples that rarely see the road.

A factory-fit toolkit recalls a different era of the automobile. Toolkits allowed drivers to solve a problem roadside and limp their vehicle to a safe location. Ironically, the tools in factory kits are often the last ones you would want to use to actually work on your car: The wrenches and pliers were typically built by the car company or sourced as affordably as possible. They rarely display the attention to detail or finish that good tools require. Can’t criticize the automakers too much, though; these tools were meant to be a last resort.

Over the years, these antique toolkits became critical in the Ferrari-judging world. With the rise of concours and exacting restorations, suddenly the tools you thought you’d never need became all you could ever want.

See, top-tier concours judging is based on a points system, with a maximum score of 100. Flaws or incorrect parts earn point deductions. A properly spec’d toolkit accounts for four points of the 100-point total accord to Yang, a man who would know. That means, if you want to reach the top tier of concours competition, your car must have a toolkit.

Of course, having a bunch of tools in a canvas bag or plastic bin is not what judges are looking for. Originality is paramount, from the materials of the roll to the tools themselves. I’ve personally been a part of the hunt for specific bits and bobs to complete a Ferrari toolkit while walking the rows of the Hershey AACA fall swap meet. We got lucky, but it truly wasn’t til now that I understood just how fortunate we were.

It just goes to show that the restoration-rabbit hole is as deep as one wants to go. Hearing Yang talk through the exacting details that separate the best from the rest feels like a seminar, and we love that he is willing to share this information. For most of us, it’s fun car trivia, but there is likely someone out there who now knows the exact spark-plug wrench they should be looking for to capture those last critical points.

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My neighbor turned off his lawnmower, hopped the little fence that separates our properties, and walked toward me with a perfect blend of confusion and fright on his face. Even his border collie looked puzzled.

“Are you … going to fix that up?”

He pointed to the mangled remains of a Fiat 850 dumped next to a van-sized pile of uncut firewood by the side of my house. “No, it’s a parts car.” “Oh. Is there anything usable on it?” Not at first glance, but a friend and fellow Citroën enthusiast who showed up two minutes later in a gorgeous 1966 2CV provided the answer. He kneeled, slowly opened the bent hood of the Fiat, and said, “I don’t believe it. Everything looks new.”

I didn’t believe it, either. I spend more time doom-scrolling than I’d like to admit, but I browse the classifieds in search of classic cars instead of looking through vacation photos posted by someone I haven’t spoken to since I was 17. One night, I saw an ad for a Fiat 126 located an hour south of my house, which is in southeastern France.

The seller included three photos: two showed a Fiat 850 sedan—certainly not a 126—that looked like it narrowly escaped the crusher, and a third showed an odometer displaying precisely 10,248 kilometers (a little under 6400 miles). It’s a five-digit odometer, so I was certain that 10,248 kilometers actually meant 110,248 kilometers. Curiosity got the best of me. Contact seller. 

The seller’s directions took me to a long, narrow field that looked like a private junkyard. I spotted a first-generation BMW 1 Series registered in Portugal, the expected assortment of white, car-based Peugeot and Renault panel vans that have commandeered the French countryside, and a Suzuki Vitara from the 1990s. My gaze followed the trail of dead cars and landed on the silhouette of an 850, basking in the soft morning light at the very end of the row.

Even from 100 feet away, I could tell this car had been involved in a gruesome accident. What intrigued me was that, from the same distance, I could tell that it wasn’t very rusty. I own a 1971 850 sedan, and I simultaneously owned a 1971 850 Spider and a 1971 850 Bertone Racer in the late 2000s, so I’m all too familiar with the model’s heroic ability to rust. That’s one reason why Fiat left the American market in 1982: A former mechanic told me that in some states, such as Utah, Fiat had to buy cars out of junkyards because they were still covered by the factory rust warranty but too rusty to be on the road.

I almost turned around and drove home, but I had driven an hour to get there, and the seller was already on his way. He told me the story of the supposedly low-mile Fiat as we walked up to it: He runs a metal recycling business (hence the mass grave of 20-something-year-old cars in the negative zone of their depreciation curves) and had dragged the 850 out of a barn after someone asked his help in clearing it out. Someone had rolled the car, which explained the damage. These, along with other cars of the late ’60s and early ’70s with rear-mounted engines, spent entirely too much time upside down, especially if they were put in the wrong hands and taken down a mountain road.

What was more surprising was when it rolled. The seller didn’t know the model year of the 850, but there was a 1969-issue plate on the back and a dealer sticker suggesting that the registration number was likely original; it was sold new in this area. The person who crashed in the ’70s survived the incident, stuffed the car in a barn, and spent decades entertaining the idea of fixing it. Gradually, the improbable story told by the odometer began to sound plausible.

But, wow, what a crash! I wouldn’t have wanted to find myself anywhere near the Fiat when its rear wheels went airborne. The dent in the roof was so deep you could pour water into it and raise fish. Wiring kept the driver’s door from opening. The passenger side had obviously hit something tall, thin, and stationary (probably a pole or a tree) that re-stamped the rocker panel into a C. Any repair is possible if you throw enough money at the problem, of course; but unlike a ’50s Ferrari, a car as mundane as an 850 wouldn’t reward such an investment.

I decided to investigate, beginning with the interior. The front seats were gone, the floors were cut out, and the windshield lay against the rear bench seat. White over red—this 850 must have been gorgeous before it tried landing a backflip. I discovered the factory build sheet (!) and, inside a trunk that looked like it had never been used, a bookmark-shaped piece of paper detailing an oil change at 8000 kilometers (4970 miles) in June of 1971. Even the battery tray, one of the most rust-prone panels on a rust-prone car, was pretty solid. The washer fluid bag and the rubber strap that holds the spare wheel were as good as new.

One peek into the engine bay sealed the deal: The 850 looked like a late-model car (Fiat built the 850 through 1973), down to the maintenance stickers and the factory markings on the radiator. It was fascinating. I’m 34, so the 850 was already old by the time I was born and already a classic by the time I got my driver’s license. I had only seen this stuff in brochures and repair manuals. Wiping off a thin layer of dust and grime revealed a shiny carburetor. The generator vacated the premises long ago, but beyond that the drivetrain was complete and untouched.

I stopped worrying about the mileage and began worrying about how to get the car home. As luck would have it, the seller planned to pick up a car a few of miles north of me the following Monday and offered to drop off the 850 on his way up. Sold! This monument to the dangers of heavily rear-biased weight distribution now sits behind my second-generation Volkswagen Golf, staring at the very mountains in which it was crashed.

What’s next? Well, here’s the catch: There’s nothing that I need from this car. It was simply too good of a deal and too good of an opportunity to pass on. Because these cars were mass-produced and mass-destroyed, finding 850 parts has become difficult and surprisingly expensive, so this one will get condensed into a stash of spares neatly labeled and stored in boxes in my garage. I’ll save anything worth saving, from the full drivetrain to odds and ends like the spare-wheel strap and the glass. A voice in my head is even telling me to chop off the front end and turn it into a bar. Put the lights back in, install a countertop and a handful of shelves, and build a frame that bolts to the front bumper’s mounting points …

Doable? Yep. Easier said than done? You bet. Even if this 850 never settles down in my living room, the parts I’ll keep in my garage will make getting my 1971 back on the road and keeping it there much easier.

So, to answer my neighbor’s question: Don’t judge a lightly used classic car by its crumpled sheetmetal.

***

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When we drive our cars, they collect signs of that use—patina, in collector-car speak. The latest issue of Hagerty Drivers Club magazine, in which this article first appeared, explores the delight found in such imperfect cars. To get all this wonder sent to your home, sign up for the club at this link. To read about everything patina online, click here. 

Why the obsession with patina? What’s wrong with fresh and new? My real issue with patina is that I find the general understanding of what actually qualifies as such to be a bit, shall we say, slippery.

A story: While at an auction in the 1990s writing up cars for a magazine, I found a friend’s Porsche that was about to go under the hammer. It was a 356 ragtop, and it’s important that you know that my friend was extremely parsimonious. Which is a nice way of saying cheap. So cheap that when it came time in the late 1970s to paint his car, he balked at paying $2500 for a professional job, taking it to one of those “any car, any color, $69.99” places. The paint lasted a little over a weekend until it started to fade. And there were flaws, like bugs in the paint that you could see from 5 feet away. His solution? First, he ignored it. Then, after a year or so, he started sanding the finish, but—because sandpaper costs money—he used kitchen and industrial cleaners that he “borrowed” from businesses he frequented: Comet, Bon Ami, Scrubbing Bubbles, whatever.

After a few weeks, his Porsche showed a very mellow red, and, in all fairness, he had done a good job both masking and “sanding,” so one could imagine it was a paint job from the 1960s that had faded. He also had the seats retrimmed in the very cheapest vinyl he could find. The floor coverings were trash, so when another friend had his car’s carpets re-done, he asked for the used carpets for his car.

At auction, the punters were, to say the least, excited. “Look at that—my gosh—it’s almost untouched!” I heard another potential bidder wax poetic about the seat vinyl. Another, assuming the paint was original, speculated that “if the Porsche factory knew of the car, they would surely buy it back!” My friend, who was present at the auction, sat back, said nothing, and watched as his car sold at near a record price for the model.

I have seen a respected restoration shop use what’s called trompe l’oeil, or “deceive the eye” painting, on brand-new, out-of-the-box suspension components, which is intended to give the viewer a “convincing illusion of reality.” It would have fooled me, at least from a distance, had I not been forewarned. The car in question went on to win first in its class—the survivor class, that is.

Here is my takeaway with patina: Trust, but verify. Actually, forget the trust, and double down on the verification. Just like all the other idols we car collectors tend to fall over backward for (“low miles,” “matching numbers,” celebrity ownership, and “clean” Carfaxes), these issues are only as important as they are to us, the potential buyer.

Fresh and new is how virtually all cars enter this world. And that’s how they looked when most of us fell in love with them. When I was a kid, I dreamed of walking into the Datsun showroom and buying a new 1972 240Z. Buying one today with sagging seats and dirt on the carpets from 50 years of other people’s tushes and feet might not scratch the itch. Aside from the ick factor, the wear and tear is a constant reminder that I’m driving someone else’s dream. I want to fulfill my dream—the one from 1972. The classic car industry has that power: It’s called a restoration.

Keep in mind, these aren’t necessarily my feelings, but that clearly is the way many people feel about their old cars. So, as we celebrate patina, let’s not dismiss the enduring appeal of a pristine car or the enthusiasts who spend the money to turn back time.

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Mike McCluskey was out on his driveway tinkering with his Sunbeam Alpine one day in 1969 when Carroll Shelby rode up on a Yamaha motorcycle. “He lived three blocks away, in a three-level house with a killer view that he got for 50 grand because it had had a fire in a room on the ground floor,” McCluskey recalled to me. “He said, ‘I like what you’re doing on your Sunbeam. I’ve got four Cobras that I want to go through. You want the job?’”

McCluskey wanted the job, and today he’s known as one of the nation’s preeminent restorers of original Shelby Cobras. His shop at the end of the runway at Torrance Airport in Los Angeles is just a few miles from my house. Occasionally, mechanics from the airport take him tough jobs they can’t do themselves. I once brought him the exhaust manifold off my Cessna because a slip-joint was galled and wouldn’t come apart. McCluskey is 75 and so soft-spoken that you sometimes don’t realize he’s talking until he has finished the best part of a sentence. But he attacked the manifold with a torch and pounded on it like Conan the Barbarian until it separated. Then he quietly went back to making old Cobras perfect.

McCluskey grew up by the beach, in a part of Westchester that was flattened to make way for new runways at LAX. His family then moved to nearby Playa del Rey, near the Hughes Aircraft factory and the private hangar where Howard Hughes for decades hid away the Spruce Goose. He worked at Hughes during his high school summers, sneaking off on Saturdays to run a big-block Chevy at Lions Drag Strip down by the port. Then he worked at a shop that made hydraulic presses. “That’s how I learned machining, from a German foreman who was a hardass. He would say, ‘You’re doing this for the rest of the day until you do it right.’ Very perfectionist guy.”

A fortuitously high draft number kept him out of the army, and his parents had hoped he would make a career at Hughes or nearby North American Aviation, but McCluskey’s heart was in cars. He spent three years working on a contract basis directly for Shelby restoring Cobras out of a four-car garage in Inglewood, reporting occasionally to the head office that Shelby had (once again) stolen for cheap because two brothers had gotten into a deadly gunfight in it. “He knew how to delegate; he would find good people, point them in the right direction, and say, ‘I’ll call you once in a while to yell at you.’” Shelby supplied McCluskey with a 427 automatic beater. “It only got 8 miles to the gallon, but back then, you could buy premium for 30 cents.” Every time he ran to Shelby’s pad to swap cars, “there’d be a new girl living at the house.”

McCluskey worked on and off for Shelby for more than 20 years, being hired to build several Daytona coupes as well as the infamous “completion” cars, a handful of 427 Cobras built 25 years after the originals but stamped with leftover CSX3000-series serial numbers. He watched warily the rise of the Cobra replica, starting with the first fiberglass copies from Steve Arntz in the 1970s. “I remember telling Shelby, ‘If you don’t step on this bug, he’s going to start taking over the market.’ Shelby said, ‘Well, you know what, nobody is going to buy a plastic car.’”

He was wrong, and by the time Shelby decided to hire lawyers and do something about it, “the cat was out of the bag,” said McCluskey, who eventually decided that the thousands of fiberglass replicas had only helped drive up prices of the originals. Today, he only works on copies from select brands. He once owned a pair of real 289s but sold them in the late ’80s when prices of everything were zooming. He watched lots of Cobras get converted into 427, Super Snake, and S/C replicas, then did a decent business restoring them back when the fashions changed and originality became more important.

The late Phil Hill introduced McCluskey to the wonders of high-end self-playing pianos called “reproducers,” and he restored a bunch, along with a huge, 900-pipe theater organ that fills most of a separate hangar at the airport. As if that weren’t enough, he also built a few aerobatic aircraft, imported a number of Russian military jets, and is currently hankering not for a Cobra but a Stanley Steamer. You’ll find him at the shop pretty much every day of the week, showing the rest of us what a full life really looks like.

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This is not my usual Ask an Appraiser column. Appraisers of collector vehicles sometimes get drawn into a dispute between a customer and their repair or restoration shop, and the outcome is never pleasing to at least one of the parties. Prevention of disputes isn’t possible, but we can at least try to figure out a way to help avoid the problems in the first place.

In my experience, most problems happen when the shop gets involved in a restoration that is beyond their ability, or when a financial difficulty necessitates using customer X’s money to complete customer Y’s car. The first might happen when a shop known for the restoration of ’50s and ’60s British sports cars attempts a Mercedes-Benz 600 restoration, or something equally complicated. The second scenario happens all the time. Sometimes it’s a short-term problem, but often it’s not.

Then there are the rip-off artists, the grifters, and the conmen. Recourse can be a real challenge in this situation. Just remember, if it’s too good to be true, it always is. Getting the feeling your pocket is being picked the second you meet the shop owner? Run, do not walk, to the exit.

I’m thirty-plus years into my appraisal business, and frankly, I usually think I’ve seen it all. But a recent spate of news articles has convinced me otherwise. Are rip-offs in the world of repair and restoration on the rise? Maybe, but it might also be that as the dollar figures get bigger, these rips-offs get more attention. In any event, there are avenues to help lower the chance of being tangled up in a dispute. In no particular order, here are my thoughts.

Define “restoration.” No, I’m not kidding. As an appraiser, I’ve looked at a car with a MACCO (not that there’s anything wrong with that) Premium paint job, silver-painted bumpers, and bathroom carpets (there is something wrong with those) that I was told had just been freshly restored. In the owner’s eyes, the car had just finished a“restoration; to the world of car collectors, it was anything but restored. The word means different things to different people. If “restored” to you means your car must have a powder-coated frame and cad plating on all underhood pieces that aren’t painted, you should say so at the outset. In writing.

If it stinks from the start, it will never get better. Had a bad first few months? Get vocal. The shop and you might not be a good match, or you or the shop might have unreasonable expectations.

Get recommendations. Lots of them. If you have a friend who had restoration work done at the shop you are thinking of hiring, great. Start there, but don’t go on just one person’s experience. Ask around. If the shop is in your area, you will often find other people who have used their services. Be mindful of online reviews—read them with an eye toward metrics that matter to a quality build, rather than whether they’re open on Saturday or other trivialities.

Interview the shop. Can they make time for a visit? Go, take notes, take photos (ask first, they may not allow them with customer cars in the background), and enjoy learning about what they do, and how they do it. What is their philosophy of restoration? Will they only do a full, frame-off job, or are they okay with doing something smaller like a routine service? Do they bill monthly, bi-weekly, or when they run out of cash? (Warning, that last one is not a good sign.) I was visiting a shop a few years back and they made a point of listing their “celebrity” clients (yawn…). I started thinking about their named list of about a dozen celeb clients on the drive home. Seven of them were dead, one had sold the car at auction in the 1990s, and two were more like locally known folks than actual stars. Is the shop living off a reputation it earned in the Reagan years?

Ask a lot of questions. No one likes a pest, but on the flip side, it’s your money, your car, and you are hiring them. Write out a list, and just ask. Keep in mind you may not be a good fit for them just as much as they might not be a good fit for you. Best to discover that before handing them the keys.

Visit the shop often when your car is there. Get more photos. If you can’t be there, hire someone who can. Get more photos, again. Never let a week (or two weeks, or one month) or whatever timeline you are comfortable with, pass without a visit. Not only do you want photos documenting the work while the payments are going out, but photos of your restoration work will also enhance the value of your restoration. Total win-win, if you ask me.

In many cases, the shop you hire will serve as a general contractor, perhaps farming out some things like powder coating or interior restoration to another business. Can you do some of the work yourself? Are you good at, say, stripping old paint or restoration of the interior wood? Talk to the shop first. Be sure, if you do some of the work that you work to their timeline.

Ask about costs. There is a saying in the world of car restorations: “If you want a 95-point car, the cost is X. For 100 points, it’s two times X.” Laugh line? Nope. It’s surprisingly close to correct. Talk with them about setting a budget and try to stick to it. That can be hard, even with reputable shops. Badly done prior repairs, rust damage, or even incorrect parts that create compatibility problems are only some of many problems that can be discovered during teardown.

Get to know other people in the shop, including the “front line” of those who work in the office. You are entering into what could easily be a multi-year financial relationship. Be a real person, not a faceless checkbook. Buy the crew pizza from a local shop on some random Friday. Coffee and doughnuts when you are checking on progress. The cost is almost nothing, so be kind and show that you care.

“They have a TV show, so they must be great, right?” You’re really asking this question? No, having a cable show or well-subscribed YouTube channel is not a stamp of approval. Television has the power to make smart people look clueless, and clueless people look smart. And no, your car cannot be restored in 26 minutes, just like they do on television.

One more thing: I have found that far and away, most shops try their best to do a good job for their clients. Misunderstandings can always happen, but staying in touch and keeping your head—and your sense of humor—can make the restoration go much smoother.

***

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If there’s one inescapable discussion that accompanies any collector vehicle, it’s the degree of its originality and authenticity. Walk through any auction tent or concours and you’ll hear healthy banter about provenance and varying levels of restoration. The topic is often more than idle chat between enthusiasts, though—when it comes to undertaking a truly authentic restoration or making a seven-plus figure purchase, the stakes are much higher. Enter the very specific, detailed world of vehicle authentication and forensics.

This behind-the-scenes work rarely commands attention, and understandably so—vehicle analysis is performed via private consultation, often ahead of a potential transaction. We were curious to better understand the process so we reached out to an industry professional to learn more.

Chris Kramer wears a lot of hats. Headquartered in Cologne, Germany, you can find him working across the globe as a concours judge, automotive historian, marque expert, restoration supervisor, and vehicle evaluator. Specializing in Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and other German, Italian, French, and British brands, Kramer’s amassed decades of time analyzing and documenting high-end collector vehicles.

That Kramer extends his work to a variety of facets in the industry also says something about the activity of authentication itself: it’s much more than simply determining whether a car is real or a forgery, or if the car has been properly represented by a seller. As with people, any car that lives long enough is bound to have stories. The evaluation process works to understand as many details of a vehicle’s story as possible, and thoroughly establishes the nature of a car at a given moment in time.

Our conversation took the methodical cadence you might expect from someone who analyzes things for a living. Kramer begins by setting the table.

Context

“Cars were basically instruments to take people from one place to another,” he says. “Of course, they had issues and needed to be repaired. In the early age of cars and even into the postwar period, nobody cared about what people would think and do 40, 50, 100 years down the road.”

Indeed, these were days when phrases like numbers matching weren’t even in the lexicon. Decades ago, the work that made a car less original was often considered a good thing. “For example,” says Kramer, “it was known that the four-cam engines on the early Porsche 356 Carreras frequently had issues and would sometimes just blow up, even with low miles, for no reason whatsoever. And when an engine was replaced, people would be happy that the Porsche warranty card would note the date of the repair and what was done to the car.”

That’s one well-documented chapter in a car’s life—there are usually countless more unrecorded or poorly noted events that also add indelible impressions. Time spent aging in the elements, fender benders, personalization or restorations with parts from another car—often done with the pure intent of keeping the vehicle functional and on the road—all those moments take the car steps further from the state in which it left the factory and create more layers for authenticators to sift through.

The human element

Because of these untold numbers of variables, he articulates that this work requires extensive analytical prowess only gained by experience. He begins by highlighting the level of specialized knowledge required. “An expert is somebody with a universal knowledge,” he asserts. “I think you can only develop specialty knowledge on certain vehicles.” That includes everything from the ability to analyze factory markings the way you’d authenticate an autograph, knowledge of the how the car was assembled, and an encyclopedia of minutiae that’s on a level with—or sometimes exceeds—those who originally built these cars.

Another key human factor in this work is the need for a common language. Shared definitions enable absolutely clear understanding between the evaluator and client, and buyers and sellers. “This is fundamental,” asserts Kramer. “The car that rolls off the assembly line is the authentic vehicle and it’s original. Once it’s repaired, even if it’s just an exchange of some filters, it remains authentic but is not completely original any longer. People mix up these terms and others regularly. You need to start with definitions before you go into the forensic work so people are on the same page.”

With that shared language now in place, the client and the advisor can work together to establish an objective and set expectations.

The analysis itself

The work can now begin, and it typically kicks off with documentation. There are assurances and flags in a car’s historical records, and they help reveal any potential pitfalls or areas that will need special attention. “Where has the car been? How did the car live? Do we have gaps in the records? Do we know when the car was restored and who restored it?” Kramer rattles off a laundry list.

Against the evaluator’s knowledge of the car, the database resources available, and of course the car’s own paperwork, the car gets checked. Any identification numbers on the car will be confirmed, their locations verified. Stampings are analyzed for font and positioning—this is a prime example where a database is essential for visual reference.

In an authentication-related evaluation (vs. a restoration-driven one, which by its nature will involve invasive forensic efforts), this is about the time that things can transition to a more heavy-duty effort. “When you find something you think is fishy, you can elevate from one level to the other,” says Kramer. “You would first check the numbers. Then if you still think that there’s something wrong, then you can say, okay, we need to do a material analysis.”

Using magnetic imaging technology originally used for tracing guns that had their serial numbers filed off, authenticators can read original stampings even if new ones have been made over them. Welds are reviewed to ensure the end product could have been created with era-appropriate tools. Panel thickness is measured extensively.

If further analysis is required—for instance if the evaluation calls for an effort to determine the age of the metal—specialists are often called in. It’s generally possible to date steel to within 10-15 years of its original production via carbon analysis, though reutilization of older material appears to complicate matters. Further analysis of the metal’s composition, including for arsenic levels, can offer additional insight, especially on Prewar cars.

In order to analyze a vehicle’s paint, a small sample is taken from a hidden place. That sample is then subjected to a variety of tests and compared to existing data. The layers of material are analyzed and delineated, and ultimately help more completely articulate the car’s history.

These examples barely skim the surface of the effort performed by folks like Kramer and the analysts he works with, and by larger organizations like Mercedes Classic. It’s an intensive process can take a significant amount of time, and no small amount of money, too.

Peace of mind

The collector car market continues to grow, and though prices have cooled of late, there’s no shortage of expensive, rare cars and new buyers entering the market. Knowledge is king, and a detailed understanding of the provenance of a potential purchase can put a much finer point on what it’s worth.

From a restoration perspective, at least for those concerned with authenticity, a forensic deep dive is a critical step in ascertaining how to move forward with the work.

Then there is the occasional surfacing of counterfeit cars. No one wants to spend big money on something only to find that another car with the same identification number is already registered to someone else. It’s a rare occurrence, and there’s no sure-fire way to guarantee a fake won’t successfully slip into the market, but fortunately, buyers have preventative measures.

We frequently encourage those in the hobby to do their own research before hopping into the market. Sometimes, though a genuine, authentic professional is the best bet.

***

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“I hope I’m not scaring you,” Jaime Kopchinski says to the photographer and me. We’re passengers in his 1959 Mercedes-Benz 219, driving past the old churches and barns that surround his shop. I never saw the speedometer go far past 40 mph, but that indeed felt fast for a car with a radio made of tubes.

A few minutes in, though, I started to adopt the confidence Kopchinski had in his Mercedes. It wasn’t rolling hard through turns. Nothing groaned. The seats didn’t bounce or vibrate. It held the road and absorbed bumps well (an important attribute in post-war Germany).

The drive demonstrated a point that Kopchinski had made earlier about vintage Mercedes-Benzes: “These cars are designed to be extremely robust. It can run sustained at 5000 or even 6000 rpm all day until you run out of gas.” A Mercedes such as this, like the ones he works on, were built for real driving, in modern traffic. His job is to get them back to that factory setting.

You wouldn’t think much of Kopchinski’s place, Classic Workshop, if you drove past it. Just a nondescript New Jersey warehouse some 50 miles west of Manhattan. Yet it’s notable for a number of reasons. For one, it’s bursting with youth. If you need confirmation that the classic car world is full of young, curious, capable geeks, here is a good place to look. Kopchinski is only 44. He’s got a beard, flattering eyeglasses frames, and works in a black t-shirt with the shop’s logo—a minimalist outline of a thin vintage Mercedes steering wheel, designed by a friend who worked in fashion marketing.

He has two employees: Alexander Potrohosh came from Ukraine with his wife and two-year-old son as refugees. Aside from his mechanic skills, Kopchinski says Potrohosh has a special touch with dent removal. Veronica Petriella is a recent graduate of Universal Technical Institute and drives an ’87 300SDL. She’s also transgender, which is only worth mentioning because she exemplifies Kopchinski’s mission of hiring techs with a wide spectrum of backgrounds. “At the moment, we don’t have any techs from the traditional dealer or repair shop world,” he says. “That’s quite intentional.”

Then there’s the simple fact that this shop exists at all. The pandemic made the already tough business of automotive restoration even more challenging. With the cost of parts on the rise and skilled labor on the decline, even some veteran restorers have decided to call it quits. Yet for Kopchinski, it’s the realization of a long-held dream.

Despite his young age, he already has a decades-long list of accomplishments in the automotive industry which informs how the place operates. Before he opened Classic Workshop in March 2023, Kopchinski worked in-house at Jaguar Land Rover, managing a team of engineers tasked with optimizing the infotainment systems in models like the 2020 Defender. And before Jaguar Land Rover, starting in the early 2000s, he worked on the radios and infotainment systems in Mercedes-Benzes. You can find his work in the AMG GT, the E-Class, the S-Class, and Maybachs of the 2000s and 2010s.

In 2017, when Mercedes relocated his department from New Jersey to Southern California, he reluctantly quit, took the severance pay, and spent the next several months wrenching on cars in his home garage. “That was probably the first taste I had of actually working on cars all time,” he says. “It was the best.” Five years later, when he was at Jaguar Land Rover, word-of-mouth referrals led to a waiting list of over 30 cars. Meanwhile, the pandemic spiked the value of the vehicles he was working on. He started asking around about which buildings were available and applying for loans. Wherever he went to make his case to get the operation off the ground, he arrived in a vintage Mercedes-Benz, usually a 1972 280SE, as a conversation starter for the business.

He found his building, secured loans, and convinced the town council to let him open his business. After he had set up successors and delegated projects, he told Jaguar Land Rover that March 10, 2023 would be his last day. “Every one of my colleagues wanted to know about the business,” he says. “Because they’re car people. They were so excited about someone going into their passion.”

That background gives him a unique perspective: Although he’s obviously obsessed with old cars, he is not one to romanticize the past and dismiss the automotive present. Kopchinski can wax poetic about the latest generations of the S-Class. He recalls test driving one in Florida, along the Tamiami trail. “There’s this dirt road that runs parallel to half of it,” he says. “We were going 40 miles an hour in a prototype S-Class, just flying down the road, rushing through puddles, slowing down for the alligators. They’re just so robust.”

His past life may also inform his appreciation for what he calls “The real treasures in this place.” On a shelf behind one of the workbenches, underneath a tool for diagnosing Bosch fuel injection systems, there are dozens of small books. They’re full of diagrams and specifications—torque for certain bolts, power output curves, something called “injection timing device bushings.” “It’s every technical spec that you could ever imagine,” Kopchinski says.

The shop itself is huge, bright—it’s such a big space that you don’t really have to hunch over or watch where you’re stepping. Inside are three lifts, workbenches, organized shelves full of parts and tools, a wheel balancer, a forklift, and a bunch of customer vehicles—an R129 SL-Class, a W126 S-Class, a G-Wagen, stuff from post-war all the way through the ’90s. The walls have big plastic Mercedes-Benz star logos and posters that he rescued from the trash, at his old job.

The shop is busy with between 15 and 20 vehicles being serviced on any day and a waitlist of around 35. The work surfaces reflect this, with Post-Its and grime-covered parts. But the space is so clean and organized that you’d think it serviced electric vehicles. The only blemish on the surgically clean, light gray floor are some fluids that spill from an old SL.

Along with the manufacturer’s obsessive documentation and a range of specialty tools, Classic Workshop’s operation depends on a reliable flow of quality parts. Which, he says, Mercedes does especially well. “A lot of people like to complain that Mercedes doesn’t support their classic cars,” he says. “But I find that to be untrue.” He gets daily FedEx deliveries from Mercedes-Benz Classic Center in Long Beach, California, which supplies the majority of the parts that he uses to get and keep cars running. “Pretty much anything I could need, they can get me tomorrow morning,” he says. For components that he can’t get straight from the source, he orders them from separate supplies, which Mercedes will often hire to keep up with demand. These replacements might cost more than and look a bit different from the originals, but the metal and rubber will be the same as what was put in the vehicle at the factory.

Part of what makes sourcing so easy for him is that, as he observed while working there, Mercedes thinks hard before making any changes to their cars. Both an early 1970s S-Class and a 2015 S-Class, he points out, have the wiper and headlight controls in the same place. Another example: a connector that he pulls from under the hood of a 1991 420SEL, which is almost identical to the same corrosion-resistant, expensive connector in modern Mercedes-Benzes.

“I’m sure these engineers knew more than we do right now about that particular component. Mechanics love to say, ‘Why did the engineers do this?’” Kopchinski says. “But there’s a million reasons why they engineered a thing a certain way, and it’s not to screw a mechanic 15 years later.”

I ask him what these modern, gadget-laden models will mean for his shop and for people who want to buy an older Mercedes. The current models are loaded with transistors, sensors, and screens, tech hardware that were used to failing or becoming obsolete within a decade. Will touchscreen-operated scent diffusers be repairable?

Back when Kopchinski was working on the 2003 E-Class, he had the same thought: that they’ll be too complicated to fix, that they’ll only last 15 years. “Now, 20 years later, they’re great used cars,” he says. “And they’re maintainable, because everyone figured out the electronics.” That’s because this era of auto technology coincided with the growth of the internet, which made it easier to buy and learn how to use modern tools to install replacement parts. “Young people who are buying the 20-year-old Mercedes for their first $5000 car, they grew up in the 2000s,” he says. “Electronics don’t scare them at all.” Kopchinski refers me back to his point about the caliber of work that he saw done at Mercedes: “[The engineers] take quality extremely seriously. [The cars] are just different. And that’s okay.”

Now, a skeptical reader might note that were it not for those electronics, modern Mercedes wouldn’t depreciate to $5000 in the first place. Yet part of what makes Kopchinski so good at making you want a classic Mercedes is that he sounds like he’s never stopped being a fan. By his estimation he’s owned between 75 and 100 of them. Most were ancestors to the cars he was helping engineer through the 2000s and 2010s. (He’s also owned two Porsches, two Saabs, a Volvo, and currently owns an NSU Ro 80—a West German sedan with a Wankel engine.)

Listen to Kopchinski for long enough and it becomes tough to be cynical about modern cars. The screens and driver aids in modern S-Classes seem less like excess gadgetry and more like timestamp advancements that mark the evolution of a brand. His shop, then, keeps examples of the markers in that timeline in motion, all keeping pace with each other on the road.

We go back to his shelf of Mercedes-issued technical books. In the copies dating from the late ’50s and early ’60s, many pages are dedicated to a then-radical technology: fuel injection.

***

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One Sunday a year, the 18th green of Pebble Beach Golf Links turns into a parking lot. Not just any parking lot, though—a gathering of the world’s finest automotive restorers who have spent countless hours fretting over every minute detail of their vintage cars. Mixed into the Postwar Luxury class this year was an interesting addition: A black 1953 Mercedes-Benz 300S Cabriolet. Not an unusual sight, in the context … unless you knew how it got there.

At 4 a.m. that morning, among the crowd of restorers and owners with decades of experience, stood a group of nervous teens and 20-somethings surrounded by even more nervous adults. Though dawn had not arrived, all were sharply dressed and bright-eyed: It was time to put their sleek German cabriolet into the march of priceless metal primed to roll onto the lawn for the annual Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. The young restorers were likely a glimmer in their parent’s eyes when most of the other restorers on the green were running their own restoration shops. Sure, there are plenty of first-time participants every year at Pebble Beach, but rarely, if ever, does anyone qualify for the 72-year-old event with their first restoration.

Okay, that might be a little misleading. The 300S is not owned by the cadre of youth, and the car’s restoration was overseen by McPherson College. It is a humble private college, with fewer than 1000 students, located in the center of Kansas farm country. On the edge of the campus sits Templeton Hall, which houses the college’s Automotive Restoration program. Inside this brick and stucco building, the next generation of automotive restorers are learning and honing their craft. The Mercedes project has been the program’s guiding light for 10 years, setting the course for its future and, possibly, for the future of restoration industry as a whole.

“Many car collectors dream of just competing at Pebble Beach their entire lives,” said the president of McPherson College, Michael Schneider. “This is 10 years in the making, with students, alumni, and faculty pouring their heart and soul into this restoration project of the Mercedes-Benz to make this vision a reality. This accomplishment puts our students on par with the professionals of automotive restoration.”

To put students on the path to that kind of experience is one thing; competing at Pebble Beach is another. There was some tense hand-wringing among the students and faculty on Sunday as the concours judges made their rounds. Each entrant holds a buzzer, which vibrates to summon a car to the awards stand to accept an award, either for its class or for the entire competition. To the shock and awe of the students, professors, and alumni present last Sunday, the buzzer in hand of project lead Brian Martin lit up mid-afternoon. Word spread that McPherson’s Benz would be crossing the awards stage: It was one of three cars selected from the Postwar Luxury class. Anticipation built.

The nervous students piled into the car to ride across the stage. In one sense, they had already won: Matt Kroeker, one of the students who participated in the presentation to the judges, was elated just to be competing at Pebble Beach. Anything else, he felt, was just icing on the cake.

The car rumbled to a stop on the ramp. The P.A. system barked across the green: Second in class, to the McPherson Benz.

Thousands of applicants apply to participate in the Pebble Beach Concours. Dozens are selected, and even fewer are called out by the judges as top in their respective groupings. There is no consolation prize for Pebble Beach, and the level of restoration has never been higher than in 2023. To see McPherson’s Mercedes 300S Cabriolet not only on the 18th green but winning an award proves that the next generation of restorers not only exists but is incredibly talented, primed to step off the graduation stage into shops and facilities doing top-tier work. Congratulations to everyone involved in the project.

If you would like to help support McPherson College and its automotive restoration projects you can visit mcpherson.edu/autorestoration.

***

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Plenty of barn finds claim spectacular significance, but few boast provenance like this Porsche 901—officially the final one built before the sports car’s naming convention switched to 911. The car has been transformed from basket case to museum piece by Porsche itself and, as well as laying claim to being the final 901, it’s also the earliest factory-owned example of a… well, let’s call it a Porsche 2+2, rear-engined, flat-six sports car.

As the Porsche 911 turns 60, we’re getting the inside story on this early example’s creation and restoration before jumping behind the wheel.

901, then. When Porsche replaced the 356 with what would become the 911, the new sports car was initially called 901. It appeared at the Frankfurt motor show in September 1963 marketed as such, and 901 badging is clearly visible in period brochures.

But shortly after the 901’s appearance at the Paris Salon in October 1964, Peugeot objected on the grounds it had been inserting a zero between two other numbers since the 201 of 1929. Series production of the new sports car had already begun, but Porsche acquiesced and the cars that were built as 901s were officially delivered as 911s.

“On October 22, 1964, Ferry Porsche said ‘call it 911’ and this car was the last of three cars built that day, of 55 cars built in total to that point,” explains Alexander Klein, manager of the Porsche Museum’s classic car collection.

There are no differences between a 901 and a 911 produced on 23rd October, but 901s have numerous detail differences that were quickly phased out as production ramped up – think more fuzzy boundary than hard cut-off.

After being delivered on 27 November 1964, this final 901 was lost to Porsche for half a century, until researchers from German reality TV series Tröedeltrupp—literally Junk Troop—contacted Klein. A man named Bernd Ibold had been in touch with the show, asking if it might help him offload two old 911s, one red, the other gold. He was in his 70s, still lived in his native East Germany, and had owned both cars for years.

“I asked the researchers for the VINs, and when they said ‘300057’ for the red car, I knew this was a very, very early car,” beams Klein. “I asked them if they were sure, and they read it again – ‘300057’ – so two of my team went to view both cars in a barn in Brandenburg, near Berlin.”

Why is the 55th car’s VIN suffixed with a 57? Because, explains Klein, cars weren’t built sequentially, but rather in batches according to color. Perhaps more perplexingly, even some of Porsche’s official online content still lists total 901 production at 82 units, though Klein assures me this is an error carried over from an older book, where a record was misinterpreted and early 911 builds added to total 901 production.

The VIN, plus numbers on the dashboard and even notes in chalk hidden inside door panels, helped confirm the 901 really was an early model. The gold car, meanwhile, was identified as a 1967 L.

Both cars were in terrible condition, and both were transported back to Stuttgart together with two large crates of spare parts, but the 901 naturally became Porsche’s focus. Along with its general neglect and extensive corrosion, missing parts included both front wings, the front bumper, and a vast majority of the interior.

Produced for the German market, this 901 had two former keepers before garage owner Ibold acquired it as a service car for customers. He worked on it himself and improvised repairs when he was unable to source parts in East Germany, until family life saw both the 901 and the 911 (bought as a restoration project, never completed) relegated to the back of the garage.

“We wanted this to be an empathetic restoration to reflect Bernd’s time with the car and maintain the unique 901 details,” explains Klein. “But in those days, Porsche used to improve car-by-car, they were basically hand-built. There is no period documentation of that, and we had a lot of missing parts, including the engine grille, so we looked at earlier cars and later cars and asked other experts for input because we realize we are not the only ones who know.”

Restoring the 901 without writing over its past was crucial, and this delicate process was managed by Porsche master technician Kuno Werner. The body was stripped and dipped in a chemical bath (gentler than blasting), new metal was let in where required (Werner feared more than half the body was beyond repair, but his initial estimate happily turned out to be pessimistic), and a 1965 donor 911 provided replacement front wings and front bumper, along with additional spare metal.

Finally, the body shell was painted in the original Signal Red with a cathodic dip coating and modern water-based (rather than solvent-based) paint, just like modern 911s. In many ways the 901 is unrecognizable, but telltale clues live on, and even some of Ibold’s welding remains visible. The bodywork alone consumed 12 months.

Exterior details versus later 911s are a spotter’s dream and include different door handles and release pop-ups, slimmer bumper over-riders, and wheel hub mountings from a 904 race car. Porsche even stuck with the leatherette attached between the body and front wing for authenticity—later cars used more durable rubber, helping to prevent rust. They also tracked down an early engine cover to replace the missing part.

“The cover sat higher than later versions, which were flush with the bodywork and you would hurt your hand washing it, which is maybe why they changed it,” explains Klein. “Eventually we found one advertised privately online. We asked the guy to measure it and then we knew it was correct.”

Meanwhile, Porsche Classic refreshed the seized engine, which—like the gearbox—was found to be a period-correct replacement, while work progressed on the interior.

The 901’s steering wheel, dials, and glass were original, but the otherwise barren interior initially caused much head-scratching, until someone realized the seats in the gold 911 had actually been lifted from the 901—the giveaway being houndstooth trim comprising six longitudinal strips to later cars’ five.

Inside, there are other ‘901’ details too, including an ashtray with a wider central hole for cigars, not cigarettes, and headlining stamped with square perforations, not the diamond pattern adopted soon after (Porsche tracked down the original spiked roller tool to make a replacement headlining).

All in, Porsche quotes a total cost of $250,000 (about £200,000) over three years, which rather focuses the mind before our drive in these less than perfect conditions.

The driver’s seat is high-set for a sports car. The aged bolsters easily collapse under my weight, and the steering wheel is large in diameter, with four spokes stretching to the thin wooden rim around the quarter-to-three position. It’s easy to overlook the rear-engined layout in a modern 911, because the centre console is so large, but the 901 is strikingly spare ahead of the gear lever, a visual reminder that there’s no powertrain up there at all, just like the Beetle.

I twist the key and the flat-six settles to that familiar breathy chatter, before I ease in the friendly clutch, slot first gear (down and left on a dogleg) and we’re away.

There’s just 130 bhp and 128 lb-ft from this early 2.0-liter mill, and although a ’60s 911 weighs only about 2250 pounds, it doesn’t feel particularly peppy on first acquaintance—in fact, the 911 switched to shorter ratios from the four-cylinder 912 from July 1965, perking up performance considerably.

Even on this damp day, where a glossy sheen covers the snaking road, it feels improbable I’d unstick the rear tires simply by flattening the throttle, and I’m rather more likely to find trouble by carrying too much entry speed. So it’s reassuring just how much feedback bubbles through the steering as it gently bobs in my hands, constantly communicating grip. The transparency encourages me to work the 901 harder, to use the revs, and soon the flat-six that felt a little flat soars and rasps towards its 6200-rpm peak of performance. That’s more like it.

Build more speed and the front feels strikingly light and glides effortlessly for the apex. The sweetness of the turn-in is partly because there’s so little mechanical baggage over the front end, but these early 911s also had a wheelbase 57-mm shorter than a 1968-on 911, and 165-section 15-inch rubber all-round rather than the staggered setup that debuted on the ’73 RS.

It’s a gorgeous thing to flow down a twisty road like this, but as I park up, I wonder if previous owner Bernd Ibold wasn’t just a little bittersweet when the car that had languished unloved at the back of his garage for years was not only transformed, but rediscovered as one of the most important Porsche 901/911s of all.

“We invited him to lift the sheet off the finished car in our workshop,” reveals Klein. “We were nervous and asked ‘do you remember this car?’ but Bernd remembered all the details. He was close to tears.” He also got to enjoy it again, too, when he co-drove with Tröedeltrupp’s presenter, Otto Schulte, on the Hamburg-Berlin Classic rally.

Turns out Bernd did pretty well out of the sale, too, with Porsche seeking the counsel of two independent experts to agree a fair price. “We paid €107,000 for the 901, and €14,500 for the L,” explains Klein. “We knew the significance, especially of the 901, so we couldn’t rip him off. It was a record for anything sold on the television show.”

Old 911s have changed hands for more, but few have provenance like this last 901. As for the gold 911 L, Porsche plans to keep it in bard-find condition forever more.

***

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One of life’s biggest hassles these days is getting your car fixed. Pandemic parts shortages didn’t help, but the real issue is the declining number of technicians. The problem’s been brewing for years but is now severe enough for the Wall Street Journal to notice. A recent two-page article included this startling data: Some 258,000 new techs are needed every year yet just 48,000 graduate from training schools.

Most middle and high schools killed shop programs over the past two or three decades, so this situation is hardly surprising. I recently listened to a podcast where the host and guest talked about how the world needs more plumbers and I wondered if either has ever laid in a nasty crawlspace while fixing a toilet drain. Sure, skilled plumbers and other tradespeople can now earn six figures, but the median wage for auto techs is about 50 grand, roughly a third of what a software company like Facebook pays its average developer. This is where my libertarian leanings collide with reality. Software developers can reach millions with a click, but a mechanic repairs one car at a time. I understand the economics. The unspoken message, however, is that we place a higher value on an app designed to monopolize our attention than we do on jobs that help people live their lives. Fixing cars and other physical things often involves uncomfortable labor. Who came blame our youth for seeking alternate careers?

As a country, we are missing an opportunity. While many schools don’t teach shop class, technical knowledge and inspiration for the trades abound on the internet. One of Hagerty’s most popular video series is Redline Rebuilds, starring automotive engineer, drag racer, and consummate wrench Davin Reckow, who entertains as he teaches. The most viewed videos, with tens of millions of hits, are quick stop-motion engine-assembly films set to music. They’re like a gateway drug for potential gearheads and we follow up with more detailed instructional videos.

Recently, Reckow illustrated the steps to assemble a Chrysler V-8, which taught me plenty. I wonder what my career trajectory would have been had I been able to watch Redline Rebuilds in my youth. The Chrysler video is only two weeks old and has already been viewed over 100,000 times. Although our videos are not free for us to make, they are free for you to watch because Hagerty is committed to spreading car knowledge and passion. Maybe— hopefully—we’re inspiring folks to at least investigate a hands-on technical career. If you’d like to support us, please sign up for the Hagerty Drivers Club and tell a friend.

While you’re on YouTube checking out all the Hagerty content, also surf over to the Tavarish channel for a journey into fearless DIY car mechanics. Host Freddy Hernandez bought a flood-ruined McLaren P1 supercar and is rebuilding it. There are few cars as mechanically and electronically complicated as the P1 and Hernandez freely admits that he and his crew are winging it . . . and having a roaring good time figuring it out. Watching these wonderful nutjobs inspires me to tackle my own repairs. We’re all rooting for ya, Freddy.

I’m presently in extra need of inspiration because my partial DIY restoration of a $25,000 1975 Dino 308 GT4 is dragging. My most recent update detailed numerous roadblocks, including my own experiences with the shortage of skilled tradespeople. The Ferrari is the most ambitious project I’ve ever done. Two years in, there are many days when I wonder what I was thinking, but I was reminded of why I sought out that car by Jason Cammisa’s newest Revelations episode, which focuses on the two Dino models Ferrari produced and why they’re special. Fingers crossed I’ll drive my car before the summer is out.

Since I was out last week, you might have missed a host of interesting material from Hagerty Media. Kyle Smith detailed his practical tips for home engine building, Hagerty readers shared their own roadside-repair antics, and we highlighted affordable Mopars.

Have a great weekend!

Hear from Larry every Friday by subscribing to this newsletter.

***

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My friend Tim Suddard is the publisher of Classic Motorsports magazine. He wrote a column a couple of years ago that thoroughly teed me off.

I confronted Tim, told him his column really made me mad.

“Which column?” he asked.

“The one with the title, ‘You are never going to get to all of your projects.’”

“What was wrong with it?” he said.

“It was right.”

The piece hit close to home. I have projects I’ll never get to if I live to be 90, and I don’t like to be reminded of that. Of course, the number of us who are still restoring cars at that age is rare, especially with my knees, so even that wouldn’t be a solution.

My history with projects is pretty grim, I must admit. The worst thing a car enthusiast can do is acquire acreage. We acquired over five acres, heavily wooded. Suddenly, when I’d spot a project car that was cheap enough—they were all cheap, believe me, there are no Shelby Cobras in my motley collection—I had a place to put it.

I had places to hide stuff, too. My wife would say, “Why do we have two Scouts?” Rather than try to explain that I just happen to like International Harvester products, I could say, “You’re right! Too many Scouts!” and I’d just move one behind a different tree. Problem solved. Out of sight, out of [her] mind.

Blame it on chronic and lifelong anthropomorphism: the tendency to ascribe human attributes to an inanimate object. It’s been the subject of much research, across a variety of disciplines, but one point from a scholar at the University of Michigan nailed it for me. “Everyone knows someone with a beat-up old car that they just can’t bear to get rid of, even as the car becomes unreliable and begins to act with a mind of its own,” said Norbert Schwarz, a professor of marketing and psychology at Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

Not only do I know guys like that, I’m one of them, and I feel as though I’ve let my cars down.

I acquired my first project when I was still in journalism school and working afternoons and evenings full time six or seven days a week. It was a 1957 Mercury, colored white and salmon. I drove by it every day where it sat at a small dealership. I’d driven it, and I loved the smell of the car, the clear plastic seat covers.

The price kept dropping to the point where it reached my modest budget, so I bought it. Mind you, I lived in a small townhouse and had two parking spaces already filled with Pontiac Trans Am and a Jeep J10 pickup, so even parking was a problem.

I quickly figured out that in my minimal spare time, I preferred riding my dirt bike (a suicidal Suzuki TM400, maybe the most unrideable motocross bike ever built) to working on the Mercury, but still I harbored grand plans for it.

Living, then and now, seems to get in the way of working on projects.

So I started out washing and waxing the Mercury. I ended up washing and waxing the Mercury.

I practically gave it away to a guy I worked with at 3M when I suddenly got a (low-paying) job in journalism in Louisiana. I also sold the J10, which I regret to this day. It was red with white spoked wheels a Buick-built V-8 with nickel-plated valves (I never tired of telling people that detail) and big Land Ruler raised-white-letter tires. I don’t know if they still make Land Rulers, but they never let me down in the mud. A few years ago I bought another J10. It awaits my attention.

Once in Louisiana, working for $225 a week, I ended up having to sell the 1977 Smokey and the Bandit TA/6.6 Trans Am, way too cheap. Loved that car. But I had already established my personal auto marketing strategy: Buy high and sell low, and I seldom deviate from that approach.

Project two was a Datsun 240Z, lacking a rear window and left front headlight and nacelle. It had an ignition switch that required you to hold the key in the “on” position with your right hand, steer with your left hand, and shift with … I don’t remember how I shifted. I got it home, which was a third-floor apartment. I tried to work on the Z in the parking lot, and even installed a custom-cut piece of thin Plexiglas in the rear window that looked pretty good. Now I had a newly lightweight custom Datsun! More to come.

But more never came. I was still working six or seven days a week, but the biggest problem was trying to work in that parking lot. I vowed that until I had a decent garage, no more projects. In violation of my non-recuperation policy, I actually sold the Z for a profit. Meanwhile, someone stole the Suzuki TM400, very likely saving my life.

I didn’t have deep regrets about those outcomes—that came a little later in life when I bought a place that should have been a project car mecca. Land! Three garages! A workshop with a hoist wired for 220v! Perfect! Or it should have been.

Life happened, as fast-forwarding to today demonstrates. It now breaks down to a two-car garage, mostly filled with tools and a couple of John Deere mowers and various crap. I have a one-car garage where the motorcycles live. And I have a 24×24 shop that is a perfect place to store and work on cars, but I always seem to have something to do on weekends. I like going to races and my job sometimes takes me to interesting places, such as the Mecum auction I recently attended. Others seem to balance a real life with working on their cars and trucks. I apparently cannot.

So, the International Harvester Scouts will probably go. The two 240Zs will probably go. The Pontiac Fiero race car is a goner, as is the Volkswagen Scirocco race car. The Pontiac Grand Am that belonged to my parents will probably end up in the crusher, because no one wants a Grand Am with the 2.5-liter Iron Duke engine. A shame: It just has 32,000 miles. There’s more, lots more, but you get the idea.

It’s all a shame, and I’ll miss my stuff, though driving by the multiple cars and trucks, waiting and rusting patiently (except the plastic Fiero), that line my long dirt driveway is depressing.

Still, I feel compelled to explain that I’m not one of those hoarders you see on cable TV. I don’t name the cars or ask how they are doing each day. But I was a person of last resort for some of these cars and trucks, and the idea that they deserved more sympathy is tough to shake.

Sympathetic. Maybe that’s the right word?

Best I can do now is place the vehicles into the hands of people who will do something good with them.

Meanwhile, Suddard just posted a photo on Facebook showing how well his Bugeye Sprite restoration is going. Talk about rubbing salt into the wound.

I owe him an apology. Column still pisses me off, though.

***

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The post To all the project cars I’ve failed appeared first on Hagerty Media.

If the Ferrari had ignited and burned to ash, I might have been relieved. After some 20 minutes of constant running, my newly rebuilt engine was still puffing out a smoke bomb that completely filled the rearview mirror. If there was an upside, it was that the emissions lent character to an otherwise drab industrial complex in Commerce Township, Michigan, on a chilly January day. For a moment, the damp parking lot was a reasonable facsimile of a fog-laden English moor. You don’t see that every day.

If you’ve been keeping up with my semi-DIY restoration of a 1975 Dino 308 GT4, it had its first drive in February of 2022. By November I had retrieved the Ferrari V-8 after a $20,000 rebuild, the most difficult body repairs were finished, and I naively assumed my effort had morphed from physical work to simply writing checks to the professionals who would paint the car and remake the interior. After almost two years, however, Easy Street remains miles away.

Last fall, I installed the engine twice. The first time, the four engine mounts—which, on brief inspection, look the same but are not—were in the wrong positions. We had to crane the engine back out and reinstall the mounts, then lower the engine back into the tight engine bay. Beyond stressful. What if a chain breaks? What if, as we wrestled the 400-pound engine into position, it smashed into the impossible-to-replace rear window? My 20-year-old son and another friend were helping. What if one of us pinched a finger between the motor and the frame?

We got the motor into the bay without injuries. Whew. After wrestling with the exhaust headers and bolting up the ancillaries, I gingerly twisted the key. The moment of truth! The V-8 eagerly sprang to life, but a quick spin of the neighborhood revealed that my Ferrari had morphed into a crop-duster. A neighbor called and said he hadn’t seen me drive by, but he knew it was me because my smoke trail was still in the street.

New and newly rebuilt engines often burn oil. The oil path is typically the tiny gap between the piston and the cylinder it rides in. The oil, frothed by the spinning crankshaft, is propelled upward to the top of the piston, where it is burned with gasoline. Even a small amount of oil can cause thick exhaust smoke. Older motors, even when they were new, burn more oil than modern engines. A rule of thumb used to say that a motor that burns less than a quart of oil every thousand miles is just fine. Today, we hardly check the dipsticks on our new cars.

Rebuilt engines require breaking in, a period when the new moving metal parts microscopically machine themselves into proper fit with each other. The gap between the piston and the cylinder wall is sealed by metal piston rings, which fit into grooves cut around the pistons. The rings sometimes require time to properly seal and that’s what I thought was the case for my new engine, but I needed to run it more to find out.

Problem was, I had removed all the lights from the car and it wasn’t street-legal. Winter—and salt trucks—had arrived, so my only option was to take the car to a chassis dyno, a device that connects to the driven wheels and allows an operator to simulate driving while the car stays stationary. A half-hour of dyno time would break in the engine and stop it from burning oil, I figured. No dice. I drove the belching Ferrari back onto my trailer and considered my options.

Without knowing the cause of the excessive oil burning, I realized the finish line had just been moved further away. The joy I felt for my new toy when I’d purchased it was replaced with dread. How much more work, time, and money would I need to finish the car? Did I even want it anymore?

The following weekend, my son and I carefully removed the V-8 and taped reminders such as “Put the exhaust in before the engine” to the rear window. A friend drove the engine from Ann Arbor to Al Pinkowsky’s shop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Pinkowsky—who had rebuilt the engine—and I had spent many hours on the phone as he remotely coached me to check certain things, both of us hoping for a simple fix. The engine arrived at his shop in mid-January, and despite a backlog of cars in his one-man business, he jumped on it, eager to stand by his work.

The culprit was some bad piston rings. Pinkowsky disassembled the engine and then reinstalled just the rings into the empty cylinders. Shining a light under the rings revealed tiny gaps between the rings and the cylinder wall. He had my old rings, and they, conversely, blocked the light.

Neither Pinkowsky nor any of my other professional mechanic friends had ever heard of faulty rings, but all noted the general decline in the quality of available parts and were not surprised. In early March, I trailered the car to Milwaukee, and we installed the engine.

Pinkowsky did not whoop like I did when the newly started engine ran without the smoke trail. He knew he found the problem, he fixed it, and he didn’t charge for this second rebuild. I gave him two grand, however, a 10 percent token to recognize that we’d both been hit here, he more than I.

Pinkowsky’s shop is filled with Ferraris and Lamborghinis owned by people waiting in line for his experience and honest reputation. If you are lucky to have access to a similar craftsperson, I recommend that you take care of them. Few of these people, if any, get rich keeping our old cars on the road. Things happen. Not only do I now have a purring motor, but I also spent two instructive days working alongside a pro. I often say that I love car projects for the people I meet and the things I learn, and that certainly proved true in Wisconsin.

Back in Ann Arbor, the man I hired to do the bodywork, Sam Sturm, passed away. His wife told me that they found him in his shop—he, too, worked alone—and did not know the cause of death. Sturm, who was 61, and I had a handshake arrangement for a part-time job he mostly did in his personal garage. My car was part work, part social, and I would often stop by to discuss the project. Our visits were fun, and I considered us friends. He’d stripped the paint, fixed the rust spots, and applied primer before returning the car so I could install the engine. I’d paid him $1000 and knew that didn’t come close to covering his time. His wife did not find any records, so I offered another $3000 when I went to the shop to pick up the hood and trunklid.

Then I learned how few local body shops would take a job like mine. Most collision shops only fix newer cars, and the ones that do restorations were booked until early 2024. Would I finish this car in my lifetime? According to the TechForce Foundation, a nonprofit charged with promoting vocational careers, the demand for body and paint technicians far exceeds supply. In 2022, the foundation reported that there was demand for 35,000 new collision techs but only 4500 vocational-school graduates. More than half of the people presently in the collision-repair industry are over 50. See what I mean about taking care of these essential craftspeople?

I asked around and found another body and paint guy who, like Sturm, was semi-retired and was choosy about the cars he worked on. My cheapo Ferrari fit the bill, and my new friend had an opening this spring. The week before I was due to deliver the car to him, a fire burned down most of his shop.

***

This article first appeared in Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. Click here to subscribe and join the club.

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The post $25K Project Dino: Nothing is easy appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The DeLorean Motor Company stopped selling its now-iconic sports car in 1983. The stainless-bodied, gullwing-doored DMC-12 remains inseparable from both the cocaine scandal of its creator and the Back to the Future movie franchise, but if you own one, you probably spend far more time thinking about parts and service. And those, thankfully, never went away.

Since 1995, the DeLorean Motor Company name has been owned by a firm in Houston. Their “aftersales” efforts have helped keep an orphan model alive in public goodwill, but it’s no stretch to suggest those efforts have also helped the brand brush off a complicated past and capitalize on the present.

Put another way, if Back to the Future was the DMC-12’s quarterback, Texas DMC is the car’s go-to running back.

You may have heard that multiple new DeLoreans are claimed to be headed for production, and from multiple companies. To avoid confusion, the Texas firm is generally referred to as “Classic DMC.” It was founded by English expat Stephen Wynne, with its first location in Canoga Park, California, back in 1985. The operation grew from there, moving in 1988 to a new facility in Alief, a middle-class suburb of Houston. Which, believe it or not, is also where I grew up.

According to Google Maps, I lived a whopping 4.3 miles from Classic DMC, albeit back when the company was called DeLorean One. I vividly remember rolling past their extremely busy shop on a regular basis, thanks to my freshly minted driver’s license and a job delivering airline tickets to globe-trotting Houstonians. One such customer was even located in the same office district as DeLorean One, so I truly regret not having the nerve to stop and introduce myself.

Regrets make way for resolutions, though, and luckily, Classic DMC stayed in town. The company’s current facility is 14 miles north of downtown Houston, offering sales, service, parts, accessories, and support.

Aside from the lack of high-pressure sales tactics, Classic DMC closely replicates the experience and layout of a full-service car dealership. But no dealership ever scooped up a carmaker’s entire parts cache, acquired the rights to that carmaker’s name, and then began reproducing factory parts for owners around the world. (The creation of Avanti Motors after Studebaker’s divestiture might be a relevant counterpoint.)

Although there’s a small DeLorean Museum on the premises, the exhibit is currently closed to the general public. That said, Classic DMC’s president, James Espey, was recently kind enough to host Hagerty for a tour. Our shared love of the Zimmer Quicksilver (of all things!) fostered this invitation, and he was happy to bring our readers along for the ride.

***

Sajeev Mehta: How did DMC’s legacy survive between the original 1982 bankruptcy and Stephen Wynne’s acquisition years later?

James Espey: DeLorean Motor Cars of America [DMCA, the company’s corporate center] and DeLorean Motor Cars Limited [DMCL, the factory in Northern Ireland and the purchasing offices in Coventry] were two separate entities insofar as the bankruptcy.

A company called Consolidated International, now known as Big Lots, acquired virtually all the assets of DMCA as well as the unsold cars and parts of both DMCA and DMCL. [All that was] shipped to the USA in 1983.

Consolidated International continued to sell DeLorean cars through the existing dealer network, and later directly to consumers, until the last one was sold in 1985.

SM: Wow—the company behind closeout household items cut their teeth on DeLorean parts? 

JE: Yes, but the parts were quickly sold off to another company called Kapac, in Columbus, Ohio. So beginning in 1983, anyone, dealer or owner, could call up Kapac and order parts. About that same time, Stephen Wynne, then the owner of a French and English auto repair facility in Southern California, partnered with a retired DeLorean owner to form a company called DeLorean One.

This is one of the first dedicated DeLorean-only service and parts companies. In the late 1980s, Stephen opened a second DeLorean One here in Houston.

DeLorean One was a large customer of Kapac, and when Kapac started making rumblings about wanting to get out of the DeLorean parts business, Stephen was interested. If for no other reason than to guarantee the future of his own business. His partner in DeLorean One was getting on in years, having retired once before, and was less interested in taking on the entire DeLorean parts inventory. So they parted amicably and [in the 1990s,] Stephen worked a deal with Kapac to acquire the DeLorean parts, the engineering drawings, and other records, along with some surviving tooling.

It’s important to remember that the original DeLorean Motor Company was still in bankruptcy at that time, as the trustees were in a long legal battle with auditors. So it really was a leap of faith when Stephen agreed to give up his established brand, DeLorean One, to [rebrand as] DeLorean Motor Company in 1995. I can remember when I first started here, in the summer of ’99—I was getting phone calls from collection agencies that thought we were the original DeLorean Motor Company!

In the early 2000s, the two-headed monster of our service and restoration facility in Texas, and the vast majority of our parts inventory—millions of parts across 2800-plus SKUs—residing in a century-old former buggy factory 1200 miles away, became impossible to overlook. It was time to move it all to Texas.

We built a new, 40,000-square-foot service, restoration, and parts warehouse in northeast Houston in 2000–01. It was about 80 tractor-trailer loads of parts and a couple flatbed trailers of tooling and molds.

SM:  With all the talk of new models, how does Classic DMC fit into the DeLorean landscape?

JE: “Classic DMC” and DeLorean Motors Reimagined (DMR) are two separate entities and have separate ownership structures. (DeLorean Motors Reimagined is one of the two outfits currently working on a new EV under the DeLorean name. The other company is Kat DeLorean’s DeLorean Next Generation Motors. —Ed.)

Stephen Wynne, who traces his history with the DeLorean back to 1983, is the owner of DeLorean Motor Company [i.e., Classic DeLorean]. He has a minority ownership position in DMR. We see the two companies as complementary—the Classic will always be the original, the one and only, [while] the new model will be the next chapter in the DeLorean story. As my favorite musician, John Mellencamp said, “There is nothing more sad or glorious than generations changing hands.”

Here at Classic DMC, we’re as busy as ever: 40-plus cars in the service and restoration department, and another 40 or so on the waiting list. Our restored cars for outright sale are 14 to 18 months out from delivery. Reproduction parts are continually being brought to market, as we’re in a unique position: Regardless of how much we sell, our inventory on hand continues to grow.

A good example is how we finally sold out of all the [new old stock] gas caps last year. While [the cap] wasn’t bespoke for DeLorean, even the aftermarket had given up on them. So we had to go out and have them reproduced. It gave us the opportunity to update the materials used, in order to improve the part while not changing the looks. We ended up having a couple thousand made. And that’s a regular occurrence.

When we sell the “last” of something, we can’t just go out and buy one more—it is hundreds or thousands more. That’s how our on-hand inventory and overall parts availability keeps growing.

SM: What’s the owner community like? 

JE: The DeLorean community is a great group of people, by and large. Similar to the other single-marque clubs I’ve been part of over the years. I attended my first DeLorean club event in 1985, and a decade or so later, I founded the Arizona DeLorean Club, which is still going strong today.

Every national DeLorean event is like a big family reunion for owners and enthusiasts. With social media so prevalent now, these in-person events are even more fun to attend. Once or twice each decade, there is an owners’ event at the old factory and test track in Northern Ireland, too.

SM: Are the owner demographics changing, since the originals were made in the early 1980s?

JE: Then and now, the demographics were/are all over the place! Teenage to nonagenarian, all genders, races, and ideologies. In the ’80s, it was skewed to mostly higher-income types, not surprising when you consider the car was $25K-plus when new, which is more than $75K in 2022 dollars. Then and now the underlying trait is that—regardless of age—they have a very good understanding of modern technology, which Stephen refers to affectionately as the “geek factor.”

In the late ’80s and into the early 2000s, when values were at their lowest, many cars found new owners. They are the ones that really carried the marque through those lean years. Also during that time, lots of cars were exported (fewer than 100 of the original 8975 units were sold outside of the USA), which gave the DeLorean first-hand exposure in the rest of the world. It’s an opportunity that the car never had under John DeLorean’s tenure.

SM: How has the car’s reputation changed over time?

JE: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times! At one point, as the car was being introduced, in 1981, it was touted as “the world’s most talked about car.” Then, after John DeLorean’s arrest in October 1982, up through his acquittal in August 1984, it was the world’s most talked about car, but for all the wrong reasons!

In the summer of 1985, the car’s uncredited starring role in Back to the Future made it a timeless cultural icon. It really wasn’t until the late aughts and early 2010s when the car started to be seen as less of a punchline or movie prop, and more of a “car guy’s car.”

The affordability, and the availability of parts and service, along with the internet making information about the car and community easy to access, it only helped that sentiment grow.

SM: What modifications do people do these days—especially those to make the cars more usable and practical?

JE: Throughout production, nearly 9000 cars, there were more than 3000 running changes. Some large and noticeable, others that even a seasoned DeLorean owner may not notice. By virtue of having 40-odd years of experience with the cars, we’re in a good position to know what goes wrong from use, abuse, or lack of use.

There are some original components that weren’t up to their assigned task. Power window motors, coolant-overflow bottles, alternators, some relays and circuit breakers. All of which have been known for years and are commonly addressed. But now other parts are succumbing to age, and lack of use, as so many [of the cars] were bought after DeLorean’s demise and put away for years. Once storage or abuse issues are tended to, the cars are pretty stout in terms of reliability, when properly maintained.

Common upgrades and modifications that we’ve been doing for decades include shocks and springs to improve performance and appearance, along with performance upgrades to the stock PRV [V-6]. Another thing is power steering, something the original DeLorean didn’t have. That’s now available and a popular modification, too.

SM: What are the rough costs of work like that?

JE: Suspension upgrades can range from a few hundred to over a thousand. Performance work [ranges from] $2000 to $10,000 based on the work being completed. Electric power steering is user-installable with basic tools and comes with fully illustrated instructions for about $2000, as well.

SM: Do you have anything up your sleeve that will make the DMC-12 more true to the original concept’s goals? In other words, more like the dream, less like the reality that saw production?

JE: We’re always looking at ways to improve the reliability and driving experience of the DeLorean without changing the look of the car. It’s also important to us that, wherever possible, any changes are either “invisible” to the eye or easily reversible.

In other words, we won’t cut up a DeLorean chassis to make just any engine fit. Even now, a stock DeLorean commands a far higher value than one that has been modified.

SM: What unique parts are you making these days? What have you made in the past?

JE: More than a decade ago, we developed a modern, microprocessor-controlled fuel pump and sender module that provides greater accuracy and is far more resistant to one of the most common DeLorean maladies, fuel-tank contamination caused by bad gas. About 25 percent of all DeLoreans built are now running one of our modules. We also brought to market a microprocessor-controlled automatic-transmission computer, for more reliable operation and slightly more aggressive shift points.

The order of the day at the original DMC was that any item you could see, touch, or feel should be unique to the car. Other things, like suspension, brakes, drivetrain, and so on, should be the best parts available at the best prices.

Typically, this meant parts that were also used on other, higher-volume production cars. Reproductions of “no longer available” original parts are therefore a mix of parts unique to the DeLorean and parts that were “shared” with other makes and models that the OEMs no longer supply. And that the aftermarket has given up on, too.

JE: For either, that’s where having the complete set of factory drawings and engineering records is great. While they’re all pen-on-paper, 2-D drawings, they’re an invaluable tool to use, along with original parts, when [our] CAD work is being done. We actually have a former DMC engineer who takes these drawings and samples and re-creates them as 3-D models. From there, we 3-D print samples in various materials for validation. There’s usually a couple rounds of back and forth, as we apply our experience with the cars to improve the parts in design or materials or ease of manufacture.

We have supplier relationships, going back decades in some instances, all around the world. Finding quality suppliers that are willing to work with low-volume quantity needs, as well as balancing tooling expenses, is a big part of what we do.

***

My goodness, how times have changed for the DeLorean Motor Company! The sheer volume of the marque’s fans on social media suggests that your perceptions of the brand might not reflect the reality of its community.

No matter—it’s beyond clear that the bad old days are left to the history books and newspapers. To wit:

That was then. The reality now couldn’t be further from the truth. Classic DMC survived and thrived. Between the Back to the Future movies and the rise of Synthwave car culture, the new age of DeLorean is brighter than anyone could have imagined.

Well, almost anyone.

***

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The post A rare glimpse inside the modern DeLorean Motor Company appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Wagenmasters’ Dustin Gomez never intended to shake the foundation of the Volkswagen community. Heck, he never even planned on moving into a shop space—or even putting a name on it. As he tells it, he just wanted to build the Beetle he never got the chance to finish back in high school.

“I daily drove a 1969 Beetle in high school. I loved it, but one thing had to go before college, and that was the car,” he recalls, smiling. “Fifteen years later, I would go to shows and leave thinking, ‘buy the car you never got to finish.” He found another ’69 and got to work, slowly restoring it in his driveway.

Seven years later, we’re chatting in the middle of Wagenmasters’ shop floor in Upland, California, sandwiched between a pair of 1956 “Ragtop” Beetles in two very different states of repair. To my left is a rusty, crusty Bug sitting sky-high on a lift, the undercarriage crossed with brittle twigs from a long hibernation in Oklahoma. The other Beetle is nothing more than a clean metal carcass awaiting primer.

Gomez tells me both cars are destined for Gooding & Company’s sales block at some point. In the years since that driveway restoration, Wagenmasters’ has become one of Goodings’ go-to sources for impossibly restored and impeccably presented air-cooled VWs. His restorations routinely command low six-figures on the block, with each sale inspiring several would-be buyers to place a similar build with Wagenmasters, never balking at the matching six-figure bill for a wheels-up project.

If you’re shocked at the prospect of a $100,000 Beetle, you aren’t alone. “The VW community has a love-hate relationship with us,” Gomez explains. “Because, if you’re trying to get into the serious restoration of VWs, you’re pushing the car into a market where it’s now hard to get.”

We first ran into Gomez at Gooding & Company’s auction preceding this year’s Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance. His 1959 Karmann-Ghia convertible was a standout at Gooding’s blue-turfed tent, attracting a mighty $123,200 winning bid that makes it the most expensive Karmann-Ghia ever sold at auction.

Whatever happened to das Volks wagen? What changed to make it acceptable to pay Porsche prices for old Beetles and Karmann-Ghias that were once the poster children for thrifty motoring? Gomez thinks it’s a combination of things. “Everything has been so crazy in the market for a while now,” he says. “And I think it’s our auction success that has further elevated the VW in collector’s eyes.”

A rising tide, and all that—but they made millions of VWs, and there are plenty of exceptional Volkswagen restoration shops around the world. I press him on what specifically is in Wagenmasters’ (WM) secret sauce. “I think it’s how we present it in a form of complete originality. And, the way we load up on the jewelry, the rare accessories, it elevates the car and gives it a humungous ‘wow’ factor,” he explains. “I think it’s something many collectors have never seen contextualized like that before. They know Volkswagen, but they don’t know it like that.”

He’s onto something there. Each Gooding-bound WM build arrives loaded to the valves with hard-to-find trimmings, some restored and some simply new-old-stock (NOS) parts dredged from every corner of the earth. We’re not just talking special shift-knobs or wheelcaps, either; Gomez tells us of dash-mounted coffee makers, map lights, radio upgrades, and window vents that have passed through his hands.

As these are simple bolt- or clip-on accessories manufactured in-period, each car could be considered “unmodified” — though it’s best not to approach a WM build under the impression these are numbers-matching, factory-sheet restorations. For the most part, each car is prepared with perfected period-correct paint, upholstery material/color, and options. So, think of WM’s creations as the idealized vision of that car.

In the shop office, he unlocks a glass display cabinet brimmed with enough rare goodies to outfit an ancient VW dealership. “This paper has to be at least 60 years old,” says Gomez as he pulls out a particularly rare a chrome wheel ring from its original brown wrapping. There’s a small dent in one of the lips. “I’m figuring out how to fix this,” he tells me. Unless he pointed it out, I probably wouldn’t have noticed—but those spending serious money on one of WM’s concours-grade builds sure would.

Then, there are the cars WM choses to restore. “[Official] Wagenmasters cars are all convertibles or ragtops,” Gomez explains, quite seriously. “There won’t be a coupe that goes to Gooding, as no matter what, it’s less money for a coupe. For us, the roof has to pull back.”

And, of all the multifarious Bug variants on the market, he tells me it’s the split-window, Ragtop Beetles—those with the retractable cloth roof section—with the optional “crotch cooler” side inlets that can be opened for fresh-air circulation that pry open the most wallets and snatch the most eyes. Amongst the “standard” mid-century Beetles, it’s the Ragtop that’s the standout model.

So, when WM brings a stunningly clean example of the “best” Bug wearing a crateful of desirable accoutrements to a tent filled with moneyed folks content with dropping seven- and eight-figure bank wires for a single car, tossing low-six-figures at one of the cleanest VWs in existence seems like a bygone conclusion.

“When our car lands at Gooding, it’s in a room full of one-million, two-million, five-million-dollar cars. What we bring is immaculate, but we’re still the cheapest kid in the room,” he laughs. “It makes it real easy to take us home.”

It also appears interest in top-shelf VWs is broadening. “I see people adding multiple VWs to their collection,” Gomez explains. “They start with a Beetle, then move into a Ghia, and then go into a Thing, and now they have a whole VW section in their garage.”

“It’s also a memory thing,” says WM mechanic Ron Lubetski. “They want something to remind them of their youth.” Gomez nods: “They’re thrifty, and they’re conversation pieces. Wherever you go, people want to stop and talk about it. Someone, somewhere, somehow had a Bug in their house.

That enthusiasm appears to be contagious. With each WM car sold, the market price goes up and his phone rings off the hook with would-be bidders looking to restore their dream VW or simply recreate the car they couldn’t buy at Gooding. It’s great for business, but restoring VWs is no longer the cheap-‘n-cheerful process it used to be. Quality parts availability is becoming a real concern, and as people notice the sale prices spiking, they’re hoarding original body panels and the like. “I just paid $700 for one fender. Before, when I started doing this, I could grab a fender for $50,” Gomez sighs. “Now everyone knows the value behind an Oval,” referring to 1953-1957 cars with oval rear windows. Regionality is also a hurdle; the WM team sources old VWs from everywhere except California, where VW culture is strongest and good cars are significantly more expensive than out-of-state.

Realistically, a restoration of this quality and detail was always going to be expensive, VW or not. Metalwork takes time, as does sweating the small stuff—an often-obsessive activity that’s not considered a pejorative in the concours world. Gomez tells me of the struggles surrounding the Karmann resuscitation, and how he had to “cut the car in half” at one point in the process.

I ask Gomez and Lubetski what’s next for the VW market. “I think it’s going planetary in the next year, year-and-a-half if the economy stays as it is,” says Gomez. “Like $20,000 for a rolling chassis. I think a car like this [ragtop] will be a $150,000 car after it leaves our hands.” There has to be a plateau point, right? “I’d say $150,000 to $175,000 for the best cars,” Lubetski says.

Again, this kind of cash was never part of Gomez’ plan. That 1969 Bug was just a fun project to scratch the itch. After a summer of daily cruising, he sold the ’69 for solid profit at a Mecum sale in Las Vegas, using the unexpected windfall to source a 1957 Volkswagen “Ragtop” Beetle from an older enthusiast in his hometown of San Dimas, California. Another driveway restoration ensued with the help of neighbors, friends, and family.

That ragtop proved pivotal in the WM story, reverently referred to by Gomez as the “Coral car,” so-named after the finished project’s pastel Coral Red paint. As he tells it, this was also the start of WM’ recognition as one of the leading sources of rare accessories, as the Coral car was quite the canvas for Gomez’ collection; aside from a charming paint-matched Allstate single-wheel trailer, the car wore hard-to-find extras like cross-laced beauty wheel rings, Petri Pelite steering wheel, NOS fender skirts, and a Hella searchlight, among others.

It was more presentation than car. “I noticed that regardless if it was a VW-specific or American show, the Coral car would sweep the awards. I was beating Chevelles, Mustangs, Bel-Aires,” he says, still sounding surprised.

The car’s shocking $61,600 sale at Barrett-Jackson’s 2018 Scottsdale extravaganza woke him up. “That lit a fire inside me — now I had to find every oval window out there,” he laughs. “But, when the Coral car sold, everything changed. I [originally] bought the car for $5,000, and after it sold, everyone was asking like $14,000 [for cars he would inquire about buying], saying ‘We know what you can do with the car.’”

He quickly sourced another 1957 ragtop, this time from New Mexico, followed by the 1959 Karmann-Ghia Convertible project from the same San Dimas enthusiast who sold him the first ’57. Meanwhile, people started to take serious interest in Gomez’ driveway builds. “People started knocking on my door, asking if I’d build a car for them. At first, I turned it down because I was too deep in my own projects,” he explains. “In the beginning, it was just me and friends I could find and offer a few bucks to help me wrench. I didn’t want to paint myself into a corner.”

Family and community is a common theme at WM. Gomez’ girlfriend is the shop manager, and his mother does the books as part of her existing bookkeeping business, with mechanic Ron Lubetski and his son Hunter making up the remaining half of the four-person team.

Even the name “Wagenmasters” holds deep roots in Gomez’ community. Admittedly self-taught primarily through books and videos, Gomez volunteered at the local VW workshop in high school, serving as the shop grunt who cleaned and moved parts around. “I was looking for anything I could to push my first Bug over the line,” he remembers with a smile. The shop unfortunately closed just a few months after he started, but his time there made a lasting impact.

When it came time to make his own work official, Gomez could think of no better name than the continuation of the old defunct shop of his youth, only with one key difference—Wagenmasters in place of the bygone Wagonmasters.

Now, WM is busier than ever. At the time of my visit, WM had three cars in various states of restoration slated for Gooding sales, with four or five customer cars in line for restoration—which now is a year-and-a-half turnaround process. Even so, don’t think you have to spend $90,000 on a rusty ragtop to get shop-space with the WM team; despite the record setting sale and a portfolio of award-winning wheels-up restorations, WM happily offers standard servicing to anything with a VW pancake motor.

WM is surprisingly upfront with hourly rates and service pricing on their website. “It’s what I wanted when I was working on my own car,” says Gomez. And, since they’re not entirely removed from their Volkswagen cousins, WM is also open to restoration and service on Porsches. As everything aside from paint and upholstery stitching is done in-house, they won’t touch something hyper-complex like a Carrera four-cam, but anything with a standard 356 engine is welcome—as proven by the shop’s gleaming, freshly restored drop-top 356 just waiting for finishing touches.

I ask Gomez what he sees in the future for Wagenmasters. “This, and hopefully the bay next door,” he says, gesturing at the small two-car workshop. “No bigger. We all love what we do here, and then we go home and eat dinner. In the long run, we’re all home on time.”

“It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do – build cool cars and make it home for dinner.”

***

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Via Insider

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With every new DIY project comes a new challenge. So what happens when the challenge is self-imposed, arbitrary, and serves no financial purpose? Learning, that’s what.

My giant Chevy van recently returned to my driveway carrying the smallest motorcycle I could buy on Facebook Marketplace—a 2005 Honda CRF50. Only a few hours later, I began to wonder if I could get the minibike race-ready in a week, Overhaulin’ style.

If you are into cars and were alive between 2004 and 2015, you know the show. In each episode of Overhaulin’, professional hot-rod builder Chip Foose and an assembled crew would play dress-up and “steal” the car of some deserving person. That owner would be somehow distracted for a week, at the end of which the crew would return the car, completely re-done, in a big reveal.

Both my father and I enjoyed the show’s lack of “we’re going to lose the shop!” drama. Rather than yelling and sparks, the show focused on what the crew was changing about the car, whether cosmetic or mechanical, and why.

Of course, the show’s writers had to generate tension somehow. Overhaulin’ did that by putting the crew on a ridiculously short, seven-day timeline. Occasionally things did fail, but the consequences were low. A couple episodes dragged out a extra prank or two, each designed to buy the team an extra day before the owner learned their car wasn’t stolen at all. I didn’t really care, because the show made me feel like I was part of Foose’s process. In almost every episode, I learned something new about the design or technique of the experts.

When I bought the tiny CRF50 to do more small-motorcycle track days, Overhaulin’ provided the perfect challenge: Set the clock on the garage wall and rebuild the bike in seven days. If a team of 100 people could do it on a car, surely I could pull it off on a tiny, crusty bike.

Essentially, I would be taking a motorcycle apart, cleaning it, replacing a few parts, making it pretty, and then reassembling it. Nothing particularly difficult, especially considering that I intended to follow Overhaulin’ tradition by not really rebuilding much. The engine would stay together, saving me the same amount of time and energy as Foose and crew did by using crate engines. The biggest hiccups would occur as I made aftermarket parts play nice with each other.

Of course, I wouldn’t have a television crew to hide my compromises. Even Overhaulin’s big team of experienced problem-solvers nipped a corner or two—not that most viewers knew. TV simply cannot capture the assembly of still-off-gassing parts or the delivery of a car that hasn’t been aligned.

My project proved no different. With no time to use properly catalyzed clearcoat over the paint, the finish is already starting to wear in multiple spots. The seat has already torn due to some overzealous stretching of the cover as I stapled things in place to get rid of wrinkles. Final tuning took place well after day seven.

Only afterwards did I realize that completing my one-man restoration wasn’t the holy grail I thought it was, and that the secret behind Overhaulin’ was its team.

Years ago, myself and a group of 20 people or so rallied to stop by the garage of a friend, whose progress on his 1969 Firebird had stalled. We took four or five hours to “help” drop in the engine. Did we spent that time efficiently? Not at all. Two of us could have put that engine home faster, but I was more fulfilled by that experience than I ever was when working in my garage by myself.

The real winners on Overhaulin’ weren’t the cars’ owners. They were craftsman and women who worked long hours with a team building something they could be proud of, solving problems on a deadline. When I completed my dumb stunt, I was just tired, with a shoddily restored motorcycle.

Our vehicles don’t exist in a vacuum. Neither do we. What makes those cars and projects significant over time is how we choose to interact with their history and community. The characters, experts, and straight-up weirdos that we meet at shows and shops are the real gems of the car world, not the cars.

Next time you head to the garage, grab your phone before you grab your tools. Invite some friends over. The delay is worth the friendship.

***

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When Aston Martin announced that it was planning to build a series of continuation cars, many in the brand’s classic community bristled.

There was resistance at first, Paul Spires, President of Aston Martin Works and pioneer of the program, explains. Some owners expressed concern about what making “new” classic cars would do to the values of the originals.

“There was one gentleman who owned an original DB4 GT and an original Zagato and he sent me quite a pointed letter about what we were doing and how he wasn’t very happy about it,” says Spires. “So I invited him in and he was absolutely blown away by the quality of what we delivered and the way that we had gone about it. We weren’t just mashing cars together and trying to make as much money as possible, we were generally trying to enhance Aston Martin’s heritage credentials in the world by doing these cars. From being a naysayer, he was absolutely converted.

“He was one of the first people that actually said, ‘Can I have an engine for my race car?’ and of course, we built an engine for his race car.”

The continuation program has led to hundreds of crucial components for the DB4, DB5, and DB6 being made available new from Aston Martin Works.

“When we started the continuation cars, we looked at every component that was available off the shelf and those that weren’t available off the shelf. We either said, yes, the quality of what’s available to everybody is acceptable, or no, it doesn’t meet our very stringent quality criteria,” explains Spires.

“At the end of the day, we were building the world’s second-most-expensive production motor car, so there is a higher level of quality on those cars than those built in the 1960s. We found that a lot of componentry just wasn’t available, so then we had to reverse engineer those parts where either the original supplier had gone broke or the tooling wasn’t available anymore.

“We spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on the tooling to create these components for the continuation cars, and as a by-product, the really good news for owners of the original cars is that a lot of the high quality components are available to them directly off the shelf from ourselves now.”

Spires says the number of new parts is too long to list and includes everything from door handles to steering wheels, but the headline items are the biggest ticket pieces: engine blocks, cylinder heads, and gearboxes.

“The gearboxes we supply today are brand new, built by ZF to exactly the same standards they were originally and although they’re expensive (approximately $63,000) without this program, you just couldn’t afford to do it,” he adds.

“Lots of cars lost their gearboxes over the years, because the cars didn’t have a massively high value. If you broke a ZF gearbox, you would probably buy a Jaguar gearbox and put it in the hole. This enables us to put a lot of the heritage cars back into very good order, and as a consequence, improve the values of the car.

“The engine block (yours for around $25,000) is cast by the same people that cast the Mercedes-Benz and Aston Martin Formula 1 engines—the very, very best people, anywhere in the world. In the old days in the 1960s, all the drillings in the blocks were done by hand, and there’s nothing wrong with that, apart from today, with a CNC machine, you can be so much more accurate.

“From a provenance point of view, everybody wants a matching numbers engine, so what we do with the with the new blocks is stamp them with the original engine number, but with a suffix ‘C’ at the end so somebody in 100 years time can understand the car has got an original Aston Martin engine from 2023.”

Spires estimates that there are around 6000 heritage Aston Martins that could benefit from the parts program. However, we spoke to independent Aston restorers who suggested the price may be prohibitive.

“If you start putting that into a DB6, someone’s got to really be in love with the car when you actually look at the end result of what it’ll add to the value,” one expert told us.

Cost certainly isn’t a sticking point for the dozens of vehicles currently undergoing restoration—and benefitting from the new parts—at Aston Martin Works.

“For us, the most important thing is to keep all the heritage cars on the road and keep them in the best possible condition so that we can enjoy them,” Spires concludes. “I don’t want our cars being museum pieces because you can’t get the parts anymore. That’d be a travesty.”

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Many cars are given a second chance by an owner who refuses to give up and let something go off to the scrapyard. Take for example this Acura NSX that sat at the bottom of a river for 15 years. The new owner claims it is going to get a second lease on life.

The hulk of a car was exhumed from the Yadkin River in North Carolina after what most suspect to be 15 years of sitting on the riverbed. It’s hard to imagine the car any rougher than its current condition (pun intended) but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something of value there. In fact, someone at Helix Auto Works saw $8500 worth of value when the barnacle of a car, which was hauled out of the river in 2019, was recently sold by LSX Salvage in Lexington North Carolina.

According to other reports, the car was found by divers during a search for a different car that was used in a crime. The CarFax report for this particular car appears to have records on it as late as 2004 so the exact date of it going into the river might be murky, but that gives a pretty solid ballpark to define the length of its aquatic adventure.

In a Facebook post from yesterday, it appears the car is now in the Helix Auto Works shop in Maryland and work is starting on its restoration. Plans are scarce but from reading the comments and replies it appears there will be a YouTube channel dedicated to the process that is yet to be posted. It certainly won’t be a quick process, nor an easy one considering parts for the 1990 model year car are not exactly easy to come by to begin with. Sometimes when it comes to restoration you just have to go with the flow though, so maybe a more performance-oriented build is on the horizon?

Does this feel a little familiar? Well that’s because this is not the first time we have talked about a car being exhumed from a river and restored. The last was a Porsche 911 that took a long soak in an Italian river before being picked out in 2020. That restoration has been progressing smoothly but even three years later is still a long way off from being complete. Is rescuing a vehicle from a river that strange? Maybe not, but it’s certainly strange that it’s happened twice in recent history.

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Words and phrases like “purported to be,” “believed to have been,” “supposedly,” “reputedly,” and “apparently” don’t inspire too much confidence when you’re a vehicle collector seeking cast-iron provenance.

So, to borrow the title of a song and compilation album by the legendary reggae musician, chances are that this Range Rover, now up for auction, was formerly owned by Bob Marley.

We’re not trying to, ahem, stir it up. Classic Car Auctions (CCA), which is selling the SUV at the Classic Car and Restoration Show on March 26, describes it as “a collage of Range Rover parts believed to have been the pride and joy” of Bob Marley.

Bob Marley's 1976 Range Rover to be restored: The vehicle will be exclusively available at Jamaica's Geejam Hotel https://t.co/aHammBKrCZ pic.twitter.com/yHmutwott1

— The Voice Newspaper (@TheVoiceNews) October 20, 2016

Articles from 2016 show the Range Rover in Jamaica awaiting restoration, which would prepare it for use by guests at the exclusive Geejam Hotel in Port Antonio. Hotelier Jon Baker told Bloomberg he intended to give guests a unique amenity when staying at his resorts. “We’re believers in a nice-condition old car,” he said. “We can’t take off every nut and bolt and re-chrome it. But we can make these cars drivable again.”

Baker enlisted the help of Steve James, a British mechanic, to help with the restoration of 13 celebrity-owned classics, including an Alfa Romeo Spider formerly owned by a Miss World beauty queen. While the Alfa, along with four other cars, was restored, the Range Rover, aptly described by Maxim as “weed-green,” was left to soak up the Jamaican sun.

Having left the Caribbean sunshine, the Range Rover probably owned by Bob Marley will definitely be auctioned under the bright lights of the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham. CCA says the car was shipped to Jamaica from Germany and was originally finished in Masai Red. The current blend of green, black and blue was “supposedly painted by some of Bob’s eleven children.”

It’s not the only Land Rover with a Bob Marley connection. Following the reggae pioneer’s death in 1981, his beloved 1976 Series III was put on display outside the Bob Marley Museum before being restored in time to mark what would have been his 70th birthday.

The Range Rover is offered without reserve, but be sure to check the terms of redemption before making a bid.

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Via Hagerty UK

The post Get up, stand up, and restore Bob Marley’s old Range Rover appeared first on Hagerty Media.

If my Hack Mechanic worldview is about anything, it’s about trying to thread the needle between not craving what you can never have while also being the person with the Cheshire-cat smile while driving the less-than-perfect car you could actually afford. My 37-year-long ownership of my 1973 BMW 3.0CSi is the physical manifestation of all this. Recently, some long-lost photographs of the car came to light that show how, through creativity and dumb luck, I pulled off what on paper is barely possible.

The story begins when my not-yet-wife Maire Anne and I were living in Austin, Texas, in the early 1980s. I’d already gone through half a dozen BMW 2002s, which I was very good at finding by driving around and simply looking down people’s driveways. While doing this, I spied the butt of a car I didn’t know existed—the E9 coupe (the BMW 2800CS/3.0CS/CSi sold from 1968–74). I was transfixed. “Screw 2002s,” my internal car muse said. “I want me one of these.” Unfortunately, due to their classic-even-when-new lines, E9s never really depreciated like 2002s; pretty shiny examples cost 10 grand even 40 years ago.

When we returned to Boston in 1984, I kept looking for an E9 I could afford. Of course, the northern winters made this even harder, as even back then, E9 coupes were legendary rust buckets. The E9’s Karmann-built body seemed to have been pre-rusted at the factory (if you learn only one automotive joke, it should be “Karmann invented rust, then licensed the process to the Italians”), and its construction included a trap under the front fenders where dirt would accumulate, stay wet, and rot out the shock towers, fenders, and firewall from the inside, so by the time you saw the perforations at the bottoms of the fenders, you were faced with nosebleed-level bodywork.

But in the summer of ’86, I read a newspaper ad (remember those?) that said: “1973 BMW 3.0CSi hit front partially repaired no rust many new parts $5200.” In those ancient single-landline-phone days, I wound up talking with the owner’s mother. She said the car hadn’t run in over a year, was under a tarp in her driveway, and was a piece of junk she couldn’t imagine anyone would want. I, of course, was excited beyond words.

When I arrived, I slid off the tarp and found, as Mom had promised, one seriously ugly E9 coupe. Unfortunately, no photos exist of the car in its driveway-find state, but an accident had bashed the nose, creased the fenders and bowed the hood, and a previous owner had applied a balm of aluminum, pop rivets, and bondo. The right fender was particularly cringeworthy, as the crease had been jig-sawed, overlapped, riveted, and filled. In addition, the front windshield was smashed, the rear windshield was missing, the bumpers and trim were off, and the interior was out of the car. Oh, and it was dead. “How much does my son want for this thing?” she asked. She nearly choked when I told her. “If it was up to me,” she said, “you could haul it off for 50 bucks.” This was promising.

The seller, it turned out, worked at a BMW dealership, had been accumulating parts to fix the car, then lost interest. Mom opened the garage and showed me a giant box holding a new rear windshield. There were other boxes with interior parts and much of the trim.

I opened the car’s hood and found that the original Bosch D-Jetronic injection had been removed, but in its place was a set of brand-new Weber 32/36s. Unfortunately, a compression test revealed 80 psi in five cylinders and zero in the sixth. I coaxed it out of its year-long slumber and started it, and it ran just long enough to scatter a family of mice living under the hood while fogging the driveway with a James Bond-level of oil smoke.

So, yeah, the car was a basket case. However, it did appear to be an incredibly solid basket case. I didn’t know then what I know now about how E9 coupes hide their rust, but I couldn’t find a rust hole anywhere on it.

The seller and I were both about to go on vacations. In those hazy pre-Internet days when there weren’t 10,000 eyeballs on a car, you could do that without someone swooping in and stealing your prize. It took about a month for us to get back and the negotiation to play out, but in September 1986, I bought the basket-case Polaris (silver) 3.0CSi with the Navy velour interior for $1700. I had it towed to my mother’s house in Brighton, Massachusetts, where Maire Anne and I were living in the third-floor apartment. When the flatbed disgorged it in front of the garage, even my relentlessly-supportive wife and mother both thought I’d inhaled too much brake cleaner. A guy who lived across the street and was watching laughed and asked rhetorically, “Is that supposed to be worth something?”

I installed the glass and interior and began mechanically sorting out the car. I lucked out on the engine—the lack of compression in one cylinder was due to a valve so badly adjusted that it was remaining open. With use, the stuck rings freed up and the fog-like oil burning ceased. Owning a rust-free E9 for $1700 sounded like I was living the dream, but this particular car was anything but the lust-worthy one I first saw in Austin. Still, I was a man with a vision.

Restoration—whatever the hell that means—is hellishly expensive these days, but it was never cheap. The moment you take a step up from a bottom-dollar Maaco spray job, costs skyrocket. My E9 may have been essentially rust-free, but it still needed a nose and fenders, and it had dents in every body panel. Complicating things was the fact that on nearly every other car, the fenders simply bolt on, but on an E9, they’re lap-seamed at the corners of the front windshield, so the windshield has to come out to replace them, then they have to be carefully cut off.

I decided to break the project into two steps. I bought a new nose and fenders ($1400), then paid a shop to cut the old ones off and weld the new ones on ($2300, which included a new OEM windshield to replace the one that cracked during installation). While the fenders were off, the shop repaired a single quarter-sized rust hole underneath. I then drove the car that way for a year while I saved money to get it painted.

However, as the clock ticked toward 1988 and Maire Anne was pregnant with our first child, the idea of dropping thousands of dollars to get an enthusiast car painted was insane. I marvel that I did it anyway. I found a shop that was active in the local BMW community and whose owner, coincidentally, was redoing an E9. He quoted me $4000 to pull the glass, take the body down to metal, level the panels, and shoot it with seven coats of color and seven coats of clear, all wet-sanded. You can look at the photos below and recoil at the use of body filler, the amount of overspray, and the fact that the engine wasn’t removed when the engine compartment was painted, but please spare me the “do it once, do it right” lecture. Those three things made it affordable—a $4000 paint job and not a $15,000 paint job. Plus, I still didn’t have all the money needed for the paint job, so I took out an unsecured bank loan for $4000. The method to this additional layer of madness was that I expected that Maire Anne and I would be looking for a house in the next few years, and this would help me to build credit.

I was never really bowled over by the car’s Polaris paint, and with the body stripped, I had the opportunity to change it. I saw a new Signal Red Mercedes 560SL and absolutely loved the color, which is a bit richer and deeper than Verona (BMW’s red in the early 1970s). Remember—these cars weren’t worth the six figures they potentially are these days, and people didn’t bat an eyelash about color-changing them with colors outside the manufacturer’s palette. So Signal Red it was.

As the shop began reassembling the car, it was quickly obvious that any old trim was going to stick out like a sore thumb against the new paint, so I ponied up for any chrome and rubber that wasn’t part of the original haul from the previous owner’s garage.

The just-painted car was absolutely stunning. The story I often tell is that, shortly after getting the car back, I was at a stop light in Boston when a guy in a new Porsche Carrera pulled up next to me.

“Gorgeous car!” he said.

“Thanks,” I replied with a smile.

Then the other shoe dropped. Remember that I was 29 years old and looked like a young skinny Jerry Garcia. “How does a guy like you afford a car like that?”

“Drugs,” I said, and drove off.

This was the summer of 1988. New baby and a freshly-painted E9 coupe … I really was living the dream. In terms of the car’s outer-body restoration, that was pretty much it; no other paint or bodywork has been performed since on the car. The total sunk cost at the time came to about $13,700. I rationalized that, since it was about the value of the car, I did pretty well, but against the backdrop of a young family, it was bordering on reckless financial endangerment. In hindsight, it’s astonishing that I pulled it off. In terms of the bulk of spending, that was pretty much it. But in terms of the “rolling restoration,” it was just the beginning. Fortunately, the rest of the work I could do myself.

A few months after the car was painted, I (incredibly) stumbled into another rust-free E9 coupe—a white car with a tan leather interior and working air conditioning. It was so well-priced that I couldn’t not buy it. Due to the working A/C, I thought about keeping it and selling the red one, but instead I swapped interiors and sold the white car for a good profit, so I actually made money on the interior swap. The beige leather against the new red paint made me swoon. I completed the interior with a new rug.

My red/beige E9 was now stunning, but the drivetrain felt tired, and the car was a bit of a rattle bucket. It turned out that the guy who painted it was very talented with a spray gun, but did a poor job reassembling the car. I spent decades tracking down rattles, many of which were due to improperly-attached trim, as well as under-hood and interior components.

In late 1988, I happened into a low-mileage engine from a 1984 BMW 533i for a song, as well as a five-speed gearbox. So I dropped in the replacement drivetrain, laughing at the irony that now I was pulling the engine instead of doing it before the engine compartment was painted.

The decades that followed brought installation of air conditioning, an L-Jetronic fuel injection retrofit, suspension upgrades, and a set of Alpina 16-inch open-lug wheels, but the car didn’t really see much road time. All that changed dramatically in 2010 when I began road-tripping the car to what was then called “Vintage at the Vineyard” in Winston-Salem, later changed to “The Vintage” in Asheville, North Carolina.

But in 2014, during the drive down to The Vintage, I hit 500 miles of drenching unrelenting rain, exposing the car to more moisture than it should receive in an entire lifetime. During the bumper-to-bumper rainy traffic on that same trip, a clevis pin and chain flew off the back of a semi and embedded itself in the E9’s front grille. The combination of these things made me shy about road trips unless I could see a clear end-to-end forecast, which of course you can’t if the trip is more than a few hundred miles. The car saw little road time for the next six years. I eventually relaxed, and last year drove the car back to The Vintage.

There are many angles from which one can analyze my 37-year-ownership experience of the E9. Jay Leno has famously said that he likes to take cars in rough shape and restore them to 100-point cars, then drive them back down to five-point cars before restoring them again. If I had Jay’s money, maybe I’d do that, but especially with today’s restoration costs, that will never be a play I can make. So I’m careful with the car.

The whole originality-and-correctness thing is its own topic. Judging by Hagerty values and the sales on Bring a Trailer, a photo of this car would sway you into thinking it’s a $100,000–$140,000 E9. But if I ever sold it, purists would rip it apart for the color change, the selection of a non-BMW color, the non-numbers-matching engine, and the swapped interior (the seat and door card pleating changed in 1974, so technically it’s wrong for a ’73). I did the engine, fuel injection, and A/C retrofits myself, and while they look OK to me, it’s telling that, 35 years ago, my column was named “The Hack Mechanic” and not “The Anal-Retentive Correct At Any Cost Mechanic,” so there are nits to be picked there.

One could, if one really wanted to, even argue about the use of base-coat/clear-coat paint. There’s an argument that the shine of base coat/clear coat is just a parlor trick, that classic cars that were original shot with single-stage paint should be repainted that way, and that wet-sandedsingle-stage paint produces a depth of finish that base coat/clear coat can’t match.

What I will say is that, when I bring the car to events ranging from informal cars and coffees to BMW gatherings, when the car is in direct sunlight, and the base-coat/clear-coat finish lights up as if it’s illuminated from underneath, no one has ever said, “Gee, it’s really a shame that you changed the color and butchered the car” or “a straight color would be prettier.” Instead, the response is simply “wow.”

Over the years, I’ve become an avid promoter of living with patina as a much easier (and waaaay less expensive) way to go through automotive life. And I’ve become critical of restoration, saying that the term encompasses such a broad range of actions that it’s become almost meaningless. Most people who say, “I’m restoring such and such” either don’t have a clue of how expensive it’s going to be or have way more money than I do (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Restoration is a fool’s game, and that if you want a pretty shiny car you should buy a pretty shiny car instead of trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. The E9 is the only car on which I’ve ever had anything remotely akin to an outer-body restoration done, and it’s difficult for me to imagine ever embarking on another one, as the numbers don’t even come close to adding up.

Having said that, it was possibly the best $13,700 I’ve ever spent. I would never have the life-long relationship I have with the car had I left it Polaris/Navy. I wouldn’t love it the way I do. It would’ve vanished long ago in the tidal churn of cars coming and going. Anyone who says, “Gee, it’s a shame you didn’t do it right” or draws conclusion that “The increased value of the car now would completely outpace what it would’ve cost you in 1988 to do it right then” completely misses the point: That never would have happened. It’s really an automotive miracle that the needle got threaded and I’ve had this gorgeous thing to enjoy for the last 35 years.

I hope you love a car as much as I love this one.

“Is that supposed to be worth something?” More than you can possibly imagine.

***

Rob’s latest book, The Best of The Hack Mechanic: 35 years of hacks, kluges, and assorted automotive mayhem is available on Amazon here. His other seven books are available here on Amazon, or you can order personally inscribed copies from Rob’s website, www.robsiegel.com.

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I never had a brief conversation with Phil Reilly. Not because he liked to hear himself talk but because he had so much to say, and he said so much worth listening to.

Reilly, who died unexpectedly late last year at his home in Northern California at the age of 79, was a titan in the restoration world. In the 1970s and ’80s, he was a foundational figure in the creation of a market for collectible race cars, and over the past four decades, his eponymous shop restored dozens of significant cars, from prewar Hispano-Suizas and Alfa Romeos to V-12 Ferrari thoroughbreds and enough Formula 1 cars to fill several grids.

For years, Cosworth DFV motors built by Reilly were regarded as the gold standard in the collector-car universe, and dozens of them raced in Historic Grand Prix, the organization he co-founded to bring F1 cars of the 3.0-liter, normally aspirated era to the masses. He also profoundly influenced the hobby in less visible ways by hiring and then mentoring craftsmen who would go on to open shops of their own and spread the Gospel According to Phil Reilly.

“I probably wouldn’t have graduated from high school if it wasn’t for Phil,” says Forrest Teran, who now builds DFVs (and other race engines) at Teran Motor Sports. “He pretty much forced me to go to school every day. When I graduated, he made me a full-time employee of the company. Part of the deal was that I had to take college classes, but he paid for it—tuition, books, everything. And I wasn’t the only one. There are tons of characters who he would kind of take in as wayward animals and bring back around.”

For Reilly, motorsports was both his profession and his passion. He owned a huge and ever-expanding library of books that he’d not only read but seemingly committed to memory. He used to regale me with finely detailed histories of individual chassis—who’d built them, who’d bought them, who’d raced them, where they’d finished, what happened to them afterward. “He loved racing, and the history of racing more than anybody I ever met,” says Tim Coffeen, a longtime chief mechanic at Newman/Haas Racing.

Reilly’s personal car collection included a 1974 Formula 1 Brabham BT44 designed by Gordon Murray and a 1960 Kurtis/Epperly laydown Offy roadster, the Bowes Seal Fast Special. He exercised both of them regularly at the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion at Laguna Seca Raceway and the Millers at Milwaukee meet at the Milwaukee Mile. Not so he could play hero driver but to share them with other race fans. “There were years when ten people drove the Bowes,” Coffeen says. “And I know that because I ran the starter.”

Of course, there are other accomplished mechanics. There are other successful entrepreneurs. There are other ardent and knowledgeable fans. What made Reilly so beloved among such a large and far-flung group of admirers was that he was a mensch—honest, dependable, compassionate, charitable and so ethical that he often agreed to fix problems with cars that weren’t his shop’s fault. “He was such a fine ambassador for the sport because he was such a gentleman and he lived such an honorable life,” says his lifelong friend, James King. “I have to say that I feel at sea without Phil on the planet.”

[Reilly] was such a fine ambassador for the sport because he was such a gentleman and he lived such an honorable life. — James King

Born in the Bay Area in 1943, Reilly was the son of professional ballroom dancers, but his life’s path was set when an uncle took him to a USAC Champ Car show on the one-mile dirt oval at Sacramento. After the race, driver Jud Larson lifted the young, euphoric Reilly into the hot, oily cockpit and asked him, “You want to go racing?” Reilly never looked back.

When he was 8 years old, he started subscribing to the Indianapolis Star during the month of May so he could keep track of the lead-up to the Indianapolis 500. To this day, his office walls are lined with driver autographs that he got as a kid. During high school, he drove a flathead Ford and cleaned out stables for a club racer who’d commissioned a car from road-racing pioneer Joe Huffaker. Later, Reilly began club racing himself. While prepping his Elva, he once spaced out and missed a date with his future wife, Kathy. “The car stuff just dominated his attention,” she says. “He’d get so involved that he would lose track of time.”

Reilly earned a degree in journalism, of all things. Although he was an ROTC student in college, he objected to the war in Vietnam, so he declined his commission. Instead, he was drafted and spent two years as the editor of the base newspaper at Webb Air Force Base in Big Spring, Texas. After completing his military service, he returned home and—after Leon Mandel rejected his application for a position at Competition Press—got a job with Joe Huffaker.

Huffaker was one of the most influential figures in the burgeoning road-racing subculture of Northern California. Backed by import-car dealer Kjell Kvale, Huffaker had designed and built the MG Liquid Suspension Specials, which raced at Indy, and the Genies, which were among the first American mid-engine sports racers. But by the end of the ’60s, he’d had been reduced to a tiny shop modifying what Reilly’s longtime business partner Ivan Zaremba refers to as “wind-up cars”—puny BMC sports cars—with a single employee. When that employee quit to sail to Tahiti, Reilly replaced him.

Reilly worked on Huffaker’s MG road-racing cars and built engines for a formula-car program he ran with Zaremba and local racer John Woodner. The car eventually ended up being raced by Zaremba’s friend, Stephen Griswold. Griswold was a local Alfa Romeo dealer whose father, Frank, was a Main Line Philadelphia aristocrat who’d won the first SCCA race ever run, at Watkins Glen in 1948. In the winter of 1973, the younger Griswold opened a shop devoted to restoring vintage race cars, and he hired Zaremba and Reilly to join him.

Although vintage-car racing was already a thing in the United Kingdom, it was barely a blip on the radar here in the States. Since there were so few opportunities to run them, obsolete race cars were treated like junk, and priced accordingly. Then, in 1974, Steve Earle inaugurated the Monterey Historic Automobile Races. With the existence of a prestigious venue for vintage racing, interest in historic race cars exploded.  “We were there at the ground floor of resurrecting cars that had not been allowed to go to scrap,” Zaremba says. “In fact, for the first few years of the Monterey Historics, we at Griswold’s did all the tech inspection on all the cars.”

Griswold was perfectly positioned to profit from the emergence of race cars as collectible artifacts. He had the right pedigree, he had the right people, and he himself was a talented mechanic and a scholar of racing history. His shop became a go-to resource for would-be vintage racers. At one point, he was working on no fewer than eight Birdcage Maseratis simultaneously.

Even as he was managing Griswold’s shop and immersing himself in the vintage-car world, Reilly remained involved in “real” racing as part of an informal NorCal mafia campaigning Formula Atlantics. Reilly was turning wrenches in Westwood, Canada, when the cars driven by his friends Dan Marvin and Jon Norman broke during practice and were loaded on the trailer before race day. “You guys are just a bunch of punks,” somebody dismissively told them. Reilly, who had an impish sense of humor, painted their tow vehicle with “Punk Racing Team” signage and printed up matching T-shirts.

We didn’t expect to get rich. We were doing this to provide ourselves with jobs on our own terms. We were able to say, ‘I never had to do a job I didn’t want to do. I didn’t have to work for somebody I didn’t want to work for. And I didn’t have to work with somebody I didn’t want to work with. — Ivan Zaremba, Reilly’s longtime business partner

In 1980, Reilly and Zaremba teamed up with another Griswold employee, Ross Cummings, to start Phil Reilly & Company. (The name notwithstanding, the three men were equal partners.) The three of them formed an ideal triumvirate. Cummings was the virtuoso machinist and Zaremba was the old-car guru. Reilly built engines and ran the show.

“Our business approach was to treat customers as friends and welcome them into the family, so to speak,” Zaremba says. “We also agreed to a few things at the onset. One of them was that we didn’t expect to get rich. We were doing this to provide ourselves with jobs on our own terms. We were able to say, ‘I never had to do a job I didn’t want to do. I didn’t have to work for somebody I didn’t want to work for. And I didn’t have to work with somebody I didn’t want to work with.’ How many people can say that?”

After a brief stint working out of Reilly’s home garage, the company moved into a building in Corte Madera, 10 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Eventually, the firm employed about a dozen artisans and earned a reputation for building cars that ran well, rarely broke and were period-correct—solid, honest, and dependable, much like Reilly himself.

Customers began flocking to Corte Madera. Because the shop didn’t specialize in any particular marque, it got a little bit of everything. The number and quality of the cars that resided there on a daily basis were so impressive that the place seemed more like a living museum than a grungy workshop. “It was the coolest place to visit,” says major-league collector Chris MacAllister. “It was like going to the Vatican.”

By the late 1980s, Reilly had earned a reputation as America’s foremost Cosworth DFV-whisperer. This wasn’t the result of a business decision. It was the product of an obsession born when he attended the U.S. Grand Prix at Watkins Glen in 1974. There, he fell in love with the trapezoidal, short-wheelbase Brabham BT44 F1 car designed by Gordon Murray.

In 1985, Reilly saw a BT44 advertised in Autosport, and he called the seller. “What do we have to do to get you in this car?” the owner asked him. Reilly bought it for $15,000, paid in six monthly installments. Restoring the car required Kathy to spend hours on her back underneath the tub, bucking rivets for her exacting (and often exasperated) husband. “It was not the best time for our marriage,” she half-jokes. Today, behind the seat of the car, affixed to the tub, is a plaque: “Kathy Reilly Racing.”

The car was restored so faithfully that, when Gordon Murray built a replica BT44 of his own, he called Reilly to ask for set-up advice. “You understand the irony of this situation, don’t you?” Reilly told him.

The Brabham came without an engine, so Reilly acquired a Cosworth DFV—the remarkable 3.0-liter V-8 that powered the vast majority of cars that raced in Formula 1 from 1967 to 1983. By taking apart and putting back together dozens of motors, Reilly solved the mysteries and mastered the nuances of the Cosworth. In later years, some would-be cheaters fitted their F1 cars with the sports car version of the engine, which had been punched out to 3.3 liters. “Phil could hear it go by once and say, ‘Nope. That’s a three-three,’” King says.

Reilly, King, and Rebecca Hale (now Evans, who ran the front office of the restoration shop), were the three major players behind the creation and operation of Historic Grand Prix. For more than a decade, HGP put together full grids of normally aspirated F1 cars celebrating the 3.0-liter era, many of them featuring engines that Reilly himself had built. The cars were authentic, the racing was hard but gentlemanly and the paddock was open to all.

Reilly drove the BT44 himself until he clipped a curb while flat in fifth gear in the Esses at Watkins Glen and spun lightly into a guardrail. Later, King and Hale asked him what happened. “The engine didn’t sound quite right,” he told them, “and I just kind of momentarily lost concentration because I was listening so hard.” Reilly chose not to race again. But he continued to put his friends in his car, and he was thrilled when Marvin finished fourth at the Rolex Monterey Motorsport Reunion last year even though the Brabham was the oldest car in the field.

Much as Reilly adored the BT44, and even though he was renowned professionally for his work with DFVs, his personal passion was the front-engine cars built for American circle-track racing, from prewar Millers to the Offy-powered roadsters and dirt cars of the 1950s and ’60s. He made an annual pilgrimage in May to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, not for the 500 but to pore over the photos in the archives, browse through the museum (where he was treated like a visiting dignitary) and bench-race with the old-timers who’d been his heroes.

Phil’s walking through the shop with his coffee, and he pivots and looks at me with complete incredulousness. He shakes his head, and he sets down his coffee, and he grabs the broom out of my hands, and he starts sweeping. ‘It’s called a push broom for a reason. This is how you use it.’ And he hands it back to me. It was awesome. I had no idea what I was doing. Without him, I’d be nowhere.” — Trevor Green-Smith, performance engineer, MoneyGram Haas F1 Team

Restoring the Bowes Seal Fast Special and other cars of that era allowed him to befriend and learn from the great craftsmen he grew up idolizing. Reilly, who looked and sounded like a professor, was committed to passing this knowledge forward. Not in a classroom but from his workbench, where he convened what Evans calls “The University of Phil.”

The curriculum ranged from cleaning and assembling a DFV to best business practices to everyday ethics. For those eager to learn, he was a willing mentor. Trevor Green-Smith, who credits Reilly with nurturing a career that’s taken him to a job as a performance engineer on the Haas Formula 1 team, remembers his first day as the sweep-up kid in Corte Madera.

“Phil’s walking through the shop with his coffee, and he pivots and looks at me with complete incredulousness,” Green-Smith says. “He shakes his head, and he sets down his coffee, and he grabs the broom out of my hands, and he starts sweeping. ‘It’s called a push broom for a reason. This is how you use it.’ And he hands it back to me. It was awesome. I had no idea what I was doing. Without him, I’d be nowhere.”

In 2015, Reilly, Zaremba, and Cummings sold their company to employee Brian Madden, who continues to use the Phil Reilly & Company name. Reilly stayed on for three years and then opened up his own one-man shop in San Rafael to do soup-to-nuts restorations at a reduced pace. “I think he enjoyed that as much as anything he’d ever done,” Norman says. “He could pick and choose what he wanted to do and who he wanted to do it for.”

In 2018, Reilly started out with a McLaren M19 F1 car, then shifted gears to work on a 1960 Edmunds/Kuzma dirt Champ car for Gary Schroeder. I last saw Reilly two weeks before he died while he was visiting Schroeder’s shop in Burbank to do what he laughingly called a “warranty job” because the car refused to go into gear. Reilly spent about 15 minutes painstakingly showing me what had turned out to be the problem: One of the screw heads on the flywheel was 20-thousands too thick, so it rubbed just enough on the clutch to prevent it from releasing.

The next day, Reilly hustled home to resume work on the 1966 Eagle Indy car that he’d been restoring for MacAllister. “He and I had been texting every day about Indy roadsters,” MacAllister says. “The next day, I got a text from his wife with the bad news. Yesterday, he was fine, and then today, he’s dead. So it was awful sudden.”

There was, and still is, a sense of shock in the vintage racing community. “I’m still reeling,” Marvin says. “This just wasn’t supposed to happen. Like somebody said, Phil had a lot of laps left in him. Boy, his loss is going to leave a big void in a lot of people’s life. Phil was the genuine article. When he said something, it was the straight deal. I don’t know what to say about his strengths because I don’t want to use too many superlatives, but I can’t think of very many weaknesses. How about this: In my book, he was 100 percent.”

***

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Winter storage is a real pain to find up here in Northern Michigan, so I work diligently to keep the owner of the pole barn in which I store my cars happy. When Bruce wanted some work done on his Model T Ford, I was eager to help. Interestingly, he felt the need to justify the changes he had planned for the car. That got me thinking.

Bruce is a really good human. He spent his life as a medical professional, with a side interest in cars. Each winter, his ’40s Chevy truck and first-generation, straight-six Ford Mustang are joined in the barn by my Corvair and Model A. Bruce is no stranger to vintage cars or to broken bones. Like most of us, he avoids the second whenever possible, but the crank-start on his Model T posed a threat.

When it comes to operating an automobile, a fracture hasn’t always been easy to avoid. Starting a ‘T requires intimate knowledge of how an engine works: You must calibrate the throttle, timing, and transmission correctly or the engine can backfire and spin the crank-start handle out of your hand and into your arm. If the engine does start, but you haven’t set the parking brake/transmission correctly, the car can run you over. Neither is an ideal situation.

Even after Charles Kettering patented and began to sell the electric self-starter for automotive engine applications in 1912, the crank-start hung around. It was cheaper. Henry Ford was still trying to push Model T prices down in the 19-teens, and therefore the cars came standard with hand-crank start. Well-to-do buyers could opt for an electric starter beginning in the 1919 model year, but even then it was a $20 add-on to a $500–$750 car that targeted the least affluent buyers. The car was a functional object, not a plaything, so many customers saved the dollars and got to cranking.

A century later, most Model Ts have become the opposite of what ol’ Henry designed them to be: Capable, relatively comfortable daily transportation. Speed limits have increased to the point that the 35-mph top speed of a Model T stands out in traffic—and not in a good way. Now that roads have been smoothly paved, the chassis, which is as stiff as cooked spaghetti, produces an unnerving ride. Heck, in 1927, when the last Model T rolled off that world-changing assembly line, it was already woefully outdated.

Yet Bruce is not ready to resign his Model T to life as a 1:1 scale-model car. This winter, while discussing when I would drop off my Corvair and Model A, Bruce and I got to discussing how to get his ‘T running again. Not just running, but running without the need to hand-crank it.

His car had all the parts for an electric starter. Sadly, Bruce said that not all of them were ready to be pressed into use: The starter ring gear nestled behind the engine yet in front of the two-speed planetary transmission had fewer teeth than a career bare-knuckle boxer.

After doing a little research, I proposed a barter exchange: In lieu of payment for a season of storage, I would pull the T’s engine and transmission, separate the two, replace the ring gear, then reassemble it all. Oh, and deal with any of the other hacked-up or cobbled-together things that would inevitably pop up. Sounded like a pleasurable Saturday to me, and Bruce literally had to do nothing.

Handshake, nod, deal.

I’ve heard jokes about fixing a Model T with bailing wire and pliers. Luckily, this job was almost that easy. After three evenings of work, the engine was back in the chassis. The sad old battery under the driver’s side floorboard had just enough juice to prove the new ring gear was correct, promising that this tired car was going to get a new lease on life come spring. All without Bruce having to fear broken bones.

Could Bruce instead get over his fear and learn all the tricks to hand-start his vintage Ford? Yes. There are countless Model T Fords driving around the world that do not have electric start and their owners are likely quite happy with that situation. Bruce wasn’t. Understanding the limits of the ‘T is one thing; having the tolerance to deal with its inconveniences when you don’t have to is another. Bruce wasn’t reengineering a solution to make this car something it was not. The factory gave the model electric start; he just wanted to get the system working on his car.

There is no right way to own or enjoy a car. Bruce elected to restore one system for the sake of his enjoyment. This is no different than restomods from the 1960s or custom trucks from the 1970s, except that Bruce isn’t declaring himself smarter than the engineers who spend years designing and building the car. He is keeping a functional object functioning, with an upgrade available when the vehicle was originally sold.

An automobile can be highly individual and the most important decision-maker involved in building, maintaining, and driving any given car is its owner. Neither Bruce nor you should never feel any regret for making your car an extension of yourself.

Of course, there is also a bit of comedy to that principle, since the automobile was born as an appliance. I don’t think I’ll ever have the desire to custom-paint my coffee maker, or re-gear my wife’s KitchenAid stand mixer for more torque, but who am I to judge if you do? Just don’t get caught in that mixer … I hear it can break your wrist.

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It’s always busy around the garage. I like to restore a car to 100-point concours level if I can, drive it down to about 15 points, and then re-restore it. So the shop always has cars and motorcycles being torn apart or put back together. We recently finished restoring a 1920 Rochester-Duesenberg ReVere, a car you may not be familiar with. To tell its story, we have to go back a bit.

After Fred and Augie Duesenberg were involved with Mason and Maytag, they left to start their own engine company in 1913, designing what would become known as their “walking-beam” four-cylinder engine. It had overhead valves, but the valves were horizontal instead of vertical. And instead of pushrods, the engine had very long rocker arms—the so-called walking beams—that extended all the way from the camshaft in the block up to the valve stems at the top. The valves opened to a small chamber above the main combustion chamber that included the spark plug, which meant the plug lit a rich mixture that burned downward into a leaner mixture—what engineers today would call a stratified charge. It made more power and used less fuel while avoiding some of the heat and lubrication problems that dogged early overhead-valve engines.

It became the most successful racing engine of the teens, favored by early board-track racers like Eddie Rickenbacker. It was basically a cheap way of getting overhead-valve efficiency without overhead cams, which were still expensive to manufacture. Even so, the brothers weren’t making any money from it. World War I was a profitable diversion, during which they built aircraft engines. Afterward, the Duesenbergs wanted to get into building larger eight-cylinder engines, but their New York investors wanted to make money, so they forced the sale of the rights to the walking-beam four to Rochester Motor Company, which sold versions of the engine to Biddie, Roamer, ReVere, and others. There were at least 350 automakers in 1917, so it was sort of the same way you buy a Dell computer, which is a collection of components from other companies.

ReVere was named after the Revolutionary War hero, the “one if by land, two if by sea” guy, and was managed by a swindler named Newton Van Zandt. He came from a piano company and knew nothing about cars, but he knew how to separate people from their money. The whole thing went under in a stock scam, and Van Zandt absconded with a bunch of cash, later surfacing in New Jersey trying to pass off a lightly disguised ReVere as a brand-new design of his own making. He was found dead in his New York hotel room in 1921. The papers said it was a heart attack, but who knows?

Though they didn’t make many, the ReVere was actually a pretty good car. The brains behind it were Adolph Monsen, a talented engineer and perfectionist who had previously made cars under his own name in Chicago, and two racing drivers, the most famous of whom was Gil Anderson. He was a Norwegian immigrant who drove for Stutz and raced in the first six Indianapolis 500s, finishing third in 1915.

Built in Logansport, Indiana, north of Indianapolis, the ReVere had that Duesenberg racing engine, a Brown-Lipe four-speed, and a lot of aluminum in the body. Before he ran off, Van Zandt hired Erwin “Cannonball” Baker, of Cannonball Run fame, to drive a ReVere coast to coast and everywhere in between, covering more than 16,000 miles. “America’s Incomparable Car” was the slogan, and one of the first customers was Alfonso XIII, the king of Spain. The car represents classic boutique manufacturing of the day. Get the fastest engine, the best transmission, a well-designed chassis, high-end Buffalo wire wheels, and build a car.

I got mine 25 years ago, and I’ve read that there aren’t more than five or six Rochester-Duesenberg engines left. To restore it, we had to make the pistons, the rods—pretty much everything. And my crew did it beautifully. I’m looking forward to driving some points off it.

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Like a lot of kids, Chip Bulloch had a poster of a red Lamborghini Countach on the wall of his childhood bedroom. But unlike most other young fanboys, he never grew outgrew his infatuation.

He bought his first Countach when he was only 29, and he acquired his second one a decade or so later. A few years after that, even though he knew nothing about filmmaking, he wrote, shot, edited and produced a full-length Lamborghini documentary. He’s such a true believer that when he decided, last year, to commission a ground-up restoration of his black-on-tan 1987 Quattrovalvole, he entrusted the work to a small team of retired Lamborghini mechanics and artisans in Italy. Their leader: legendary factory test driver Valentino Balboni.

Bulloch is a crazed Countach fanatic, yes, but he is also a self-described serial entrepreneur with an eye on the emerging cryptocurrency industry. He realized that, in addition to being a flamboyant objet d’art, his car also represented an investment opportunity that might appeal to millennials and Gen Xers looking to stake a claim in the new digital trading economy.

“I’m going to fractionally divide the car and sell shares of it,” Bulloch says. “People who buy a share will get a receipt and an NFT (non-fungible token) that can be sold or traded or whatever. As the car is being restored, the value will go up. When it’s finished, buyers will get a ride in the car with Valentino and a tour of his shop. So there’s an experiential part along with the NFT.”

Crazy, right? No crazier than the original Countach, which debuted in concept car form to stunned crowds at the Geneva Motor Show in 1971. Three years later, into production as the LP 400 “Periscopio.”

Penned by designer Marcelo Gandini, the Countach didn’t just defy contemporary design language; it eviscerated conventional wisdom by establishing a new vocabulary of angular, over-the-top styling. It’s not hyperbole to say that the Countach reshaped the world’s idea of a supercar.

A half-century later, Balboni still remembers his first impression of the car. “I thought it would be impossible to drive on the street because it looked like an unidentified flying object,” he says.

With low-profile tires, no aerodynamic aids and the massive, mid-mounted Giotto Bizzarrini-designed V-12 adding so much weight to the rear of the car, the first Countaches were notoriously unstable. Bad things could happen very, very quickly. “At first, it was very difficult to drive,” says Balboni, a man who routinely tested cars at 160 miles per hour on the two-lane roads near the Lamborghini factory in Sant’Agata Bolognese.

In 1978, several of the car’s most egregious weaknesses were addressed in the new LP 400 S, which benefited from wider Pirelli rubber (necessitating those in-your-face wheel arches), a redesigned suspension, and a wicked rear wing. The LP 500 S for 1982 introduced a new V-12 engine, which saw displacement grow from 3.9 liters to to 4.8 liters. Three years later the V-12 swelled to 5.2 liters and went to a four-valve head, the source of the Quattrovalvole moniker. The Countach story culminated in 1988 with a 25th Anniversary model styled by Horacio Pagani, a man with his own history of over-the-top design.

Altogether, roughly 2000 Countaches were built during a 26-year production run. Despite all the changes over the years, the car remained remarkably hard to climb into and virtually impossible to see out of. But these flaws were a small price to pay for a machine that was so futuristic and otherworldly that it inspired shock and awe among both owners and onlookers.

“It was like driving a fricking spaceship,” Bulloch recalls from his earliest Countach experience. “The first time I took the car out at dusk, I was seeing all these flashes. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. This was before people had cameras in their cell phones. I finally realized that everybody was taking pictures of the car as I was driving by.”

As Bulloch learned more about the Countach, he decided to upgrade to this black Quattrovalvole model around the year 2000. He drove it consistently before embarking on a ground-up restoration in 2008. He’d gotten as far as disassembly when life got in the way, and the project stalled. Then, the Countach sat … and sat … and sat.

It wasn’t until last year that Bulloch began investigating the possibility of spinning things up again. He was trying to decide between two highly respected restoration shops when, purely by serendipity, he had dinner with Balboni after the Concorso Italiano car show during Monterey Car Week.

“Valentino,” Bulloch asked him, “if this was your car, who would you get to restore it?”

“Well,” Balboni said, “I’ve put together a little team in Italy. We have a little shop, and we’re doing restorations of Miuras and Countaches.”

Bulloch didn’t hesitate. “Done!”

Aside from company founder Ferruccio Lamborghini, Balboni is the most famous representative of Automobili Lamborghini. Now 73, he joined the company in 1968 as an apprentice mechanic. Five years later, Ferruccio promoted him to test driver under the tutelage of another company icon, New Zealander Bob Wallace.

Balboni spent four decades at Lamborghini, and after retiring in 2008, he served as a consultant for six more years. Although he is no longer formally attached to the company, he remains close to the marque. “I will never divorce Lamborghini,” he says. “We are still married, but we sleep in different beds.”

A few years ago, Balboni amassed a cadre of ex-Lamborghini employees—some in their 80s—to undertake restorations on a casual basis. “It’s not a real company,” he insists. “We are just some guys who get together to disassemble and reassemble the cars that we worked on 50 and 60 years ago. No one is the boss. We’re old friends.”

Maybe so. Nevertheless, Balboni says the not-company has restored nearly three dozen cars to date. The shop just finished an LP 400 S and is working on two other Countaches, plus a pair of Miuras. “We work only on Lamborghinis because we want to make it easy on ourselves,” Balboni says with a laugh. “We are retired, and we work to increase our pensions.”

For Bulloch, getting Balboni on board was the final piece in his grand plan to resurrect his long-languishing project car. Such an ironclad connection to Lamborghini heritage was also a nice bookend for Bulloch’s strategy of selling shares of his Countach in the form of NFTs.

Bulloch acknowledges that he didn’t invent this investment concept, let alone its appearance in the automotive space. A pioneer in the genre is a company called Rally, which owns a portfolio of collectible assets ranging from Michael Jordan sneakers to 40-year-old whiskey. (Who knew?) These commodities are “securitized”—divided into equity shares that can be bought and traded by investors. At the moment, Rally is offering dozens of cars across a variety of tastes and price points, from a 1955 Porsche 356 Speedster to a 1965 Mustang Fastback and a 2003 Saleen S7.

What makes Bulloch’s deal unique is its value-added component. As he writes on his newly launched website: “Shareholders/NFT owners will be given a first look at videos of the restoration AND, most importantly, an experiential component … ”

For investors who make their own way to Italy, this means access to Balboni’s shop. Bulloch says he also hopes to organize tours of some of the car factories in and around Modena—Lamborghini, Pagani, even Ferrari. But the pièce de résistance will be a thrill ride in the restored Countach, with Balboni manning the con.

How much value do these bonuses really represent? For a Countach devotee, potentially a lot. And, as somebody who’s driven with Balboni in a Lamborghini Diablo SV, I can say that riding shotgun with the master gives you a new perspective on speed. He navigates two-lane highways at go-straight-to-prigione speeds, amid overloaded farm trucks and oncoming traffic.

Bulloch has placed the car in and LLC and subdivided it into 100 shares. (He’ll keep 51 to retain principal ownership.) The first 10 shares will be sold for $8000 apiece, which presupposes an all-in value of $800,000. According to the Hagerty data, the average value of a concours-quality (#1 condition) 1987 Countach is $752,000, while a model in excellent condition (#2) will set you back roughly $640,000. The four 1987 Quattrovalvoles sold on Bring a Trailer last year brought, $550,000, $735,000, $700,000 and $860,000.

Of course, Bulloch’s car will be freshly restored, and Balboni’s imprimatur is arguably worth a premium of some sort. Still, speculating on the supercars of yesteryear is a crapshoot. Shares in Rally’s 1980 Countach, for example have plummeted from an initial offering at $127 in January 2019 to a tick more than $76 as of this writing. Granted, that was an oddball prototype fitted with a turbocharger. But, as ever, investors would be wise to mind the mantra caveat emptor before diving into these waters.

The Countach is insured for $750,000, and in the event that it is wrecked or stolen Bulloch promises he will “make every shareholder whole on their investment.” Bulloch says he “does not plan on selling” the car (i.e. his majority share), but in that event, investors would receive payout on the sale price reflective of their share value.

Bulloch is now finalizing the paperwork to offer shares of the Countach. He plans to ship the car overseas to Italy in February and says the project should be finished in 12 to 14 months. “Restoring Chip’s Countach will be easy,” Balboni says blithely. “We know the product. We know the good points, and we know the weaknesses.”

When the work is completed, Bulloch says, he’ll resist the temptation to bring the car back to his home in Florida. “I’ve come to admire and love Valentino Balboni, and I like the idea of it being under his care,” he says. “I wouldn’t drive the car here in the States. I’d just be afraid of getting into an accident.”

A wreck is never good for a car, after all, even if all you own of it is a digital pie slice.

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it.

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There are a lot of fun tools that get left to the professionals for no other reason than acquisition cost. The latest such tool for me has been a wet blasting cabinet, also known as a vapor hone. Wet blasting or vapor honing is a variation of the well-known “sand blasting” technique, where you force a fine blast media such as sand or silica dust through an air hose at an object. The fine media acts as sandpaper, stripping the gunk, rust, paint, and sometimes more off of the component.  They’re brilliant tools, but also quite cost-prohibitive. But now maybe I can finally have one of my own now thanks to Victor Bared on YouTube, who outlined exactly how he created his own setup that rivals the big-money kits.

The core of the system is the cabinet itself, which is a modified dry blasting cabinet. Although the common term for dry blasting is sand blasting, it’s pretty rare to actually use sand these days. Usually, the media of choice would be walnut shell or aluminum oxide in various grit sizes, depending on what kind of material and surface finish you desire.

The modifications start with opening the lower chute that typically serves as access to change out the blast media. Then, with the hatch removed, the bottom of the cabinet becomes a funnel that feeds the water and glass beads used for wet blasting into a five-gallon bucket which contains a massive pump to push the glass beads and water up to the nozzle where it gets an extra push from compressed air as it exits the nozzle and heads toward the piece you’re working on.

There are a couple of interesting modifications that someone doing this at home for the first time might try and foolishly skip. The first is the vacuum connection and fresh air vent. While it seems counterintuitive to leave an open hole in the cabinet and draw air through using another port and a shop vac, it is quite important to do so as it significantly helps visibility. You are already fighting water and glass beads partially sticking to the glass window you are looking through, and allowing a “fog” to build up inside will only make working that much more annoying.

This home-brew setup holds less water and media—only about 2.5 gallons of water and three-ish cups of glass bead—than a commercial-grade cabinet, so you will likely have to change out media more often to keep the cabinet effective and in tip-top condition. However, the bucket setup to receive the water and media is easily grabbed and dumped, so raw material changing likely won’t be as big a deal for someone working in a home shop.

The only real catch here is that even a simple setup like this requires a lot of air. A large compressor is the only way to have a cabinet like this without resulting in pure frustration. That means that while building this cabinet might seem relatively affordable, actually following through with it only makes sense if you already have shop air or were planning on installing it. (In which case, the blast cabinet is yet another reason to do so!)

There are drawbacks to a setup like this, but for someone who would likely use this a few times a month rather than a few times a day, this is a great solution to restoring aluminum or other delicate parts. The glass bead is less aggressive, which means you can quickly and safely clean up parts that would be destroyed in a dry blasting cabinet. There is more to clean up though. You need to be sure to get all of the glass bead media out of the nooks and crannies of your workpiece so that the material doesn’t continue to create premature wear.

In all, it might be a project that can save you time and effort compared to hand-cleaning parts, but obviously, there are a few things you must already have or be willing to spend the money on. I absolutely love having access to a vapor honing cabinet and once a larger compressor becomes part of my shop setup, I’ll be building something like this. It’s a luxury worth having if you are doing any amount of restoration or repairs.

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The deadline is closing fast, but Austin Turnes isn’t worried. He’s put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears—literally—into making sure his once-dilapidated 1956 Little Gem camper trailer is finished in time for Barrett-Jackson’s Scottsdale Auction in January.

“We’re moving along on schedule,” says Turnes, who we originally featured in September. “I’ve sent preliminary information, title, VIN, and other information to Barrett-Jackson. They’ve encouraged me to finish sooner rather than later, since last year they filled up by the end of December. I think we may just pull this off in time.”

Turnes has experienced a couple of minor bumps and bruises since his last update video at the end of October.

“I’ve insulated, hung the (aluminum) skins, and begun buffing the exterior,” he says. “Word to the wise: Make sure exterior light wires are tucked in before you do that. I caught one of them with my buffer and proceeded to whip the hell out of my left arm. That being said, you curse a little—or a lot—and get back to work. Restorations typically demand a little blood sacrifice to go with the sweat and tears. Just another day at the office.”

The restoration is going so well that Turnes’ latest update video already needs an update, since it doesn’t include installation of the skins and the beginning of buffing process.

Turnes, who runs Mr. Vintage Restoration out of his garage in Middleville, Michigan, says he accomplished a lot in November. That included finishing the cabinets, installing the Marmoleum flooring and appliances, and working on the cushions and curtains—with the help of his wife, Elisha—using a 1949 Singer sewing machine that Austin also restored. “I’m not normally an upholsterer, but hey, you do what ya gotta do,” he says, then adds, “Mrs. Vintage is definitely a better sewer than I am.”

The curtains are made of a material called bark cloth, which was ordered from a company in Hawaii. “It has a very unique texture and weave to it,” Austin says. “Very similar to what you would have found in many living rooms and trailers in the 1940s and ’50s.”

Turnes says he wasn’t the only one to suffer an injury along the way; the Little Gem received a gunshot at some point during the last 66 years.

“A huge part of planning for this has been the placement of the appliances so that we can remove defects in the skin, like the original hole for the furnace … or here, on the other side, a gunshot hole,” he says. “It seems that every trailer I’ve ever owned has a bullet hole in it. Just my luck, I guess.”

Among the special touches was adding chrome decal edging to the refrigerator door “to give it more of a vintage appeal,” and creating a beautiful tile inlay at the entrance featuring the Little Gem logo.

“The floor wasn’t easy, but I think it was well worth the effort,” Turnes says. “I found a picture of similar floors in vintage homes and decided I had to have it. The inlay (trim) and entry inlay aren’t original, but I thought it added a certain classy touch. I’d seen a similar touch that a restorer named David Winick had done on an Airstream for the lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. His said “Welcome.” I decided to take it further.”

The Little Gem cutout was created by Impact Fab, located in Holland, Michigan.

Turnes says 98 percent of the electrical work is done, as well as 90 percent of the plumbing and interior. He still has to make the cabinet doors, install the windows, install the camper door, and, of course, buff (and buff and buff) the aluminum exterior.

As if the Little Gem itself isn’t enough of a project, Turnes plans to trailer the camper 2000 miles from Michigan to Arizona behind a 1954 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight … possibly in inclement weather. That means the Olds is also going to need some TLC before the road trip.

“I have a little work to do on the Oldsmobile, and parts are coming in,” Turnes says. “I went to Detroit on Monday to get the new springs from Eaton Spring. They’re outstanding, and I can’t recommend them enough.”

Turnes hopes that others will soon be saying the same about him and his work.

“Fingers crossed,” he says at the close of his update video. “Let’s hope we can pull this off.”

We have no doubt.

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Ford’s modern GT says a track-only farewell

Intake: Earlier this fall, Ford unveiled what was believed to be the final special edition of the Ford GT to mark the end of the model’s production run. It appears they found one more unlit candle for their celebration cake, however, as the marque just unveiled an 800-horsepower track-only “long tail” variant of the third-generation sports car. Dubbed the Mk IV, this iteration of the GT is an “ultimate send-off” to the third-generation supercar and an homage to the car that won the 1967 24 Hours of Le Mans. In reference to that year’s victory, just 67 will be constructed.

Canadian engineers Multimatic will build the beast out of their facility in Markham, Ontario. “Multimatic’s brief was to create the most extreme final version of the Ford GT, and the Mk IV is the outcome,” said Multimatic executive vice president Larry Holt. “A unique larger displacement engine, proper racing gearbox, stretched wheelbase and truly radical body has resulted in an unprecedented level of performance.”Prospective buyers will have to go through a new application process to be considered for a Mk IV. In addition to the paperwork, prospective buyers will need to have $1.7M in their pocket. If you are lucky enough to snag one of the 67 cars, you will know by the first quarter of 2023. Deliveries will take place in late Spring.

Exhaust: Who doesn’t love a special edition that goes beyond cosmetic flair? As the final chapter in GT special editions, the Mk IV homage feels appropriate given that much of Ford’s Le Mans cache is wrapped up the 1967 race. That year, Americans Dan Gurney and AJ Foyt drove to an overall victory in a GT40 Mark IV. Under reworked aero and sporting nine more inches from nose to tail, the racer hardly resembled the trio of GT40s that went 1-2-3 in 1966. The new GT Mark IV is highly-reminiscent of another reworked Le Mans staple. In 2018, Porsche released a similar track-only iteration of its 911 GT2 RS wearing long tail bodywork, building just 77 units. With only 67 of the new Mark IVs available, buyers who make the cut will likely feel like they’ve won Le Mans. — Cameron Neveu

London taxi goes luxe for $120,000

Intake: British self-titled “Automotive Fashion House” Kahn Design has turned its attentions away from Range Rovers, Bentleys, and Lamborghinis to the humble London taxi instead. The newest hybrid TX5 may be the most sophisticated black cab ever built, but, designed as it is for public transit, it’s not exactly luxurious to ride in. Afzal Kahn and his team has changed that, transforming the exterior and interior into something that could (almost) rival Rolls-Royce. The starlight headliner certainly takes inspiration from Rolls, while there’s a bit of Maybach in the new front grille, and some Bugatti in the seat design. Passengers also benefit from wireless phone charging, ambient lighting, chrome cupholders, wood veneer, and assorted USB charging points. The Kahn cab is available in left-hand drive for export, as well as Britain’s native right-hand layout with prices starting at £99,000 ($121,220).

Exhaust: Black cabs are the ideal urban vehicle, with an incredibly tight turning circle of just 25 feet and, since they’re now hybrid powered, the ability to run in emissions-free mode as well. London Taxis have long been the choice of celebrities wishing to travel without attracting attention, and can count Prince Phillip, Sir Laurence Olivier, Kate Moss, and even Arnold Schwarzenegger as past owners. This Kahn edition might not be quite as stealthy, however. — Nik Berg

Buick Electra EV Crossover greenlit for production

Intake: Earlier this year Buick teased the Electra-X concept crossover in China, and suggested that EV-motivated Buicks will fall under the “Electra” sub-brand going forward. According to GM Authority, that concept has been greenlit into production with a new name: Electra E4. Sources claim the E4 will look very much like the Electra-X concept, and that it will utilize GM’s BEV3 platform and Ultium EV hardware.

Exhaust: Odds are, GM Authority is right when they suggest little will change when the Electra-X turns into the production Electra E4. The formula for masking a production vehicle as an eye-catching concept car is nearly universal: lower the stance, increase the wheel size, shrink (or delete) the side mirrors, thin the roof pillars (concepts don’t need to pass rollover tests!), reduce the bumper’s footprint, and simplify the headlight design to merely hint at what will actually, legally make production. No matter; as far as CUVs go, the Electra E4 will most certainly be a looker in its market segment. — Sajeev Mehta

A solar-powered car for $6250? Well, sort of

Intake: A new product from a Dutch company called the Squad solar city car—one of those LSV, or low speed vehicles—may be ideal in dense urban areas and especially in sunny retirement communities. Set to go no more than 25 mph, the golf-cart-like LSVs can easily carry you a few blocks to the grocery store or to the community center. A story in Ars Technica details the Squad, a handsome little city car with 250-watt solar panels for a roof that, in a sunny climate such as Florida or Arizona, may mean you never have to charge the batteries. The company, Squad Mobility, plans to sell the Squad in the U.S. come 2024. Designed by a couple of former Lightyear employees, the Squad uses a pair of 2-kW motors, one powering each rear wheel. Squad claims that on a sunny day in the Netherlands, the solar power adds 13.6 miles to the range, and in a sunny clime like Las Vegas, could add up to 19.2 miles. Fully charged by a 110-volt outlet, the total range in 60 miles. “We are seeing a tremendous interest from the USA, specifically for markets such as sharing platforms, gated communities, campuses, (seaside) resorts, tourism, company terrains, hotels and resorts, amusement parks, and inner city services,” said Robert Hoevers, one of Squad’s co-founders. Their web site is squadmobility.com.

Exhaust: Could be a big hit in the right market like The Villages in Florida. – Steven Cole Smith

Tesla investors and analysts to Musk: Keep your eye on the ball

Intake: These are tense times at Tesla: The Gigafactory in Austin is running behind, the Cybertruck is ways behind schedule, there are problems in China, and competition is such that Tesla is offering a $3750 discount on a car. And what is Tesla founder Elon Musk doing? He’s busy tweaking his new acquisition of Twitter. Analysts and investors aren’t amused. A story in Automotive News titled “Elon Musk’s Twitter antics tarnish Tesla, analysts say,” comes down hard on Musk. “This is creating real damage for the Tesla brand,” analyst Mario Natarelli told Automotive News. “When I see people commenting that they are no longer considering a Tesla car or are embarrassed to drive it, I think that’s reaching the point of significant equity damage for the brand.” Just as forceful is a story in Bloomberg titled, “Tesla Investors Have a Message for Musk: Stop Wasting Time on Twitter.”

Exhaust: The ball’s in your court, Elon, but your people have spoken. — SCS

This might be the last unrestored Ferrari 250 GT Cabriolet in existence—and it’s for sale

Intake: A 1962 Ferrari 250 GT Series II Pininfarina Cabriolet that languished in a New York garage for decades is for sale for $1.275 million. The seller, Gullwing Motors, says the car “may be the last unrestored example left on earth” and “proudly displays an abundance of patina.” Wearing chassis number 3051, it is the 152nd of 200 examples built and was first registered in Italy. It was exported to New York in 1971 where it has stayed ever since. The V-12 engine of this numbers-matching Ferrari is said to start and run, and the car is original in every aspect aside from the paint. It was originally delivered in Blu Scuro to contrast with the Rosso leather interior. A full spare set of Borrani wheels and re-chromed bumpers comes are included in the sale, along with a mostly-complete toolkit and the original documentation.

Exhaust: This looks like quite a big ask. Gullwing Motors describes the car as “ready for a straightforward and well-deserved restoration,” but that will still add several hundred grand to the asking price and a #2 Excellent condition car could be purchased for the same money, according to the Hagerty Valuation Tools. Still, there’s nobility in a restoration, so we hope this one’s next owner considers giving this drop-top a new lease on life. — NB

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The Pony Coupe that took pride of place on Hyundai’s 1974 Turin Motor Show stand is slated to be completely restored with the aid of its original designer, Giorgetto Giugiaro.

Giugiaro penned the Pony almost 50 years ago, when the South Korean company was really just starting out. With no in-house design capacity Hyundai commissioned Giugiaro to design and build five prototypes including the Pony and Pony Coupe. In the event only the Pony compact hatch went into production, but the Coupe continued to be a huge inspiration. The 2019 ’45’ concept and the Ioniq 5 have features that can be traced back to the Giugiaro design, while the 2022 N Vision 74 concept car is like the Pony Coupe on steroids. It’s also worth noting the similarities between the Pony Coupe and the DeLorean DMC 12 that Giugiaro designed soon after.

Now, together with his son Fabrizio and their firm GFG Style, Giugiaro will set to work on the Hyundai concept car once more, bringing it back to its original condition.

“I designed the Hyundai Pony when I was still a young designer at the start of my career,” says Giugiaro.” I felt very proud that I was in charge of creating a vehicle for a company and country that was about to take on a fiercely competitive global market. Now, I’m deeply honored that Hyundai has asked me to rebuild it for posterity and as a celebration of the brand’s heritage.”

The restoration could also lead to future Korean-Italian projects. “Not only does this project hold historical value, but it also represents a cross-cultural exchange that could pave the way for more collaborations down the road,” adds Hyundai Chief Creative Officer Luc Donckerwolke.

Expect to see the re-born concept on show in Spring 2023.

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Alfa Romeo announces in-house restoration and certification service

Intake: Alfa Romeo is hopping on the factory-backed classic restoration train with its new program called “Alfa Romeo Classiche.” The program will offer a range of services including certificates of origin (which has been available since 2016), certificates of authenticity, and a full restoration service—all in the name of protecting and promoting the brand’s history. Restoration services will range from simple diagnosis all the way to complete restoration efforts, undertaken by the experts that care for the Stellantis historical collection in Turin, Italy. To obtain a certificate of authenticity, specialists in Alfa’s heritage department will rigorously inspect the car to verify it against production data and technical specifications and ensure that everything is up to snuff. How serious is top brass about this new program? The certification committee is chaired by Jean Philippe Imparato, Alfa’s CEO, who had this to say about the new endeavor: “For us, the Alfa Romeo Classiche heritage program aims to enhance our historic automotive heritage by certifying the authenticity of vintage Alfa Romeos and giving new life to marvelous examples that still captivate and excite car enthusiasts around the world.”

Exhaust: We’ve seen plenty of companies jump into the factory restoration game in some form or another—from Jaguar, to Fiat, to Nissan, to Porsche, and many more. Some firms, such as Mazda and Toyota, elect to just announce reproductions of certain hard-to-find parts. Alfa’s approach seems to mimic that of fellow Italian brand Ferrari, who offers restoration and certification services to help the most discerning collectors know they’re buying (and hopefully driving) the best of the best. — Nathan Petroelje

Ken Block’s Audi S1 Hoonitron is a bespoke all-electric drift missile

Intake: The Hoonigan team will unveil its newest Gymkhana film next week Tuesday, October 25, with Ken Block returning to the screen after a brief hiatus. The video, dubbed Electrikhana, will feature a custom-built all-electric drift missile from Audi called the S1 Hoonitron. The S1 Hoonitron gets a lot of its styling cues from the iconic Group B Audi S1 Quattro E2, but adapts them to a more modern form. The mechanicals are appropriately wild: Two 800-volt electric motors sourced from Formula E draw juice from four massive batteries placed midship. The combined system output is more than 4400 lb-ft of torque, all of which still twists through conventional differentials so that Ken can adjust the diff settings to make the car slide and spin exactly how he wants. Electrikhana will be perhaps the smokiest film yet—the Hoonigan team torched over 100 tires over multiple days of filming the stunts in Las Vegas. Be sure to catch all the tire-smoking action next Tuesday at 9 a.m. ET when Electrikhana goes live.

Exhaust: The extensive walkthrough video posted below has loads more details on the car that are worth nerding out over. One such detail: The car has no conventional transmission, which means going in reverse is as simple as reversing the polarity of the electric motors. Audi’s engineers initially had a limit placed on how fast you could go in reverse, but the Hoonigan team eventually convinced them to take that off so that the S1 Hoonitron could travel as fast backwards as it can forwards. Expect some mental reverse-entry slides and lord knows what else. We can’t wait. — Nathan Petroelje

Audi RS 3 Performance Edition brings American-spec engine to Europe

Intake: Audi will build a limited-edition RS 3 for the European market, incorporating a number of unique design cues with engine and suspension bits that the U.S.-spec car already enjoys. Available as a sedan and hatchback (Sportback in Audi-speak), the RS 3 Performance Edition bumps the 2.5-liter turbo-five from 394 hp to 401 hp, available 100 revs later at 5700–7000 rpm, via a tiny increase in turbo charge pressure. (Our RS 3 makes that power from the get-go, at 6500 rpm.) Performance Edition RS 3s get standard adaptive dampers—also already included on the U.S. car. Standard carbon-ceramic brakes that save 22 pounds of unsprung weight are part of the deal as well, along with special 19-inch aluminum cast wheels wrapped in Pirelli Trofeo R semi-slick summer rubber. Both the brakes and the Pirelli tires remain optional on the American-market RS 3. Serious-looking bucket seats are the biggest change to the interior. Europe’s RS 3 Performance Edition will be limited to 300 units.

Exhaust: This is one of those rare cases in which America isn’t really missing out on some special European performance machine. We already get the good stuff! The RS 3 is a truly special machine, as we found out on a recent test drive. (We’ll be publishing a review soon.) If there’s anything we miss from Europe’s RS 3, it’s the Sportback version; we have to make do with the ordinary sedan. The VW Golf R checks that box, but Wolfsburg’s four-cylinder is nowhere near as interesting as Ingolstadt’s incredible inline-five. — Eric Weiner

INEOS begins Grenadier production

Intake: What was once a prototype with impressive potential is now a production vehicle ready for any terrain. The INEOS Grenadier officially kicked off production yesterday as a five seater wagon in three trim levels, with deliveries starting in December. This SUV takes the original concept of the Land Rover Defender and modernizes it with improved technology, added rear seat room, NVH reducing measures, and parts interchangeability with BMW products. Pricing wasn’t mentioned in the news release, but we previously reported that the Grenadier started at £49,000 for the 2-seat utility wagon and £52,000 for the 5-seat station wagon.

Exhaust: While supply chain issues have delayed production (and likely raised prices for all future builds) it’s great to see INEOS finally making their dream into a reality. INEOS previously mentioned they intend for the Grenadier to have a global audience, so their latest claim to “over 200 sales and service sites worldwide” will likely go a long way to getting more people excited about the product. You know, the Defender-shaped vehicle that came to life because Land Rover hadn’t met the standards of acquired distinctiveness by a UK High Court. — Sajeev Mehta

Safety recall ensnares 53,000 Dual-Clutch Hyundais

Intake: Hyundai has filed to recall about 53,000 vehicles covering six model lines over potential oil pump failures in the dual-clutch automatic transmissions. Affected vehicles include the Sante Fe, the Santa Cruz, the Sonata, as well as the zestier Elantra N, Kona N, and Veloster N. The electric oil pump fitted to these dual-clutch autos may trigger an internal fault, illuminating multiple lights on the dash and sending the car into a “fail safe” mode where it will disengage the gearbox’s clutches and drive gear, resulting in a total loss of motive power. No-cost remedies will include Hyundai inspecting and reprogramming transmission control units, or replacing whole transmissions altogether if necessary. Affected owners will be notified by mail. Thus far, no known injuries have occurred in relation to this issue. A dealer document floating around the web shows that Hyundai told dealers to stop selling these models as far back as October 7.

Exhaust: Loss of motive power is on the more frightening side of outcomes stemming from an issue that warrants recall. Fortunately, Hyundai seems to be quick with a fix. The recall comes not long after its Palisade SUV was recalled over a possible short in the tow harness wiring that could result in a fire. Hopefully the company can get this issue rectified and ensure that it won’t happen again. — Bryan Gerould

Hyundai pressures U.S. ease EV tax credit rules

Intake: Hyundai is lobbying the U.S. government to ease some of the restrictions around what EVs will qualify for the full $7500 tax credit, according to a new report from Automotive News. The Korean brand’s biggest sticking point is the requirement that qualified EVs be built in North America. Hyundai has plans for an EV plant in the states, but the new facility won’t happen until 2025. In the interim, the company feels that its market growth with popular EVs like the IONIQ 5 will be unfairly stunted as buyers look to other brands for the full credit. With additional EVs on the way, Hyundai is hoping to have these technicalities settled before even more buyers look to take the leap to electrification.

Exhaust: South Korea is home to some of the world’s largest EV battery makers such as SK Innovation and LG Chemical. If Hyundai can get these suppliers on its side for making the plea, the lobbying will force lawmakers to decide how to placate a juggernaut trade partner and supplier without caving on a clause in the climate bill that was meant to increase domestic investment. — Nathan Petroelje

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I got my driver’s license when I was 16, and shortly after, I bought my first car. It was a 1969 Dodge Charger in gold, with a black vinyl roof and a big-block 383.

Just after graduating from high school, I bought a ’70 Challenger R/T and sold the Charger to a friend. I hung on to the Challenger until 1992. I then went many years without a classic car, but I always had the itch.

One morning in 2006, I noticed a lump on my neck while I was shaving. It turned out to be thyroid cancer. I was 46 at the time and understood the lower survival rate for older patients. During surgical recovery, I decided to get another Charger because I really didn’t know how much time I might have.

I searched everywhere for a ’69, with no luck. Then I got a hit on a 1970 R/T in Alberta, so I decided to fly out to have a look at it. I told the seller that it needed to be in running condition for me to consider it.

We poured some gas down the carb and I cranked it while he worked the throttle linkage, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. I left the door open so I could exit quickly if the thing went up in flames. Miracle of miracles, though, it fired up and ran smoothly, so I bought it on the spot and had it shipped home.

The restoration began right away. I stripped the Charger down and sent it for sandblasting. A lot of metal was replaced, but the basics were all there. I got the car home and began the rebuild; every system on the car has been restored. I had the motor balanced and gave it larger pistons and a moderate cam. I had everything ready to go by December 2011. My two sons, both attending university, were on break and helped me put the drivetrain in. By summer 2012, the Charger was ready for the road. We’ve been cruising ever since.

This article first appeared in Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. Click here to subscribe and join the club.

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Recently I saw an Instagram post about a 25,000-hour restoration. It turned out to be apocryphal, but true or not, it got me thinking.

Restorations have been around almost as long as cars themselves. Then as now, the term is open to a great deal of interpretation. But no matter your definition of “restoration,” we can all agree on two things: The process has changed greatly over the years; and, crucially, not all cars should be restored—especially when you consider the cost involved and any potential return on that expenditure.

That last bit has not changed over time. My first real job was at a Wisconsin shop in the mid-1980s, where every car that rolled in was a rust bucket. The labor rate was $30 an hour, and even at that, there were several cars that didn’t warrant even the most rudimentary restoration given the value of the car. I recall a 1953 Packard Caribbean convertible that sat forlornly at the back of the shop for years because the owner abandoned the project when the bills exceeded either his budget or the value of the car, or perhaps both. I think it was sold for parts.

The cars that did get restored back then were done to standards that most body shops today would scoff at. Patch panels, body filler, “close enough” colors, and the like were commonplace. Most customers similarly didn’t care too much about a frame-off restoration, let alone long discussions about proper plating of hardware or making sure every part on the car was date-coded correctly. The rule of thumb back then for a “high-end” restoration on a ’60s muscle car was 1000 hours of labor plus any rust repair needed. With the escalation of standards in the hobby, today that number is easily doubled. Shop rates have quadrupled, too.

My friend Alex Finigan of high-end restorer Paul Russell and Company has similar memories from the dark ages. “When I started restoring cars in 1975, I was paid $5 an hour and our shop rate was $19 per hour. Nut-and-bolt restorations were uncommon, but even when we did one, it was to standards that would be completely unacceptable today. A full restoration took somewhere around 2500 hours. Our current shop rate is $135 an hour, a restoration generally takes 4000–5000 hours, and we have a three-year backlog. In fact, many of our customers will have a car completed and trade it out for another one so they always have one in the works!”

Even the most basic math applied to these numbers shows the labor for a true concours restoration today is well into six figures and can easily exceed $500,000.

We could get deep into the weeds about why such a restoration could also devalue a great original car. Suffice to say that it’s a slippery slope, so if you have a solid, unrestored car with original finishes, fabrics, and parts that is still presentable, please consider sympathetically maintaining it rather than erasing that history with a restoration. Purists like me—and your wallet—will thank you.

But let’s say you have a car that is well past the “survivor” stage and well into the category of “well, at least it survived!” Or maybe you have a nice #3 car with an older restoration that does everything it should, but it’s not going to win any shows. At this point, you need to determine if spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to make it new again is logical, as well as what your motivation might be. Is it to bring Grandpa’s old alloy Ferrari 275 GTB/4 back to the way it was when he bought it from Enzo in 1967? Sure, go for it. But if you want to see a rusty LS6 Chevelle hardtop bring top dollar on the auction block, you may want to take a hard look at those numbers. My suspicion is that they don’t work.

Of course, these are extreme examples, and a happy middle ground can always be found between owner and restoration shop—one that would allow you to take that old TR6 and make it reliable and spiffy enough to enjoy driving it again. Just keep in mind before jumping in that “restorations” aren’t what they once were. Today, given the cost and time involved, they can be a fool’s errand.

This article originally appeared in Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. For more from Colin, check out his new video series, The Appraiser.

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Owners of old cars have a new problem: Basically only old people know how to fix old cars. As these folks retire or head off to that big cars and coffee in the sky, owners of vintage cars are left scrambling to find places to maintain and repair them. I have personal experience here: A day before I wrote the above sentences, my mechanic called to tell me he has retired, and I’d have to find a new shop to work on my 1947 Packard. Ugh.

Fortunately, there is hope for the future: McPherson College, a small liberal arts college in McPherson, Kansas. McPherson produces some of the most sought-after graduates in the world of automotive restoration, and since 1998, Hagerty has been a partner in promoting the school’s mission.

“Over the years, Hagerty has supported the program financially, and several of us at Hagerty have served on its board of directors,” says Jonathan Klinger, executive director of the Hagerty Drivers Foundation. “We are proud that McPherson is now the world’s only four-year bachelor-degree program to combine hands-on training with classroom instruction that produces skilled, business-savvy craftspeople.”

These highly trained grads go on to work at renowned shops such as Paul Russell and Company, Wayne Carini’s F40 Motorsports, and others, where they work on some of the rarest and priciest automobiles in the world.

Initially, the restoration curriculum was a two-year program, and enrollment was low. In 1998, the college trustees were considering eliminating the program. “The curriculum was very different than it is today,” explains Amanda Gutierrez, provost/executive vice president for McPherson. “We hadn’t quite made sense of how the liberal arts and a more technical program like automotive restoration fit.”

Just as the program was on the verge of being eliminated, a hero came to the rescue: Jay Leno, comedian, former host of The Tonight Show, and noted car enthusiast.

“Jay learned about the program through his friend, Randy Ema, a restoration expert and one of the world’s experts on the Duesenberg marque,” says Gutierrez. “When Jay called the school, no one believed it was him!” Eventually they confirmed that it was Leno calling, and he went on to become a generous supporter of the program.

“I thought it was a great idea and we made a couple of donations,” says Leno. “Other countries require a degree or certification of some sort to fix cars, and now with McPherson, we have it, too. I always say, ‘The heart is healthiest when the hands and the head work together.’ I work on cars during the day and at night I go on stage and tell jokes, and it’s a nice balance. I’m relieved to do one when I’m not doing the other.”

“Shortly after Jay connected with the program, we formed an advisory board,” says Gutierrez. “McKeel Hagerty, Craig Jackson [Barrett-Jackson Auctions], and Roger Morrison [Pebble Beach judge, car enthusiast] were part of the original board.” One key recommendation it made was to expand from an associate degree. In 2006, the bachelor’s degree in automotive restoration was added to the catalog. “That shift afforded our students a broader range of opportunities,” says Gutierrez. “Our degree helps graduates develop skills not just for a first job, but for an evolving career over a lifetime.”

Adam Hammer, a 2009 McPherson graduate and today the owner of Hammer and Dolly, a restoration shop in Traverse City, Michigan, couldn’t agree more. “I was a junior in high school when I learned about McPherson from Bob Turnquist, a noted collector and co-founder of the Classic Car Club of America,” Hammer recalls. “When I was looking at schools, the big question was, ‘Are you going to have a job when you graduate? What’s the educational value?’”

What Turnquist said changed Hammer’s life. “First, he said, ‘If you can work with your hands, you’ll never be out of work.’ I’ve found that to be true. There’s always something that needs to be fixed, whether it’s a classic car or a daily driver,” says Hammer. “The second thing Bob said was that if I went to McPherson College for the restoration program, I’d have a job when I graduated.”

Once at McPherson, Hammer thrived. “The program was a dream to me. It was a hands-on shop, but then you also had the standard college courses,” he recalls. Hammer is a huge believer in the restoration program. “McPherson prepared me for a career,” he says. “McPherson was the place where I found my passion, and it allowed me to develop the other skills I’d need.”

Paul Russell and Company is one of the preeminent automotive restoration shops in the world. Founded in 1978 in Essex, Massachusetts, the company has restored cars that have won 48 best-of-show awards since the first concours they entered in 1987. Russell has been involved with McPherson for 20 years—first on its advisory board and today as its chairman—and from his first visit, he knew it was special. “I was impressed with the passion and enthusiasm of the people running the college,” he recalls. “I also recognized the necessity of having programs such as McPherson’s that educate the future caretakers of great classic cars.”

Russell was instrumental in the switch from a two-year program to a four-year program. “I thought that it would make the program distinctive nationwide, if not worldwide,” he explains. “It’s like a screening process for an employer to get somebody who has a range of skills as well as a deep and abiding interest in the work and the cars. A young person who can speak eloquently, engage with a customer, walk them through the restoration process, and display a level of personal investment and passion in the project makes a huge difference.”

Russell backs up his beliefs with action: He has hired five McPherson graduates since he became involved with the program. He hired the first, Chris Hammond, in 2005; the most recent hire, Wally Behrens, graduated in May 2021 and went to work with Russell in October. says Behrens. “As I got closer to driving, I really started liking cars. My dad had a 1966 Austin-Healey Sprite that had been parked since I was little. We fixed the brakes and got the engine going. When I was 15, I got a rusted-out 1971 International Scout 800B. I went through the engine, rebuilt the transmission and brakes. And then I drove the Scout throughout high school.

“My dad found McPherson,” continues Behrens. “He showed me an article, and I thought it sounded pretty cool. I liked the hands-on aspect of restoring cars. I didn’t want to sit behind a desk, pushing papers.”

Once at the school, much to his surprise, Behrens found that he enjoyed trim work. “Trimming appealed to me because there’s definitely an art to it,” he says. “Back at McPherson, I took quite a few art classes. I’ve always liked doodling, drawing, and painting.”

His skills were exceptional enough that he is now working at Paul Russell and Company, apprenticing with the head upholsterer, Derrick Dunbar. “Derrick was trained at Rolls-Royce, where he served a five-year apprenticeship,” says Russell. “He’s certainly the best I’ve ever seen in the restoration field, and now Wally, at 22 years old, has a chance to work under Derrick’s tutelage for the next five years and learn all the traditions that Derrick knows.” Russell is pleased with his newest McPherson grad. “He’s worked out very well, and he’s what you want in a new person starting out. He’s got good hands, but he’s also a good listener, a good learner, and very observant. He realizes that he’s being trained by one of the best in the business.”

Behrens is enjoying his work. “Since starting at Paul Russell, my self-critiquing skills have improved. Knowing what I did wrong and how I could approach repairing it or fixing it, or if it’s a totally lost cause and I have to redo it.” A few months into his apprenticeship, he has been able to experience the pinnacle of the world of concours d’elegance. “I helped on the 1966 Ferrari 365P Berlinetta Speciale ‘Tre Posti’ that won first in class at the 2021 Pebble Beach Concours. It was a proud movement.” Behrens loved his time at McPherson. “I met so many like-minded people. In high school, there were a few kids that liked cars. At McPherson, it’s everybody!”

Zoe Carmichael, who recently finished her first year at McPherson, is also enthusiastic about her classes, her instructors, and fellow students. “There’s such great camaraderie between all the students and the teachers,” she says. “If anyone has a problem with anything, someone has an answer. We hang out with our projects and talk about them.”

Carmichael’s project—and her daily driver—is a 1971 Volkswagen Beetle she bought back in her hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina. “I found it on Craigslist,” she recalls. “I had been searching for a while. It’s dark blue, but it was green originally. You can see the green in some places, but I think that adds to the charm. It started breaking down as soon as I bought it, so I had to learn how to fix it myself. And then I fell in love with it.”

First, she had to send the carburetor out for a rebuild. Then she had to adjust the valves. “A friend gave me the book How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive. I read it and reread it many times.” She did the valve job in the parking lot of her apartment building. “It was a little nerve-racking, to be honest. But as soon as I got it done and fired it up, it sounded beautiful. That’s when I realized that working on cars was what I wanted to do.” Carmichael attended Wake Technical Community College and received a two-year associate degree in automotive technology, but knew she wanted more. A Google search led her to McPherson; she applied using photos of her work on the Beetle along with an essay on her experiences with it, and she was accepted. So, in the middle of the summer, she loaded up her things and headed to Kansas—in the Beetle, of course—and without air conditioning. “It was extremely hot. I had to drive at night when the sun had set with the windows rolled down.” The Beetle made the 1259-mile trip without incident, a testament to Carmichael’s preparations. “I’m not sure I would do it again, but it was the best experience.”

Carmichael is digging into her studies and is especially enjoying her “Social History of the Automobile” class. “The college emphasizes that it’s not just about the metal itself, but it’s about the story behind the car that’s important.” In her personal time, she continues to work on her Beetle and hangs out with her fellow students. One has a 1965 Chevrolet Corvair and another recently bought a 1959 Edsel Ranger that he found in Arkansas, only to get it back in McPherson to learn the fuel tank was completely rusted out.

Another student, Spencer Ice, is driving a 1956 Packard Patrician that he purchased at an auction, with some of the proceeds funding a scholarship at McPherson. “My summer internship was to get the cars in that collection ready for auction,” he says. “We only had three months to get 45 cars running. I worked on the Patrician, fell in love with it, and purchased it at the auction.” Once back at school, the brakes went out. Ice mentioned to one of his professors, Luke Chennell, that he was working on the Patrician’s Bendix Treadle Vac setup. “That’s really cool,” Chennell said. “Why don’t you bring it into class, and we can see how it works?”

That sort of hands-on, relevant, and relatable training is exactly what makes the restoration program at McPherson College invaluable to the students, and, eventually, to the owners and collectors who comprise the world of vintage automobiles. “I describe their program as being a junior varsity basketball team and having Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as coaches,” says Carini. “People such as Paul Russell and other great restorers, and people in the hobby, are the guys who are helping these young people get their education. It’s like we’re the cheerleading team for them, saying, ‘Boy, you can’t get much better than this. This is unbelievable, that you have such a great opportunity to do this.’”

Russell agrees with Carini on the importance of McPherson and how essential it is for keeping the artistry of automotive restoration alive for future generations. “It’s tremendously critical, and not just for the training of the students,” he says. “To bring them into a company such as mine or Wayne’s, where they have that kind of background and ultimately can lead a department or lead a company, these are the future leaders of the industry.”

For more information on the automotive restoration program at McPherson College, visit mcpherson.edu/autorestoration.

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If you find an appropriate parts car (and have the space for it), the lure can be irresistible. From small stuff like clips and fasteners to bigger items like interior bits and drivetrain components, it’s a beautiful thing to simply walk out back and pull a needed widget out of your personal one-car scrap yard. Plus, if the parts car is largely intact, even when you’re not pulling stuff off it, it can be valuable as a reference for tasks such as correcting wiring that may have been modified on your running car. The key is having the space. Many of us don’t. In the late 1980s, I parted out several BMW 2002s and E9 coupes, and to some extent, I’m still living off the parts stash. But I now live on 6600 square feet of land in suburban Boston. I haven’t had a parts car for 30 years. My driveway is packed to bursting with cars that I actually drive. It already looks like I’m running a repair shop. I think my neighbors might have something to say if that transitioned to looking like I’m running a junkyard.

In fact, this is why junkyards exist. They are really just other people’s parts cars on other people’s land, run as a business. The problem is that they aren’t quite the gold mines they used to be. Back in the day, a nearby junkyard might have had a 1971 Simca Bertone 1200 coupe exactly like yours, but the odds of them having one now are essentially zero. Junkyards are subjected to the same space pressures and land costs that you are, at a larger scale and with much tighter regulation. Anything that doesn’t have demand gets crushed. So, if you want a specialty parts car, it has to take up your space, not theirs. Granted, there are marque- and model-specific specialty junkyards, and if there’s one near you, make friends with the owner. But their prices are often high, and shipping large parts is expensive.

The larger parts-car life cycle

A car may be relegated to parts-car status for a variety of reasons. On a vintage car, it’s usually rust through a frame rail or suspension attachment point that has progressed to where the car is unsafe to drive, and the cost of repair exceeds the car’s value. On a more modern and less rust-prone car, it could be an accident, a seized or overheated engine, or the cost of multiple needed repairs.

However, strange things sometimes happen that cause vehicles to be parted out before their time. In the vintage BMW 2002 world in which I operate, the five-speed gearbox, limited-slip differential, factory Recaro seats, and sport steering wheel from the late-1970s BMW 320is became highly sought-after retrofit components, and the cost of whole, intact, running 320is was so low that they were sometimes purchased and cannibalized before they were really in “parts-car” condition.

At the other end of the spectrum, a vintage car can appreciate so much that it becomes too valuable to part out in any condition. Long-hood (pre-1974) Porsche 911s certainly now fall into that category. And I’d be shocked if there’s a Split-Window ’63 C2 Corvette parts car anywhere in the country.

Sometimes, which car is the donor and which is the recipient unexpectedly flips around. I have friends who have bought parts cars sight unseen and, once they laid eyes and hands on them, found that they were more solid than the car they already owned. Sometimes it becomes more a matter of borrowing parts and trying not to do anything irreversible to the “parts car,” knowing that its rising value will eventually make it viable if it stays intact.

The perfectly sized parts box

One of the things you learn with a parts car is that it is the perfectly sized container on wheels for its parts. What’s more, each part you need is exactly where it’s supposed to be; you don’t have to go rooting about to find the steering column universal joint that you know is there somewhere. It’ll be right where the factory put it. If the car is rusty and you think that dismantling it and having the body hauled off for scrap will make the volume of parts smaller, you’re in for a rude awakening. Take a car apart and try to store the parts in your basement or shed. Kablam—the volume absolutely explodes. The doors, trunklid, windshield, seats, drivetrain, and subframes aren’t simply going to hover in their former locations in space. They have to go somewhere, which generally means on the floor. Which generally means that nothing can go on top of them. All the little stuff has to go in boxes. The boxes can be shelved, and you might think that this organization is saving space, but it never works out that way. I guarantee you that it’s never going to be anywhere near as space-efficient as leaving the car intact.

Know what you want out of a parts car

You may own a model that’s so rare that any reasonably priced parts car is worth pouncing on, even sight unseen. But for more common makes and models, you can sometimes be choosy. Are you looking for something in particular? A good replacement engine? A manual transmission swap? An uncracked dashboard? Aftermarket sport seats? Or is it just assorted parts? Be aware that condition tends to be systemic—that is, it’s highly unusual to find a car that was subjected to so much weather that it’s now an unrestorable rusty hulk but with a near-mint interior.

An identical parts car is almost a unicorn

Unfortunately, history does not record the first parts car, but I’d wager it was a Model T Ford, given the car’s 19-year production span and low cost. However, long production spans create a problem: The components in the parts car may not be the same as in yours. You’re probably already aware of your car’s external facelifts, different options, and various trim levels. You may own an early car and want to find a car whose VIN is no more than two digits away from yours, but it may not be possible; you may find yourself buying a more affordable later model, figuring that even if the interior isn’t identical, at least most of the mechanical components are. Although it’s not a sin against nature to, for example, transplant a crack-free dash or a set of unripped seats from a later car into an earlier one, just be aware that that’s what you’re doing.

The modern engine swap application

One motivation for wanting a parts car is the modern engine swap. For example, in my BMW world, it’s common to swap the 208-hp engine with fuel injection, digital engine management, and five-speed gearbox from an early 1990s 5-series BMW into an E9 (the lovely 2800CS and 3.0CS coupes from the early ’70s), replacing the older carbureted engine and four-speed. Although you can source the parts individually, the trick thing to do is find a running donor car. That way, you can hear the engine run, evaluate its condition, make sure it doesn’t burn oil, do a compression test, and be certain that you have not only the engine and gearbox, but also the electronic control unit, an uncut wiring harness, every sensor, and all the ancillary engine accessories (power steering pump, A/C compressor, etc.) needed for the conversion. In this case, once you’re done, you would have little use for the rest of the car.

Zombie parts cars that may rise from the dead

You may see a car advertised as “for parts only.” People do that for a number of reasons. On a vintage car, it may be an honest statement of the car’s rotted condition. If you see a newer car that doesn’t seem all that bad and you start to think about buying it to bring it back from the brink, you need to be careful. In a state with strong consumer protections, so-called “lemon laws” may allow the buyer to return the car to the seller if there are undis-closed issues or if the car doesn’t pass inspection. Thus, the “for parts only” warning, combined with withholding the title, is sometimes employed by sellers as a means to ensure the car doesn’t come back to them. If you’re think-ing about reviving a parts car, be certain to see if it has a salvage title. A “repairable brand” salvage title is one thing, but if the salvage title says “parts only,” it may not be possible to re-register that VIN in your state.

Making money on the parts

It might be tempting to buy a parts car to get the one or two things you know you need, then try to make the money back by parting the car out. This is rarely a winning proposition. I haven’t parted out a car recently, but I’ve purchased several parts hoards and regretted it every time. You probably know from experience the parts for your model that have a high value. Typically, certain exterior parts like grilles, chrome bumpers, and taillights, and interior parts like dashboards and seats, have a high value if and only if they’re in excellent condition. Few people want them if they’re cracked, rusted, or pitted. On a big part like a bumper, it’s time-consuming to respond to an interested party, box and weigh the part, and quote shipping, only to have them bail out when they see the cost. If you don’t want to keep the parts car around, the smart thing to do is to identify and move the handful of small, light, high-dollar parts, then sell the entire thing for whatever you can get for it. You might leave a few dollars on the table, but you’ll save yourself a lot of grief and prevent your basement from being filled with parts that sit there for years.

Self-identifying as the Grim Reaper

The two BMW E9 coupes I parted out 35 years ago were cars that are now worth over a hundred grand in restored condition. However, one had been T-boned and the other was long dead, rusty, and picked over. I didn’t hasten their demise, and to this day, I pull window motors, switches, and assorted fasteners out of the stash. There was one car, though, where I do regret my actions. It was a 1971 BMW 2002ti. This was the dual-sidedraft-carburetor predecessor to the fuel-injected 2002tii, never commercially imported into this country. It had rust, but it wasn’t rusty. There is zero question that, nowadays, this car would be at least put back into service, if not restored. But I cannibalized it, and I do feel bad about it. However, the cylinder head, Weber 40DCOE sidedrafts, intake manifolds, front struts, and the entire upgraded braking system all went into another 2002 that I still own. Perhaps that somewhat ameliorates the nature of my sin.

In closing

The economics are simple. If you need assorted parts for your vintage car, and you find a nearby inexpensive parts car that has them, and you have the means to drag it back to your property and the space for it, you probably won’t regret buying it. It’ll likely pay for itself several times over. Even if you don’t need a high-dollar item like a cylinder head, other items like assorted brackets, little mesh screens that are no longer available, original hose clamps, and fine-threaded M12 bolts that are exactly the right length are worth their weight in ZDDP additive. But if you do reach the point of having it hauled off for scrap, bow your head and smile when you recognize the parts from it that sojourn on in your baby. That car gave its life so that others of its kind may live. Show a little respect.

***

Rob Siegel has been writing the column The Hack Mechanic for 35 years. His eight books are available on Amazon or directly from Rob at robsiegel.com.

The post In praise of the parts car appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Thirty years ago, in an ivy-covered building in Sussex, England, a world-class team of automotive restorers began a familiar process. Skilled hands lifted the metal skin of a prewar German juggernaut. Pulled the twelve-cylinder heart into its constituent parts. Cleaned them of years of grime and neglect. The men were veterans, unfazed by the scale of the project. But a mark beneath the patina on one massive carburetor stopped them in their tracks.

A Star of David, crudely scratched into the metal of a car campaigned by the Nazi-backed Auto Union team.

The restoration firm was Crosthwaite & Gardiner. The machine in their shop was a V-12 Auto Union racing machine assumed lost after the Soviets invaded East Germany. One of the mighty Silver Arrows, it had been smuggled to the United States from behind the Iron Curtain by a mix of persistence, bribery, and luck. Two cars—or rather one-and-a-half, when the parts were added up—were so rescued, and the story of their recovery puts a spy novel to shame.

You can imagine the first shot: Fall of 1939, and a young Paul Karassik is reading a newspaper in his home city of Belgrade, Yugoslavia. The headlines note that heroic Italian racer Tazio Nuvolari has just won the Belgrade Grand Prix in his Auto Union Type D. The circumstances could hardly be more dramatic: During the supporting races, the United Kingdom and France formally declared war on Germany.

The French and Hungarian teams withdrew from the grand prix. Mercedes-Benz driver Manfred von Brauchitisch left for the airport, wishing to fly back to Germany to enlist (though Mercedes team manager Alfred Neubauer eventually persuaded him otherwise). Apart from one local privateer in a Bugatti, only Silver Arrows remained. However, there was a clear rivalry between the Auto Union and the Mercedes-Benz teams. The race went on, though half the field didn’t finish. Von Brauchitisch led but spun, allowing Nuvolari to clinch the win. An Auto Union racer had bested Mercedes, but the world was about to go to war.

Upheaval was not new for the Karassik family. Paul’s father had been an Imperial Russian officer, who had fled to Yugoslavia after the Russian Revolution. Postwar, Paul Karassik emigrated to the U.S., where he met and married his wife Barbara, an immigrant from Germany.

Paralleling the experience of many Europeans after WWII, the fate of the Silver Arrows came down to geographical location. The Mercedes cars survived in what would become West Germany, and Neubauer would again be team manager when Juan Manuel Fangio became world champion in 1954 and 1955. The Auto Union cars lay in Zwickau, to the east. When the Soviet army came, they were taken as trophies, a dozen or so packed into a freight train and sent deep into Russia for study.

As the world moved into a new age of mechanized warfare, Soviets had good reason to dissect the cars. During the 1930s, the dominance of the German racing teams illustrated a level of technical expertise that characterized a future, successful industrialized nation. The project had begun in 1933, when the governing body of European grand prix racing set a dry weight limit for racing cars of 1650 pounds. The idea was to emphasize lightness over power, reining in speeds and making races a little safer.

When it came to pace, the sanctioning body failed spectacularly. Under Hitler, the German government provided a yearly stipend to go racing—first to Mercedes-Benz and later to Auto Union. The latter began to collect wins in short order thanks to a teardrop-shaped, V-16-powered car designed by Dr. Ferdinand Porsche. By the end of decade, these cars’ supercharged engines were producing over 500 hp. They could spin the rear tires at more than 100 mph.

Decades on, after WWII ground to a halt, Russia had little desire to preserve these vehicles as historic artifacts; they were simply high-tech spoils of war. They hoped to glean technical knowledge from the cars’ design, but the vehicles proved fussy and dangerous in amateur hands. Plus, the Soviets lacked properly refined fuel and the technical expertise to get the cars running smoothly. One Type-D was tested on the road at high speed, but the driver lost control under braking and crashed, killing several spectators. For most of the other cars, dismantling meant destruction, including engine blocks and chassis sawn in half.

In the West, the whereabouts of the Auto Union cars were mostly conjecture. The curtain had fallen, and as far as anyone knew, the cars had simply vanished, consigned to some scrap heap or melted down.

However, on a trip to Poland in the early 1970s, the Karassiks stumbled upon a member of a car enthusiast club. It seems odd to think that any enthusiasm for cars or racing could exist behind the Iron Curtain, but there were many such organizations. One of them, based in Riga, Latvia, had somehow rescued one of the V-16 Auto Union hillclimb cars from Moscow and preserved it in a local museum.

Rumor held that other Auto Unions were out there. For the Karassicks, the game was on. Because of his fluency in Russian, Paul was able to make connections. Because of a successful career in real estate, he had the resources, too.

Negotiations were largely indirect—much sitting around and quaffing of vodka. A customs agent might casually mention that the tires on his car were getting a bit worn. A new set appeared on his doorstep, and suddenly all the right forms were stamped.

The hunt took decades. On a tip heard in Vilnius, Lithuania, the Karassiks tracked their first car to a small city near Leningrad. The car was little more than an engine, gearbox, and a hacked-up chassis, but it was the discovery they’d been hoping for. They had the pieces trucked out of Russia to Helsinki, Finland, then put on a ship bound for the U.S.

Since the Auto Union cars had been studied by engineers looking to improve the Soviet car industry, the Karassicks next went to Karkhov, Ukraine, one of the country’s largest engineering centers. During the 1950s, it had produced a series of streamlined-speed record cars. Paul had heard about an old technician who remembered those days and still lived in the area. He might know where some interesting parts could be found.

Parts, not an entire car. This time, however, the Karassicks found plenty to work with: Each part was paid for separately, complete with stamped receipt. Hundreds of bits of metal and paper were loaded into a diesel Mercedes van and again driven out of the country to Helsinki, and then to the United States. In a fitting turn of events, the Karassiks ended up storing all their finds in a warehouse in St. Petersberg Beach, Florida.

Finding a restoration shop worthy of bringing the Auto Unions back to life was relatively simple, given the short list of firms capable of doing so. Crosthwaite & Gardiner had the most experience, having restored three Auto Unions. In 1990, work began.

The first car was built to 1938 single-stage supercharged specification, with work completed in 1993. C&W then restored the second car to a later, 1939 two-stage supercharged specification. Both cars appeared in public in 1994, at the Eifel Classic, held at the Nürburgring.

Since then, Audi has acquired both of the Karassik Auto Unions. It continues to preserve and maintain both, along with a third Type-C Auto Union discovered in a museum in Munich after WWII.

No one knows who scratched that Star of David into the carburetor. The mark could been made before the war or after its Soviet capture, since, when the engine is assembled, the star is hidden. In either case, it is a sobering reminder that cars and motorsports don’t exist in a vacuum. They are intimately connected with human stories, without which vehicles never become more than rubber and steel. Those stories are why we save cars.

The post How two Auto Union Silver Arrows were smuggled from behind the Iron Curtain appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Mauricio writes:

Hello Mr. Sajeev,

I just bought a 1960 Porsche 356, and I want to learn how to restore it properly. Where can I learn about the proper restoration process? I have restored a MGA 1950 and a Land Rover Series II. I did it with good quality providers and original parts. The process was mostly based on common sense rather than knowledge. This time I want to do it with more ideas of what I am doing. Thanks for your help.

Sajeev answers:

Well hello, Mauricio!  Probably the best way to learn how to restore cars is to become an apprentice at a restoration shop, or go back to college and get a degree in this particular trade.

But I’ll go ahead and make a rash judgement by assuming you neither have the time nor the inclination to be that literal in your quest for automotive restoration knowledge. Since you’ve successfully restored two vintage machines with help from others, you already know one of the most important aspects of the trade: One person rarely possesses the skills, tools, and time to fully restore every aspect of a car. Especially a car as (potentially) valuable as a Porsche 356.

My advice to you is to keep it simple. Stick with one skill you’d really like to improve when restoring a car this time around.

You can focus on learning how to do paint and body work, including how to cut out rust and install repair panels. Getting that bathtub body perfectly rotund for paint will take you hundreds of hours, especially if its current paint job hides sinful repairs of the past. Or maybe learn how to do interior upholstery, which wouldn’t be too hard on a 356 if you forked over the cash for a professional-grade sewing machine. Or maybe electronics restoration. Or maybe you just want to disassemble stuff on the suspension, media blast them clean, paint them, and install a kit like this to finish off your sabbatical?

If you have all the time and resources in the world at your fingertips, learn them all concurrently. Treat this endeavor like a project manager does a 7+ figure corporate undertaking. Document everything you need on a google spreadsheet, and learn specific trades as the 356’s disassembly merits them.

• Rust repair? That will happen after you remove all the Bondo.
• New wiring harness? Didn’t know that was needed until I removed the (insert 356 unique part here).
• How do I source all these missing/destroyed rubber parts? Take a vacation somewhere with WiFi and source them all at your leisure!

I can see this playing out for you, and it seems pretty awesome in my (delusional?) mind. Go ahead and make it happen Mauricio. I would love to see you make it happen!

Have a question you’d like answered on Piston Slap? Send your queries to pistonslap@hagerty.com, give us as much detail as possible so we can help! If you need an expedited resolution, make a post on the Hagerty Community!

The post Piston Slap: The sabbatical for automotive restoration? appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Dr. Wilbert Smith epitomizes classic car culture. Born in 1950, he grew up working on cars. In 1975, he bought his first Model A for $2500, a purchase that inspired a 47-year obsession and multimodel collection. Smith loved the history, and he loved the stories and unique connections he made with fellow members of the Santa Anita A’s—a Pasadena-area charter member of the Model A Ford Club of America.

“The average age in our local club is 75,” Smith says. “Together, we’re 125 families who collectively own over 200 Model As. But we realized our demographic isn’t getting any younger, which means a lot of these great cars will soon be coming up for sale without buyers.”

This old story took a refreshing new turn in 2016, when Smith and other club members hopped into 25 of their freshly polished As and went to the local high school.

“We decided that the best approach to find young people and generate interest in the Ford Model A hobby was to put the kids in the seats of our cars and let them put their little fingerprints all over the vehicles,” says Smith. “The effort was an extreme success. We had about 100 kids say they were interested in learning more about the Model A.” And so, the first car club of its kind in America was born—the Pasadena High School Model A Ford Club. School administrators supported the idea but lacked the money to fund a new campus club. Also, schools in the district didn’t teach auto shop anymore (a sad trend seen around the nation); the shop space at Pasadena High School hadn’t been used since 1982, well before any of the students—and possibly even their parents—were born.

“To be totally self-sufficient, our funding strategy for the club is a very simple one,” says Smith. “We find a Model A in moderate condition and determine if it’s something that we can restore without putting an extreme amount of resources into it. We then work with the kids in the campus’s retired auto shop after school to fully restore that vehicle and then raffle it off.”

From upholstery to engine work, Smith taps his own self-taught mechanical skills, along with a rotating team of fellow Model A restoration expert/ volunteers, who enthusiastically pass their knowledge on to teens working hands-on through rust, sweat, and happy tears. The club’s 25 members—all 9th through 12th graders—have delivered a fully restored Model A for raffle every year, on average. Tickets sell for $100 each. All money raised goes to provide seed funding for the next year’s project.

“The club’s restoration efforts are very serious,” Smith says with pride. “Last year’s 1928 Model A Phaeton was a perfect example. It came all the way from the East Coast. Our kids not only put the body and fender work together, they restored it to the point that it looked like it just rolled off the showroom floor.”

Only six years since the club’s founding, Smith says the experience and mentorship have already inspired a number of high schoolers to get into auto body repair. Restoration seminars and field trips developed through a partnership with Pasadena City College have helped funnel interested students into the college’s auto tech curriculum, as well. No one has yet offered to buy one of the Model As owned by an aging member of the Santa Anita’s A’s.

“Maybe someday,” Smith says with a laugh. The original, and some might say “self-serving,” desire that drove him and his fellow club members to start reaching out to the next generation has been replaced by all the other great things that come with teaching the art of restoring an old vehicle.

“Kids in the club not only learn to be part of a team and an organization, but they also realize that they could not restore a vehicle on their own. They work on the transmission, the undercarriage, the braking system—they learn that it takes various individuals working together and learning skills to make it all happen. They’re fortunate to be doing things that other kids in the Pasadena school district will never see or come close to. And we’re very proud of that.”

For more information, to send donations, or to purchase tickets for an upcoming Pasadena High School Model A Ford Club raffle, contact Dr. Wilbert Smith at 626-390-7322 or phsmafc@gmail.com.

The post One California club is teaching auto tech with a Model A+ approach appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Los Angeles County is a 15-hour drive from Yellowstone National Park, so it may seem like an odd place to get up close and personal with a classic Yellowstone tour bus. Nevertheless, Winslow Bent is stoked to be here, and so are we.

Bent, 48, is an enthusiastic, quick-witted Chicago-area native with a name better suited to a blues musician. Make no mistake, however, Bent prefers the mechanical note of a vintage engine. He’s a classic truck dude, and his instrument of choice on this sunny California morning is a 1936 White 706 that’s as rare as a 1950s Gibson Flying V. Like that vintage guitar, this thing can really sing.

“Low compression, totally quiet,” Bent says of the vehicle’s 96-horsepower, 318-cubic-inch flathead-six 16A engine, whose mellow personality is the polar opposite of its owner’s. “It doesn’t have much power, and it’s not in a hurry. You could sneak up on grizzly bear in this thing.”

Which, of course, is the point, considering where it worked for most of its life. “It does exactly what it’s designed to do, and it does it quietly,” Bent says. “Can you imagine running a Detroit diesel in a national park?”

Almost as absurd as a chef losing his job and launching a new career in truck restoration—without even meaning to.

Bent, owner of Legacy Classic Trucks in in Driggs, Idaho, grew up in the Windy City suburb of Lake Forest, Illinois. “As an impressionable young man, I enjoyed watching the sparks fly inside my father’s stainless-steel fabrication plant,” he says. “And I handed my dad tools while he restored a World War II vehicle.” Both experiences helped Bent become a classic car enthusiast who started a car club in high school and even did a little street racing—“But I got out of that in a hurry,” he says, with no further elaboration.

“I was a very serious enthusiast with no money,” Bent continues. And following the advice of his father, he entertained no plans of making any of it in the automotive field. Instead, he moved to Colorado to attend culinary school … where he quickly developed a taste for four-wheel drive vehicles. Years later, in 2008, after losing his job as a chef, Bent decided to throw caution to the wind and build a Dodge Power Wagon “the right way.” He took the finished truck to auction and sold it immediately. That led to showing another Power Wagon at SEMA in 2010, and, before Bent knew it, he had as much restoration and custom work as he could handle.

Considering the trucks that he has built in the years since, it’s easy to see why Bent continuously refers to the 26-foot-long Yellowstone bus as a car. “You want to see a truck—I’ll show you a truck,” he says with a smile. “Let’s just say this is one of the smaller ones I’ve worked on.”

Bent welcomed this trip to California, as it gave him the opportunity to get reacquainted with the White Motor Company 706. With a deep appreciation of history, he purchased the bus from a client, and about a year ago he finished restoring the body and refreshing the engine. The bus, wearing Yellowstone Park Company #386, was soon purchased by the Montage Hotel in Big Sky, Montana, which uses it to transport guests on a fascinating ride down Memory Lane. Montage, with the help of IBP Media, Inc., was kind enough to loan the bus for this trip to Los Angeles, which also included a day of filming with celebrity car collector Jay Leno.

Bent clearly has a close relationship with #386. “It was an honor to help bring it back to life,” he says. “It means so much to people, and there’s so much history in it. I’m really fired up to drive it again.”

For the uninitiated, driving this thing is no easy task. With a four-speed unsynchronized manual transmission—also called a crash gearbox—double clutching is required … and the technique is close to an art. To double-clutch shift, you put the transmission into neutral and rev the engine just the right amount before shifting into the next gear. Even the most experienced drivers don’t get it right every time, and the inevitable grinding of gears results in a dreaded squawk from beneath the floorboards.

Bent demonstrates. After depressing the clutch pedal, he explains, “You wait a few seconds, listen—that sounds about right—and then you jam it.” He celebrates the good shifts and laments the bad ones, sometimes verbally, sometimes with a simple groan when he misses the mark. “Now you know why they called the Yellowstone bus drivers gear jammers.”

Commenting on the vehicle’s leisurely pace—it’s most comfortable at about 38 mph—Bent jokes, “We’re shooting mostly still photos, right? God bless you guys. We’ll be fine.”

The Yellowstone bus is once again proving to be the perfect tool for the wilderness paradise that made it famous.

Yellowstone National Park, currently celebrating its 150th season, was established in March 1872. Spread over 3472 square miles (larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined), it lies mostly in Wyoming but also nudges into neighboring Montana and Idaho. Early travel within the park was by horseback, but eventually guests would arrive by train and be transported to the various inns on the property by horse-drawn stagecoaches. According to geyserbob.com, a Yellowstone Park history site, the Yellowstone National Park Transportation Company was one of several stagecoach companies serving the park—and one that would ultimately have the most historical significance. It began in 1891, and seven years later it was taken over by Harry Child and two partners. Child eventually became the sole owner.

Separate stagecoach companies served different areas of the park, but when the National Park Service was created in August 1916, the NPS moved to consolidate concessions, and Child was selected as sole proprietor of both transportation business and onsite hotels. It was a turning point for guest transportation, as Child immediately began transitioning the fleet to motor cars, negotiating with Cleveland’s White Motor Company to replace the stagecoaches for 1917.

After agreeing to a new 20-year contract with the NPS, Child purchased 100 10-passenger White TEB open-sided buses and 17 White seven-passenger touring cars, which allowed guests to explore Yellowstone’s many canyons, geysers, rivers, hot springs, and forests, as well as reach their hotel accommodations. From 1918 to ’24, Child added 104 more 10-passenger White buses, as well as 47 seven-passenger touring cars. He began purchasing White Model 15/45 tour buses in 1920.

Sadly, in March 1925, disaster struck. Fire broke out in the Mammoth Hot Springs main bus barn. Nearly 100 vehicles were lost, and damages were estimated at almost $500,000—nearly $8.3 million today. Fortunately, another 200+ vehicles in another barn were spared. Child restocked the fleet, once again partnering with the White Motor Company. The convoy soon included a number of updated, 14-passenger White Model 614 models.

Child’s long-standing relationship with White would prove beneficial, even after his death in 1931. Five years after Child’s son-in-law William Morse Nichols took over the business, and at the end of the Yellowstone National Park Transportation Company’s 20-year deal with the NPS, a soon-to-be-iconic motor coach would become the transportation face of Yellowstone … and, as it turned out, of other Western national parks as well. A group of NPS concessionaires representing Yellowstone, Glacier, Zion, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Mt. Rainier, and Rocky Mountain negotiated with Ford, General Motors, REO, and White before agreeing to purchase White 706 open-top buses for their parks.

Crafted by innovative designer Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky, the 706s compensated for their lack of power with aerodynamic good looks. With a chassis by White and bodies by Bender Coach Builders, the buses were—and still are—visual masterpieces, exactly what you’d expect from a man who won five consecutive Monaco Grand Prix Medallions for auto design.

“This stood out mostly because of the front clip,” Bent says of Sakhnoffsky’s design. “It has that cool wedge shape. The radiator was low compression, so you could get away with the smaller radiator and grille. And the open-air top makes perfect sense—you’re in Yellowstone Park, so you’re going to be looking up a lot.”

Other notable features on Sakhnoffsky’s stylish creation are two squared-glass windshields, lantern-style rear running lights, bench seats with multiple ashtrays (you wouldn’t want anyone tossing a cigarette out the window), and a rear “blanket box” for—you guessed it—blankets, just in case the passengers got cold. The Yellowstone buses also had dual license plate holders in back because they were registered in both Montana and Wyoming. Unlike the similarly famous—and red—Glacier Park versions, Yellowstone buses have barn doors in the rear and a compartment for passenger luggage, since traveling throughout Yellowstone’s expanse took days to complete. Other 706s, like those at Glacier, have an extra row of seating and an additional side door.

Bent says the vehicle’s canvas top was supposed to be rolled back and packed into a convenient metal tray at the rear, but tourists began using it for something a little more enjoyable. “They discovered that if you rolled the top all the way back past the tray, you could fill the tray with ice, beer, and other beverages.”

Although Sakhnoffsky’s design looks more modern than its 1936 date suggests, the 706’s frame is built of wood, which Bent finds impressive. “Eighty-eight years later, that wood is still original. That’s testament to how rugged these things are. The average bus has 600,000 miles on it—on roads that weren’t paved and with 14 passengers dripping ice cream everywhere. These buses weren’t supposed to last this long, but they’re tough as hell.”

One of the problems Bent faced while restoring the body was galvanic corrosion, an electrochemical process that causes corrosion wherever aluminum and steel meet. “The side trim is steel, and the doors are aluminum, so the combination means it essentially eats itself, and that’s a problem.” The corrosion resulted in the need to take extra steps to protect the paint; Bent admits it was the toughest paint job he has ever done.

On the other hand, Bent didn’t touch the interior. “You can do too much with a restoration, and I drew the line there. It just looks so good the way it is.”

The bus is one of 98 White 706s built for the Yellowstone National Park Transportation Company and one of 27 ordered for 1936. Another 41 were purchased in 1937, 20 the following year, and 10 in 1939. When America entered World War II in 1941, pleasure travel in the U.S. declined; four years later, when the hostilities ended, Americans were excited to buy and drive their own cars on family adventures. Each park was ultimately faced with deciding the fate of its White 706 bus fleet, and they didn’t walk in step. For example, while Yellowstone sold its entire fleet of 706s in the 1950s, Glacier Park held onto its fleet and till operates 33 of its original 35 “Red Jammer” buses.

These days, with nostalgia being a huge draw, Yellowstone buses have made a resurgence. In 2007, the park’s concessionaire bought back eight of the 706s, which have been updated by placing the original bodies atop 1999 Ford E-450 (van) chassis. Although Bent understands why it was done, he staunchly refuses to make those kinds of modifications himself.

“We’re not taking these cool old trucks and modernizing them,” he says. “Of the 80 or so left, 50 to 55 are no longer original, so that makes it even more important that the remaining buses stay the way they are.”

This one, of course, is a member of the latter group, which means that when Bent offers me the opportunity to take it for a spin there’s no way around the double-clutch obstacle. Prior to this moment, I’ve never driven a vehicle that required the technique, or even attempted to operate a non-synchronized manual transmission, which means I’m about to tackle double-clutching on a very rare, very historic, and very valuable Yellowstone bus. Bent encourages me anyway, reminding me that I likely won’t get this opportunity again. He’s right, of course, but I ask for a compromise. We’re parked in a large office complex with several parking lots that aren’t as intimidating as the Los Angeles streets that Bent has just negotiated, so I feel a little more comfortable doing a lap here. Sounds like a plan, he says.

“It’s the most fun you can have at 38 mph,” Bent promises, knowing full well that I’ll never go anywhere near that speed. “I kind of like that you can safely jump if something goes wrong.”

Not helping, Winslow. Not helping.

The first challenge is to simply get behind the wheel, which isn’t as easy as stepping up and sliding onto the bench seat. A huge parking brake is positioned on the floor beneath the large steering wheel, essentially between the driver’s legs, and you have to be a bit of a contortionist to get your right leg past it. Once settled, there’s an ignition button on the floor that you activate with the heel of your right foot. With the engine running and the parking brake off, it’s time to engage the transmission and move this bad boy forward … carefully. I’m immediately aware of something else that calls for additional focus: the bus requires wider turns than my Volkswagen SUV back home in Michigan, and operating the steering wheel demands some muscle. In my mind I look like a seaman trying to quickly close a watertight door before the ocean rushes in—turn, turn, turn, turn—then I repeat that in the other direction to quickly straighten the wheels.

Bent urges me to go faster and try my hand (foot?) at double-clutching. Expecting the worst, I follow his instructions and—what the?—I do it correctly. Not even the slightest bite from the stick. “There ya go!” he says. Of course, overconfidence when driving a White 706 is neither advised nor merited, and the bus reminds me why.

When we finally come to a stop, reality quickly rears its head. I can’t reverse the dang thing, nor do I want to—certainly not without breaking into a sweat—so that it can be safely placed onto the trailer bed of the Mack truck that delivered it to L.A.

Bent is quick to rescue me … just as he has rescued this beautiful yellow bus.

“I grew up with toy models of these Yellowstone buses as a kid, so to say this has been a special build would be an understatement,” he says. “This thing is such a blast. I love it.”

He’s not alone, either. It dawns on me that I have fallen for it too, even though I’ve never been to Yellowstone Park, and until today I’d never seen a White 706 in person. This vehicle, which survives decades past its original mission, thanks in part to Bent’s dedication, is easy to love. The charm of this faithful beast is a happy surprise, too, since the vehicle was built to go completely unnoticed by passengers craning over its sides, hoping to spot a grizzly or while gazing at Old Faithful. In that humble mission, the old bus succeeded decades ago, a faithful chauffeur whose rumbling engine note will never be forgotten.

The post On Yellowstone’s 150th anniversary, we drive a 1936 bus that toured the park’s 2.2M acres appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Do you find yourself lost when trying to learn concours-caliber details about cars? Are you filled with self-doubt when checking out a car for purchase, especially from afar? You’re not alone, fellow enthusiast! But rather than focus on the nitty gritty that’s out of your league, why don’t we hone on the things that are easy to discern and go from there?

Below are several examples of common restoration mistakes that crop up with popular cars, particular in the muscle car world. Some may be considered negligible, but even the smallest thing that doesn’t add up with a car could be a sign that some deeper scrutiny is in order.

1967–68 Pontiac Firebird and its many stripes

The 1967 Firebird was introduced several months after the Camaro. Unique to the Firebird was five models marketed for different kinds of drivers:

• Firebird
• Firebird Sprint
• Firebird 326
• Firebird H.O.
• Firebird 400

Within these five there was the Magnificent Three, a trio of Firebirds to garner the most desire from enthusiasts: Firebird Sprint, Firebird H.O., and Firebird 400. The sleeper of the bunch was the Firebird H.O. (“High Output”), which consisted of the 4-barrel 326 H.O. for 285 horsepower; for 1968, the H.O.’s engine was bumped to 350 cubic inches and horsepower rose to 320 horses. For both years, the H.O. came standard with a longitudinal stripe with “H.O.” script on the front fender. A similar stripe was optional for other Firebird models but it was continuous without any script.

In recent years, you may have happened across a 1968 Firebird 400 with the H.O. stripe—even in books—but that would be incorrect for the period. The reason for this blunder may have something to do with a new engine upgrade introduced for the 1968 Firebird called the 400 H.O. As the first step-up option for the Firebird 400, this 335-horse engine was essentially equal to the 360-horse 400 H.O. available for the GTO.

However, the Firebird H.O. was its own distinctive model, so the application of the H.O. stripe on a Firebird 400 would be a no-no for purists.

Pontiac decals that never appeared on Pontiacs

Mecum’s recent auction in the Phoenix, Arizona, suburb of Glendale featured a first-generation Firebird with an air cleaner decal that’s commonly seen on Pontiacs at cruises and shows. You may have seen it on Pontiacs with engines ranging from 350, 400, 428, and 455 cu. in.

Perhaps it will surprise you to learn, then, that Pontiac never ever used a decal like this back in the day.

It gets even stranger. If the decal looks somewhat familiar yet you can’t put your finger on why, there’s a reason for that: it was adapted from a Buick design that first appeared in 1969 and lasted through the mid-1970s.

Despite this fact, many restoration catalogs feature this decal for a myriad of Pontiacs, though such example concedes that, “These air cleaner decals for Pontiacs are aftermarket-style only.” Other catalogues are not so forthcoming.

1968 Oldsmobile 4-4-2 stripe

Nineteen sixty-eight was a big year for the 4-4-2 for a number of reasons: a complete redesign brought all-new styling while becoming an actual model instead of a performance package. Additionally, a new long-stroke 400 replaced the short-stroke 400 that had been used since 1965, plus 1967’s Turnpike Cruiser option jumped from the Cutlass Supreme to the 4-4-2 series.

Visually, there was a nifty “W36” Rallye Stripe that was standard on cars equipped with the W30 package and optional for other 4-4-2s. This interesting stripe, which was available in white, black, red, and orange, ran vertically on the front fenders. In recent years, when people apply or paint the stripe, they often do it incorrectly. Witness this example:

Notice how it hits the wheel arch at the bottom? The factory never did it that way. In fact, for cars equipped with the stripe, Oldsmobile moved the 4-4-2 badges slightly towards the door so the stripe could extend uninterrupted to the bottom of the fender. A properly applied stripe will never hit the wheel well, though even that is no guarantee the stripe has been applied to factory specs. Just do an online search and notice the variations.

1969 Plymouth and Dodge 383 engine colors

It seems every other Mopar guy or gal will tell you that the 383 as installed in a 1969 Road Runner was painted orange. Ditto the Super Bee. However, that’s not quite true.

Let’s begin with some history. Both the Road Runner and Super Bee came standard with a 383 rated at 335 horsepower. It was painted orange. Non-performance models like the Belvedere, Satellite, Sport Satellite, and the Coronet Deluxe, 440, and 500 could be equipped with a 383 4-barrel rated at 330 horsepower, and this engine was painted turquoise. The main difference between the two engines was the camshaft.

However, if you ordered a Road Runner or Super Bee with air conditioning, Chrysler downgraded the engine to the milder version, meaning AC-equipped Road Runners and Super Bees featured a turquoise 383. This fact was hardly publicized (though the Dodge dealer album mentions it), but today we have supporting documentation from build sheets and the enthusiasts who understand the archeology. Even more interesting—Chrysler handled this dynamic differently in 1968 and 1970 … though perhaps a story for another time …

What other common, model-specific restoration gaffes can you think of that may serve as red flags? Post them in the comments below.

The post Know these 4 common muscle car restoration gaffes to save yourself a costly mistake appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Since the beginning of car collecting, one foundational ideal has remained—that of the 100-point, concours-perfect, unmodified, unsoiled, flawless car. You know, the one that looks as if it just emerged from a hermetically sealed chamber and can only be handled with a fresh pair of white gloves.

Price guides have long sung the virtues of perfection, and even casual observers can be quick to criticize or dismiss any car presented with a recognizable modification or imperfection.

These decades of programming have put us all in a real predicament when we wake up owning a collectible car: What if we realize that a trailer queen is no fun and we actually want to use it? Heck, what if we realize old cars can be made better with modern technology so we can enjoy driving them more? Bite your tongue, heathen!

Thankfully, the tide is turning. People are using their cars, and when they are done using them, the subsequent buyers are often seeing the value in a car that has been getting exercise rather than stumbling around on crappy bias-ply tires, smelling of rotten fuel and harboring a fear of the open road.

But how modified is too modified, and is making an old car perform better financial suicide? Will you spend a bunch of money just to lose it, plus much of the car’s value while you’re at it?

The answer is as complex as you might imagine. Some cars you don’t mess with. If you have a Duesenberg SJ or a Ferrari 250 GTO, forget LS swaps and EFI conversions. However, if you have any number of “lesser” cars such as an early 911, a Corvette, a Mustang, or even a 300SL Gullwing, you’re in luck; the market has shown you can indeed make it the car you want without lighting money on fire.

That means easily reversible upgrades that can be bolted on—and later unbolted. These days, even more invasive items such as hidden air conditioning in that 300SL or electric power-steering assist on a Ferrari Daytona are things that actually add value.

Of course, it seems that some vehicles are worth more money the more custom they are. Full-on “restomod” 1969 Camaros routinely sell for more than even a gorgeous factory Z/28. Similarly, early Broncos, C1 and C2 Corvettes, old pickup trucks, and especially “reimagined” Porsche 911s all bring far more than flawless bone-stock examples do. That said, it’s important to note that although a $200K Camaro sale looks impressive, it was likely a $350K build. It takes a real pro, and top-notch quality and specs, to come out ahead when straying far from stock.

Which is why I think the smart money lives in “reasonable” modifications. For years, I’ve been doing what I call optimizing old cars. For example, preparing a 1965 Shelby GT350 for rally use with good radial tires; upgraded shocks; electronic ignition; ethanol-safe fuel systems; a vibration-free aluminum driveshaft and high-speed-friendly ring-and-pinion; carbon-Kevlar brake linings; and other little tweaks that transform how the car drives. Or, let’s say you have a Jaguar XK 120 or E-Type. Those are great candidates for modern high-capacity aluminum radiators and electric cooling fans, as well as similar common-sense items as noted above. No matter the car, the goal is the same—usability. The best part is that when it comes time to sell, the only financial burden these changes will impose is the cost of returning the car to stock. Time and again, the market has shown that lightly modified cars don’t suffer in value as a result of their upgrades. The corollary is a seismic shift in people seeking out such cars that are ready to be driven and enjoyed, rather than pushed around a warehouse.

Going all-in with a full custom build will always be a decision not to be taken lightly. I’d argue it’s easier on the conscience (and the wallet) to simply spend a little, change a few things out, and tinker with your car to get out there and enjoy driving it. It’s an even better investment than the one you made buying the car in the first place.

The post Instead of modifying, consider optimizing appeared first on Hagerty Media.

In the early ’80s Adam Howell was smoking around the U.K. in his company car carrying out building surveys. But estate agency and property weren’t for him, and he looked about for a career change. In 1986 he set up A.C.F. Howell, metal finishers. So what took him from structural dampness to chrome plating?

When he wasn’t hammering up the M1 in his repmobile, Howell was busy restoring a Jaguar E-Type. Most parts were available from specialists such as Martin Robey, but the one bit that Howell couldn’t find was a replacement chrome trim for his coupe’s guttering. This would have stymied your author and many others, but Howell rolled up his sleeves and made his own replacement from brass strip which he then had chrome-plated. Word got around the Jaguar club to which he belonged, and before long our man was making sets of trim for other owners.

Realizing that he was deriving more pleasure from making parts for classic Jags than he was from peering around lofts, he set up the company that we are visiting today. Howell is not sure about the history of his Victorian-era workshops in Walsall, on the outskirts of Birmingham, but word is that it was once the home of an automotive engineering company—possibly one that manufactured steering wheels.

Back when Howell started the company it only occupied a small part of the premises that it does today. Expansion happened quickly and by the early ’90s A.C.F Howell had some pretty serious customers.

“Land Rover, which was owned by Ford at the time,” explains Howell, “wanted to build a limited edition of the P38 Range Rover. The standard car had door handles that were painted black but SVO (Special Vehicle Operations) had a plan to build a limited run of 100 cars that had chrome-plated handles and also a chrome surround on the center console. That was a pretty straightforward job for us because the numbers were low. SVO was very pleased with our work and it also impressed those in the production section of Land Rover. They asked us if we could produce parts for them for regular-production models and not just limited editions.”

Within less than a decade Adam Howell found himself going from making a handful of E-Type moldings to employing a small number of people in a corner of a workshop to running a business that had 90 staff and was delivering thousands of parts per month to one of the most prestigious brands on the planet. Those days came and went, as they often do when you’re relatively small cog in a very big supply chain.

Today A.C. Howell Limited is back where it started, helping enthusiasts and professional restorers by returning tarnished and rusting parts back to their gloriously shiny original condition, and from 90 staff down to a more manageable and friendly 18. You get the impression that Adam Howell doesn’t miss the glory days of dealing with big business and the associated worries—or the hassles of running a large company.

I’ve never done a ground-up restoration, but I’ve spent a lifetime titivating and rejuventating old crocks. Running restorations is the correct technical phrase. I know from experience that one of the most satisfying and downright sexy parts of fettling old cars is a trip to a plating company to collect freshly rechromed parts. Having passed through the area in which new jobs are unpacked and assessed, we’re in the part of the works where repairs are carried out before parts go through the plating process. For example, a radiator grille for a Jaguar XK is being soldered because a couple of the gills have broken.

Also waiting for attention is a huge front bumper. As he proves later on our visit, Adam can spot and identify an E-Type part from a hundred paces, but without looking at the job card he’s unable to identify this large bumper. Being an American car nerd, I am fairly sure it’s from a 1960s Pontiac Grand Prix or Bonneville. I used to own a 1972 Chevrolet El Camino pick-up truck and I remember clearly the excitement when its front bumper came back from the platers. I could have bought a new (pattern) bumper from America for not much more than the cost of the plating but the quality of the chrome would not have been as sensible.

“That’s often the case,” says Howell. “Preparation is absolutely key to a brilliant finish. Just the same with painting a car: If you have a poorly prepared base layer then the finished result will be poor. Some of the finishes that you see on pattern bumpers or chrome parts will only last a few years in our climate.”

Also in this part of the workshop is a machine that produces channeling like those parts Howell made 36 years ago for his own E-Type. There’s a drum of flat-brass strip that is fed into a succession of rollers that shape it into a perfect U-shaped channel.

“We made this machine ourselves,” says Howell, “and it does a fantastic job.”

But enough of this. I want to see where the magic happens. Where the chemistry and potions mix to turn a dull piece of metal into a shiny concours winning part of a work of art. The room where the actual plating is done. Howell leads us into a room in which there is a long row of vats—more than are needed today, but they were installed when the company was flat-out with its Ranger Rover work. Still, there’s plenty going on.

Chemistry is one of the many O levels that I failed to pass, but I do have vague memories of copper plating a spoon by dipping it into a solution of copper sulphate and then passing a current through the solution. “You’re in the right area,” says a generous and tactful Howell. Before we delve into the periodic tables, Howell has company chemist Dale Lyons try to explain the science to me—a brief overview of what’s happening.

“With the new guttering you saw us making earlier,” explains Howell, “we can take it straight to be nickel-plated and then after that chrome-plated. For parts like the bumper you saw, we first have to copper-plate it, then add a layer of nickel and then the chrome.” Howell shows us some parts that have been copper-plated and then polished. They look absolutely gorgeous in this finish and it’s almost a shame to carry on with the process. It certainly backs up Howell’s point about preparation being everything. Now to Dale Lyons—who, by the way, is a very hands-on person and doesn’t look anything like the typical stereotype of a chemist in a white coat with pencils poking from the top pocket.

“The process of electroplating is not particularly complicated,” explains Lyons. “The part or parts that you’re plating are placed in a bath of a salt of the coating material. The parts are then connected to the negative terminal of a source of electricity. Another conductor, composed of the coating metal, is connected to the positive terminal of the source. When the current is passed through the solution, atoms of the plating metal deposit onto the negative electrode or cathode.”

Lyons goes to explain that the thickness of the plating depends on the length of time that the current is passed and also the strength of that current. Up the current, and you plate more quickly. It’s all to do with Faraday’s Law. “Chrome is only in the bath for a few minutes,” explains Howell. “You’re aiming for a coating of chrome only 0.3 to 0.5 of a micron thick. If you apply too thick a coating of chrome it will crack and, equally serious, you may find that parts no longer fit together.”

Once plated the parts are taken for polishing and then to final inspection. The variety of jobs on the go is amazing. Everything from a Rolls-Royce Camargue radiator grille to an exhaust from a classic two-stroke Suzuki motorcycle. And, fittingly, plenty of E-Type parts, including bumper sections. It seems a shame to put them back on the car. The company also has a large stock of Jaguar bumpers that can be used if a customer’s own part is too far gone. Incidentally, to rechrome a MK2 Jag bumper costs about £400 ($520, roughly). That said, prices are likely to have to go up in the near future. “We use lots of electricity,” says Howell. “Our electricity bill would make your hair fall out and the cost of energy, as everyone knows, is shooting up.”

Adam Howell parted with his E-Types (he had a small collection of them) a while back but is still a totally committed enthusiast. He has a Lamborghini Espada and a Ferrari 512 Boxer bought for a ridiculously small sum when prices were low. But the car I’d love to see is the Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL 6.9 that he restored himself. That generation of S-Class Mercs had the most fantastic big chrome bumpers. I’ll wager looking directly at those on Howell’s on a sunny day could damage your eyesight.

Via Hagerty UK

The post A.C.F. Howell metal finishers is a shrine to shine appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Alfa Romeo’s strange and baffling Sport Zagato, better known as the SZ, was a seldom seen performance car icon that divided fans like no tomorrow. Its nickname “Il Mostro” (the monster) was more than apt; as a spectacle, it had few equals – even if its performance was bettered by cheaper rivals.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) Heritage has now showcased the work of its in-house restoration service, Alfa Romeo Classiche, by reviving an ex-works SZ used for development testing.

The rejuvenated SZ was the car used at the firm’s Balocco test track and shot on film for early promotional images. Crucial differences pick it out from production cars, including its white on black instruments and three-spoke Nardi steering wheel, similar to those used in contemporary 33s.

Alfa Romeo Classiche stripped the car back to its component parts for restoration. That’s not as straightforward as it might seem, given that the SZ (and later RZ convertible) were built around a steel frame with composite body panels hung on top, in a manner not dissimilar to Renault’s Matra-built Espace.

As much of the interior as possible was preserved rather than restored, given parts are not easy to come by even for Alfa Classiche—attrition and the car’s occasionally tricky handling characteristics mean even fewer than the modest 1036 examples built between 1989 and 1991 still remain. The U.K. market received just 100, all in left-hand drive.

Mechanically, the SZ was more racing car than it seemed. Much was written about its reliance on 75 parts, but that car’s Turbo Evoluzione model was subject to a full development program by Alfa’s racing division, Alfa Corse, and most of the SZ’s underpinnings, including height adjustable dampers that could be tweaked from the cockpit, came from that illustrious back catalogue.

Alfa used the 75’s 3.0-liter, 207-hp V-6, while the rear suspension was a De Dion setup, one developed extensively by Alfa during development of the GTV6. Alfa’s SZ promotional video—featuring a different SZ to the restored car, incidentally—made much of its cornering ability.

Nevertheless, it was no performance bargain. With a price tag of approximately £35,000 in 1991 (an inflation corrected £80,000, or about $105,000, in 2022), contemporary customers could find more for their money elsewhere.

Unless they wanted dramatic styling, that is. Developed from a winning proposal by the late Robert Opron at Fiat Centro Stile, aided by CAD/CAM, the SZ has always been a car like no other. And those who invested in a SZ will be glad they did. We value a #3-condition (Good) SZ from 1989 at $55,400 on average, while the best in the world examples sell for as much as $110,000.

Via Hagerty UK

The post Rare Alfa Romeo SZ revived by the people who made it appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The thought of crushing a freshly restored 1959 Corvette is heartbreaking. Then, add in that the reason for doing so centers on the condition of two very specific rivets. Luckily for Richard Martinez, Kansas lawmakers have finally come through and passed a law that frees his beloved hardtop from the clutches of the impound lot.

The center of this debate has been the VIN plate on Martinez’s Corvette. He bought the car in 2016, a beloved ride that got a full restoration some years ago and as part of the repainting process had the VIN plate removed. Upon presenting it for routine state inspection, the Kansas Highway Patrol seized the Corvette. Unknown to the Martinez, the car ran afoul of a Kansas law which stated any vehicle with a “destroyed, removed, altered, or defaced” VIN plate must be crushed. That’s a harsh reality for a historic car that wasn’t party to any nefarious intent. Early on, authorities declared Martinez innocent of any wrongdoing, but the car was still being targeted for destruction.

With the car sitting in an impound lot, a push developed revise the Kansas law, largely thanks to the non-profit Kansas Justice Institute. The revision that resulted from this advocacy (House Bill 2594) aims to exempt classic vehicles undergoing repair or restoration and would additionally exempt classic car owners who didn’t know or had no reason to believe their car was involved in a crime. This is a big step forward and removes a significant bit of hesitation from owners in Kansas who feared their vehicles might get them in legal hot water when they went to register it.

House Bill 2594 was ultimately approved by governor Lauren Kelly on March 22, ending this half-decade long saga of anxiety for Martinez and his Corvette. At this time it is unclear exactly when the owner and hardtop might be reunited, but there is finally light at the end of the tunnel.

The post New Kansas law passes, saves restored 1959 Corvette from the crusher appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The auction world is a finicky place. Occasionally we watch sales close and look at the price and think to ourselves “well that didn’t seem right.” At first glance the $60,000 sale of a 1976 BMW R90s last week on Bring a Trailer might have had a few folks scratching their scalp in confusion, but we are here to tell you this sale is more than luck or just two whiskey bidders. This was instead an example that the best restoration and condition bring the money. Let’s dig into it.

The BMW R90s was in production for just two years between 1974-76, but that didn’t stop it from building a strong following. Packing a 67-horsepower, 900cc horizontally-opposed twin and a half fairing, the R90s was a very sporty bike by BMW’s stodgy ’70s standards. The engine got a bump to 9.5:1 compression from the base R90/6’s 9.1:1 and gave those cylinders more fuel and air to compress by inhaling through a pair of 38mm Dell’Orto carburetors. Capable of 125mph and hauling enough fuel in the 6.4-gallon tank to carry that speed for hours, this is a BMW sought out by riders and collectors alike. That might explain high prices for them in current times, but this particular sale doubled the record for an R90s. There has to be something more.

And there is. This particular bike was done by what many would consider “the guy.” Mark Francois is a specialist in the R90s specifically, and this particular bike is one of his best. It won awards at both the La Jolla Concours d’Elegance and Quail Motorcycle Gathering in 2019. It’s arguably one of the best restored R90s models in the country, done by one of the R90s restorers. That is the little bit extra that adds big to a price tag, and it’s not immediately obvious.

Talking with Senior Information Analyst James Hewitt put it in perspective, “This shows how much value there is in the bike world, and is a culmination of when car collectors are the ones buying and just how much a perfect #1 restoration can sell for when two people want it. On another day it might bring $40k. What is an extra $20k if it gets you one of the best in the world and gets you it today? When is another one coming along?”

Probably not for a while, or at least not until the next one Francois finishes restoring comes up for sale. Being that he is a one-man home shop that is not a promised timeline, it sure seems that he prefer to get it right than get it fast. We respect that. Motorcycles are still relative bargains compared to cars, and that’s before you talk about storage cost and space. For a desirable model coming from the right owner and restorer this sale suddenly makes sense.

The post This BMW R90s shows buyers will pay for the best appeared first on Hagerty Media.

I’m not proud of this, but when the Ferrari V-8 started for the first time, I felt a glee similar to when my kids were born. The engine—which hadn’t run for 20 years—exhausted thick white smoke, the vestiges of a long slumber, and settled into a fast and smooth idle. If I had been alone, I might have danced.

(This past spring editor-in-chief Larry Webster set forth on a bold path to fix up the 1975 Ferrari Dino 308 GT4 he bought for $25,000. He wasn’t sure our fine readers would be all that interested in hearing about it, but your vigorous responses proved otherwise. Forward he forged. –Ed.)

This step, getting the engine running and driving the car before disassembling it, was perhaps unneeded. I wanted to know, however, a few things: Does the gearbox shift smoothly? Do the water pipes that run through the car leak when pressurized? Is the engine sound? Are there other needs I should address before I send the car off for bodywork?

Restoration costs spiral skyward via the “might as wells.” When the car is in pieces, you might as well replace the clutch, upgrade the radiator, or rebuild the engine. Months of work leading to the first start-up, detailed later in this article, culminated when my friend Marc Trahan arrived. Trahan’s a retired VW/Audi executive who owns a GT4 and started his career as a mechanic. He’d know which noises are normal, and it was fun to share the success and failure with someone who’s been there. Projects are fantastic excuses to socialize.

Trahan pronounced the engine healthy. A few days later, while I excitedly backed out of the driveway, the fuel pump stopped its whirring. This did not register as a problem until a quarter-mile into my first around-the-block excursion, when the GT4 sputtered, stalled, and coasted to a stop. A dead fuel pump meant no fuel.

My son John arrived with another car and a tow strap, and as we struggled to push the Ferrari into position to attach the strap, a pizza delivery guy rode up, dismounted from his bike, and—without uttering a word—heaved with us. Pizza guy for the win! John towed me home, taking pride in the task and probably loving this new calamity to rib his old man about. We’d just made a memory we’ll retell for years.

After replacing the fuel pump and doing many short neighborhood trips, my other son, 12-year-old Sam, came for a ride. At a nearby stop sign, I said, “Do we go left to stay close to home or turn right and roll the dice?”

“No question,” he said, “We roll the dice.” Love that kid.

We covered 10 miles that day and later added another 20 trouble-free miles before embarking on the complete disassembly. The only unfortunate sounds came from the gearbox, which crunched when shifted into reverse. Another “might as well” that I’ll have inspected. In any case, this project has already proved invaluable.

The test drive

I got the car running to learn the health of the drivetrain, but also, I needed to see the light at the end of the tunnel. DIY restorations tend to drag, a situation I’m committed to avoiding while taking time to enjoy the process. Start-up was a joyous moment, a reminder that the effort has a payoff. Notice the light blue paint on the interior door frame. That’s the original color, one of many unconventional palettes GT4s wore from the factory—and for which slow sales were blamed. I think mine was painted black to broaden its appeal.

Carburetor rebuilding

All four carbs leaked fuel and needed rebuilding. A rebuild is basically disassembly, cleaning, and replacing gaskets, O-rings, and the rubber accelerator pump. There are dozens of small parts, so I leaned on a diagram and photos to ensure proper reassembly. The risk for novices is that we might not recognize faults that could prove troublesome later. I made an admittedly uninformed evaluation—all seemed fine to me—and I forged ahead.

Timing belts and hoses

These are critical items for the Ferrari V-8; if a belt breaks, the valves will crash into the pistons and cause expensive damage. This was a scary job, because you can smash the valves, too, if the belts are not installed in the proper position on the sprockets. Thankfully, there’s a well-documented procedure where you mark the old belts and sprockets before removal. I transferred those marks to the new belts and matched them to the sprockets. It took many nights of fiddling and rechecking before I turned the engine by hand to make sure it moved freely. Even so, I was nervous when the motor first started.

Conventional wisdom says that you should also replace the water pump, because the task is easy once the belts are off. My pump, however, was upgraded not long before the car was parked, and it turned freely. I decided to save the dough.

During this work, I drained the old fuel and replaced every hose. Modern fuel hoses are essential, as the old stuff deteriorates when exposed to ethanol blended with modern fuel. Leaking fuel, of course, can lead to fire.

The grind

There’s a joke that leaking engines are the best kind of rust protection because the oil coats metal. Years of drips mixed with road grit meant caked sludge that required hours of tedious removal. Ugh. This is the unromantic part of car tinkering. To avoid damaging the paint and to conserve my solvent supply, I used plastic scrapers.

After weeks of soul-sucking cleaning, done in small bits at night, the frame rails were mostly crud-free and the brake lines visible. Let me pass on one bobble so that you might avoid it: I once unknowingly got oil sludge on a shoe bottom, walked into the house, and destroyed a rug. Yeah, that was a tense night. I now have old sneakers that live in the garage.

Engine removal

Once all the systems checked out, a cherry picker and a 12-year-old helper pulled the engine. I’ve removed about a dozen motors, and it’s always nerve-racking, as I never seem to anticipate everything that gets in the way. While the car is at the body shop, I’ll clean the motor, remove the transmission to inspect the clutch, and replace all the seals. The finish line remains far in the distance.

The post $25K Project Dino: First drive, and a path for completion appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Before walking up the ramp inside an unmarked building to say hello to Agaso Outdoor owners Lisa Cady and August Paro, visitors must first go through Luca. The compact 10-year-old brindle dachshund mix lords over this domain. Once you pass his sniff test, you’re welcomed in. He trots you past a row of vehicles in various states of completion to Cady, who sports a blue bandanna around her neck just like Luca’s.

The shop’s name, Agaso, means “jockey” in Latin, and it might not make sense until you learn that Cady and Paro specialize in restoring and modifying first-generation Ford Broncos. The 5000 square feet that Agaso occupies in the industrial Los Angeles suburb of Gardena is already cramped, a testament to the vintage off-roader boom ripping through the surviving stock of the roughly 225,000 first-generation Broncos produced from 1965 through 1977.

The current shop space stretches long enough to accommodate five cars and one lift. Natural light floods through the skylights aided by the artificial fluorescent glow. A solitary navy blue Agaso Outdoor logo graces a pristine white wall while Johnny Cash’s “One Piece at a Time” echoes through the space, with its New York loft-chic vibe. Cady and Paro have been business partners since 2012, and during our visit, three of their eight full- and part-time employees work on a piano-black Bronco tub that returned from paint just that morning—and over three weeks late.

“We plan on expanding. We want to do our own metalwork and paint in the new location we’re on the hunt for,” Cady says out of the gate. When they outsource work to vendors, they have no control over how long that work takes. Looking around, control seems of paramount importance here.

From the orderly rows of motor oil and hydraulic fluid to the color-coded electrical-tape rack, everything has a place. Even the jack stands have a stand. A complete stranger could come in and easily get to work, that’s how meticulously the shop is organized. “If one person puts it back, then someone else knows where it is,” says Cady. She joked that when she was setting up the shop, she wore her Brother P-touch label maker around in a tool belt.

Cady doesn’t come from a car background. She never restored cars with an uncle or her dad. At 19, she moved from Northern California to New York to attend the Parsons School of Design to study architecture and interior design. She admired cars as a spectator and, like Paro, has loved Jeeps and off-road vehicles since high school.

After 10 years in New York, and looking for something else to do, she moved to Michigan and started renovating the interiors of vintage homes. Shortly after, Cady bought a ’69 Bronco and, piece by piece, started restoring it herself. She sees a lot of connection between architecture and car restoration. “They’re both technical and mechanical, but they’re also creative and beautiful,” she says.

Cady’s partner is a product of the 1980s. In those days, Paro and his buddies would drive their trucks to Ocean City, Maryland, and he once bought a fishing license just so he could run his rescued ’76 Bronco on the beach. He restored the truck himself, learning as he went, but not without help from a friend who was a painter at a local Mercedes-Benz dealer. Paro traded him a new air compressor for his time.

Cady and Paro met through mutual friends after both moved to Southern California. Coincidentally, Paro’s day job before Agaso became a full-time endeavor was designing and building restaurants. Lucky for them, Cady and Paro have similar design aesthetics and approaches to problem-solving.

Paro discovered early on that there’s a protocol with restoring a Bronco. “If you don’t follow the process in the proper order, you run into problems. The big issue with Broncos is space. Those are tight spots for modern parts to fit in there and work together. From the transmission to the dipstick, we want to make sure the puzzle fits while upgrading it to modern spec.”

The original Bronco’s optional 302 small-block V-8 already made for a tight squeeze. Agaso’s reimagined handiwork gets the electronically fuel-injected 5.0 V-8 that Ford produced from 1981 through 2001 and which supplanted the original 302.

At Agaso, they’re not looking to make monster-powered trucks stuffed with the overhead-cam Coyote, but rather to preserve the original Bronco driving experience as much as possible. They see themselves as continuing where Ford left off in 1977. “From a builder’s perspective, knowing you did everything you could to make it usable as it was intended, from re-engineering Ford parts to developing our own systems, feels very gratifying,” says Paro.

They’re not afraid to share their knowledge, either. Well, some of it, at least. They’ve crafted a new exhaust system, the architecture of which addresses that limited underhood space issue, and they plan on selling it to other restoration shops. They’ve fabricated aluminum wheels that look like the original steelies but can accommodate bigger brakes. A new transmission cooling system is in the works.

They’re also developing their own aluminum small-block with a builder who once worked with Carroll Shelby when he was still in Los Angeles, an engine with just enough horsepower and a flat torque curve that will work the low end of the range—exactly what a Bronco needs as a purpose-built off-road machine.

They say they have seen more than their share of bad restoration jobs. Like those tattoo artists who fix bad ink, they’ve redone botched Broncs. “To a guy who knows Mustangs, they look easy to build, but having a driver’s license doesn’t make you a good driver,” says Paro.

“We can’t sell a disappointment,” Cady adds, which is why they say they’re not interested in volume. Neither of them says they could sleep at night trying to crank out machines to compromised standards. Interiors remain a labor of love for Cady. She finds creative finishes and fabrics that suit her clients’ needs. “Marine-grade vinyl looks great, wears well, and is waterproof, but I’ll use leather if someone requests it,” she says. Crisp apple-green English wool tweed and a Porsche houndstooth cloth swathe the rebuilt seats in two almost-finished examples in the shop. Modern technologies, including an Alpine audio and navigation system hidden in the center console, add functionality and convenience, but the finished aesthetic is perfectly period-correct.

There’s a lot of conversation when they first meet their prospective clients. “We’ve talked more people out of buying a Bronco than into it,” Cady says. Her and Paro’s future ambitions are as considered as their labeled hardware drawers. Secreted in a nook of the shop sits a Porsche 912 for which they’re developing an EV platform. Part of their expansion includes the electrification of classic vehicles other than Broncos.

“In our next shop, we’ll have a kitchen, too,” says Cady as she swoops her panting puppy dog into her arms. “Luca loves all kinds of cuisine.” The petite shop boss settles comfortably in his spot. He’ll soon be getting his very own set of blue Agaso coveralls, just like the rest of the crew.

The post The O.G. Corral: A vintage Bronco shop gallops into the future appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Anyone in the restoration business knows that, when the phone rings, you never really know who or what will be on the other end of that line. Even when those magical words—“barn find”—enter the conversation, there’s no telling if it’s going to be a gem or a dud. When Across the Pond Restoration of Willoughby, Ohio, got wind of a story concerning an old Italian race car tucked away for 50+ years, practically right under their noses in Northeast Ohio, the team didn’t know what to believe.

When you’ve got a lead on rare Italian royalty like a 1955 Siata 300 BC, however, you hustle—layers of ambiguity be damned. When the call came in, Levi Nolan and his brother Jesse, co-owners of Across the Pond, raced across town to the spot to investigate further.

“She [the owner] called it a 1955, and originally thought it was actually a 208S,” recollects Levi. “So I’m racing to the shop thinking it was a 208S too, like, ‘oh my gosh, Jesse, we’ve got to call this lady back right away ‘… You get a hundred calls a day for cars we don’t work on, so to get a [special] once-in-a-while call, it’s very exciting.”

Upon arrival, they soon realized that they were not dealing with the mother of all Siatas, a 208S, which would have meant a seven-figure sales tag. The 208S was a little sports car from a little Italian tuning company, but it made a big impression on the high-end automotive world when it arrived for 1953. The combination of its coachbuilt Motto aluminum-alloy body and torquey V-8 engine made it appealing to serious enthusiasts like Steve McQueen, who famously bought a ’53 208S that he dubbed his “little Ferrari.” Instead, the Siata in question was a 300 BC, a 1955 model. It’s still a six-figure beauty but a little more common than the 208S (one of 50 versus only 33), and less powerful (inline-four vs Fiat V-8).

After explaining the situation to the owner, who was bequeathed ownership of the car from her husband, there was a minor a tinge of disappointment on both sides. But that didn’t overshadow the incredible fact of this car’s discovery in a little town outside of Cleveland, and that it had been hidden there for so many years.

“This is the last place on earth you’d think it’d be,” Levi adds.

Siata is an acronym (S.I.A.T.A.) standing for Societa Italiana Auto Trasformazioni Accessori. If that was too much Italian for you, just know Siata had been a small tuning outfit for Fiat, and that a guy named Tony Pompeo was the importer largely responsible for Siatas in America—more specifically, the 300 BC. Though these cars most often came equipped with 750cc Crosley four-cylinders, many of these cars were shipped to the U.S. without engines, and upon landing, they occasionally received something a little beefier in anticipation of racing in various displacement classes on up the chain.

Later examples—such as this car, ST444BC—rolled off the line with a Fiat 1100 engine with Weber carbs. 300 BCs were bodied by Motto at this later point in the production run, rather than by Bertone, which built the earlier ones. Records suggest that, after being purchased new from Pompeo, this car was raced in the mid-1950s by an Ernst Ruffini, a Cleveland native, who frequented many of America’s iconic racing haunts such as Cumberland, Lawrenceville, Watkins Glen, and Road America. As the story goes, ST444BC could no longer remain competitive in Ruffini’s desired class and he decided to sell the car. It then traded hands several times in Cleveland’s enthusiast circle, last doing so in 1960, and eventually landing in its current place of rest.

Fate will decide where exactly this 300 BC will go from here, but things are looking up. There’s a hefty load of back-end legwork that Across the Pond has to tackle first, though.

“We’re establishing values, collecting paperwork and documentation on the race history. Once we have everything, we’ll reach out to our customers who have shown a little bit of interest,” says Levi.

A pharmacist by trade, Levi finds himself typically filling different kinds of orders these days after helping Across the Pond get up and running back in 2015. His brother Jesse is a Navy veteran and fabrication whiz. A third valuable member of the crew is Pat Slayton, a Marine Corps veteran and Ohio Technical College graduate in classic car restoration—the same program Jesse attended. As the business grew, their checklist of European projects has blossomed. Current projects going on in the shop include an Aston Martin DB5, Ferrari 330 GTC, and BMW 3.0 CSL “Batmobile,” and a Gullwing that just arrived in early December.

Given the amount of labor, Levi is understandably now only a part-time pharmacist.

Across the Pond has also partnered up with McPherson graduate and RPM Foundation scholarship recipient Randy Elber. For the last three years, Elber’s been running R&R Automotive Restorations out of Mount Kisco, New York, and routinely working in tandem with the Nolan brothers, each doing what they do best.

“911s are our bread and butter. Since we’ve connected with Randy in New York, we’ve gotten into more exotics. Expanded our palette,” Levi says. “Typically, we get the engine and drivetrain out and send it up to him [Elber]. Then we do the paint and bodywork and meet in the middle on the install.”

208S or not, this 300 BC is a hell of a find, and not just for niche Siata fans. The importance of preserving a vehicle of this caliber before it’s lost forever should not go understated. Not to mention that the degree of skill and effort that goes into researching, valuing, and restoring a car like this is immense. There have been hurdles, too, beyond unavoidable global supply-chain issues. The big one is a titling snafu (another 300 BC restoration without numbers was already titled ST444 before the find), but the team is still forging ahead to take this job to completion.

“I can’t wait to get it out of the spot and get going on it,” says Nolan. Neither can we.

The post Rare barn-find Siata ends 50+ year slumber with hope for restoration appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Gerardo “Junior” Mendez never dreamed of being the “garage guy” for a couple of millionaire vintage motorsport enthusiasts. But often the biggest detours in life are blessings in disguise.

“My parents originally emigrated from Mexico to Wichita, Kansas,” says the 24-year-old. “Somehow my older brother and I got into working on cars. He went the diesel route and is a mechanic for Caterpillar. After high school, I joined the Marine Corps Reserve and served for six years as a motor vehicle operator while attending McPherson College. My grand idea was to graduate with a degree in automotive restoration, then go work for the Mercedes-Benz Classic Center in Irvine, California.”

Mendez graduated in 2020 and left the Corps in 2021. He ended up in Costa Mesa—the home of Navitas Fuel Authority. The vintage car restoration and private race prep shop is owned by MotoAmerica founding partner and Petersen Automotive Museum chairman of the board, Richard Varner, and Thomas Hartline, a strategic energy investor and founder of Oklahoma’s Navitas Utility Corporation.

“When I interned there, I helped with some specialty metalwork on a 1978 Toyota FJ55 Land Cruiser they had in the shop,” Mendez says. “They gave me a vehicle to drive—even paid for my gas while I was here—and eventually offered me a job.”

Mechanic, engineer, fabricator, and shop manager. Mendez now runs a one-man operation where the responsibilities are complex but the job perks are plenty. The shop has around 20 motorcycles and 15 cars that are raced in several series.

When Mendez isn’t prepping a vehicle for the track, he’s doing general maintenance or playing catch-up on other pet projects. The shop is home to a number of Porsches in various states of repair, and depending on the day, Mendez might be working on a widebody 914, chipping away on the restoration of a 356, or turning a 968 into a race car.

He’s also close to finishing that FJ55. “For this kind of job, you have to be flexible—not someone who needs an immediate rush from checking tasks off a list.”

The payoff of working in a private garage, says Mendez, is the freedom and challenge of being called on to fix, restore, and customize “the toys” Varner and Hartline entrust to him. He loves the variety. And then there’s the new thrill of racing.

“I’m fortunate to have the bosses I do. They encouraged me to take a racing course. So we took a 2014 Porsche Cayman—probably the best car for new drivers to learn how to race—made a few handling modifications, and then drove it at Buttonwillow and Thunderhill here in California.”

Mendez says he aims to race the modern-day version of Mexico’s La Carrera Panamericana, which originally ran from 1950 to ’54 on open roads. The current 2000-mile multistage event follows the historic route through the mountains of central Mexico and towns like Guanajuato, where Mendez still has family.

Channeling his passion for restoration and newfound love of vintage racing, Mendez looks forward to establishing a deeper connection to the place he’s from. That just might be the most rewarding detour he’s come upon so far.

The post The Racing Wrench: How restoring vintage cars led to a young man’s motorsport passion appeared first on Hagerty Media.

If GDK Veneering was a multinational company it would have plaques and posters on the walls at its global headquarters proclaiming its green credentials and boasts that it was single-handedly solving global warming. But GDK Veneering isn’t a multinational company and its global headquarters are behind a smart semi in a residential street in Crewe, U.K., Not that far from the Bentley factory. Flash it ain’t, but what could be greener or kinder to the planet than taking faded, cracked and aged wood from a classic car and making it like new again?

Years of fiddling with old cars has filled my address book with useful contacts for the many trades that are essential for the amateur fettler or restorer. Rusty bodyshell? No problem, I can point you in the direction of a company that can blast the rust off your E-Type’s monocoque using friendly media such as nut shells. MIG or TIG welding? Easy, I’ve got just the man for you. But woodwork and in particular work with veneers, I’m afraid I can’t help you. That’s changed after a morning with Ged Gollings, his son Daniel, and nephew Sean.

I’ve never visited an outfit quite like this before. Ged Gollings apologizes profusely and repeatedly for the rustic appearance of the workshop, but there’s no need because I’m used to seeing craftsmen working in cramped and untidy premises. Look more closely, however, and you see a perfectly managed and organized operation in which experience, lateral thinking, and sheer improvisation has created a perfect working environment.

You’d expect from seeing his work that 52 year-old Ged had served an apprenticeship up the road at Rolls-Royce (which was in Crewe until BMW bought it) or Bentley. Not quite. Until redundancy struck he was working at his local B&Q. Gollings explains his unusual career path: “I then got a job at a company doing veneering that was run by a bloke who was at Rolls until he was also made redundant. I’ve never been massively into cars but as I soon as I started I fell in love with the job. When I started all I did was simple tasks like stripping off old material and removing brackets. Exactly the type of work that my nephew Sean does here.”

Unfortunately this company went to the wall when a large OEM pulled its work, and since it was the firm’s major customer, that was it. “We started GDK in 2013,” recounts Gollings, “and because I’d loved the work I’d paid attention and picked up a lot of the skills. I’m getting better at making things all the time and my skill level is improving.”

Looking at the work done here, that’s an understatement.

GDK Veneering is planning an imminent move into larger premises where everything will be done under one roof. For now there are three separate workshops. There’s the one at the back of the house where the intricate work is done, plus final polishing and then despatch of finished work; a small work shed on a small industrial estate is where Sean strips off brackets and strips off old lacquer; and then on the same estate there’s The Shack. From the outside The Shack looks like an old chicken shed but inside is a shed-within-a-shed. This is where final sanding and preparation takes place and where lacquer is sprayed onto parts. The Gollings have built an elaborate filter system so dust doesn’t get onto the wet surfaces.

Meanwhile, back at the home workshop Daniel Collings is working on some woodwork for a Mark II Jaguar. “It’s funny,” says Ged, “we seem to get runs of a particular car and then we go for ages without seeing another one.”

I’ve never seen veneering done before. It’s mesmerizing—a real art. Gollings Jr. is cutting small strips of veneer and then gluing them to the wood itself. Behind him is a fantastic example of Gollings ingenuity: a vacuum chamber made from plywood. It features a rubber sheet that is drawn down over, say a door capping, that has had its veneer glued on and now needs to cure. The sheet, drawn down onto the part by vacuum, holds the veneer in place until the glue has thoroughly dried. Smaller and more intricate parts that can’t be fitted into the vacuum curing box have to allowed to dry more slowly in the open air, with carefully applied tape holding the veneer in position.

The veneers themselves come in a multitude of different materials including the ever popular burr walnut. About four sheets of veneer are needed for a set of Jag Mark II woodwork, and they’ll cost around £250 ($336). I’d always assumed that the veneers come from the trunk of a tree, but that’s not the case. “No,” explains Gollings Sr., “the veneer comes from the tree’s bulb that’s below ground.”

Back at the satellite works Ged Gollings pulls out a box of wooden trim parts that are in an absolutely dreadful state. “This is about as bad as it gets,” says Gollings, “they’re from a 1960s Mercedes SL ‘Pagoda’. You can see how the lacquer has been in the sun for decades and has bubbled off. Also, the wood underneath the veneer has delaminated and looks as though it was made of some sort of cardboard rather than ply. This is going to be a complicated job as we’re going to have to make new bases for some of the parts before we can even think about the veneer. We’ll be charging about £1900 ($2555) to return this lot to perfect condition.’ Which seems extremely reasonable to me. Firstly, a perfectly restored Pagoda will be worth at least £100,000 ($134,500).

Once Daniel Gollings’ work has cured in the drying box it’s time for the parts to go to The Shack for spraying. “In the postwar period a polyurethane lacquer was commonly used,” says Ged Gollings, “but today we use a polyester lacquer. Pre-war material was more like a varnish.’

Pieces that have already been sprayed with lacquer are on drying shelves and I’m surprised at how thick the coating is. That’s explained as Ged takes me through the multiple sanding stages that go from the use of coarse 180 grit paper to finishing with 1200 grit. “It’s important,” he points out, “to use a good quality sand paper. We get through a lot of it.”

Back at the house we move to the polishing wheels. Again the Gollings’ imagination and improvisation skills have gone into making a really impressive polishing station. It’s miraculous to watch: with only a couple of passes along the spinning polishing wheel (to which Ged has applied one of several different types of polish that are used) a Mark II Jag door capping has gone from having a smoothly sanded but matte finish, to a high gloss part that looks as good as it would have done when came out of Browns Lane in the early ‘60s.

Speaking of Jaguar and its history, GDK was responsible for restoring the dashboard and wood parts for Sir William Lyons’ personal XJ6. Another set of XJ6 woodwork is currently going through the workshops. Unlike his father, Daniel Gollings is heavily into classic cars and is very knowledgeable. “Money no object I’d have a Jaguar XK-SS but on a more realistic level I’d like to get something like a Triumph Spitfire.” Presumably he wouldn’t be able to resist restoring its woodwork. “Those cheaper cars, like TRs and Cortinas, used cheap straight grain veneers together with cheap lacquers and animal glue. Not quite in the Bentley league.” Talking of Bentleys, Turbo R interiors are currently very popular. GDK also makes parts to keep in stock such as MGB wood kits.

“We make them if we get any spare time,” explains Ged Gollings, “which is rare. We currently have around an eight-month waiting list.” Gollings also tells us that customers are very precious about their car’s woodwork and often come and see work in progress. “We once had a Middle Eastern prince arrive to look at his car’s wood trim. He arrived in a Range Rover with heavily tinted windows and bodyguards, parked outside and came out back to check on progress.” I suspect he was surprised by the premises and awestruck by the quality of the work done within it.

Now my car restoration address book is complete, and I can point you in the direction of an outfit that can turn your classic’s sun-bleached, cracked, and discolored wood dashboard back into a thing of beauty.

Via Hagerty UK

The post Polished to perfection: Behind the scenes of GDK Veneering appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Richard Gauntlett is standing on the blustery deck of a Royal Navy aircraft carrier, looking slightly misty-eyed at a childhood dream that has finally become reality.

What Gauntlett and an assembled crowd of media and Navy crew are staring at is the Aston Martin Bulldog, an incredible concept that vanished under his father Victor’s chairmanship of the British sports car maker. It’s a car that Richard never actually saw in person when he was growing up, but he would study it every day.

“I never saw the car function as a kid, as it had already disappeared to America by the time I was born, but I had the poster that was from my dad’s office at Aston Martin. I know every millimeter of that poster and seeing the car now is like going through the looking glass because I’ve stared at the poster for so long. It’s like going into the mirror, beyond the plane. It’s just so wonderful,” he says.

Gauntlett has been the driving force behind recovering and restoring the Bulldog with the ultimate goal of doing something that his father never achieved—getting the car to crack 200 mph.

The Bulldog story actually began even before Gauntlett Sr.’s time at Aston Martin. As far back as 1976 Chief Designer William Towns was tasked with designing a mid-engined supercar. As anyone familiar with his Lagonda will understand, Towns got his rulers out and came up with a stunning wedge design, while engineering director Mike Loasby devised the tubular steel chassis and suspension, and worked out the packaging for the 5.3-liter V-8. After several months development the project was abandoned, however, and Loasby left to join DeLorean.

In 1979 the Bulldog was revived, handed over to project manager Keith Martin and it accelerated rapidly. Despite having little more than sketches, a clay model, and an incomplete chassis to work with Martin and his team had the car ready for testing within a scant eight months. Adding a pair of Garrett AiResearch turbos and Bosch fuel injection to the V-8 brought power north of 700 hp, all with the goal of being the first road car in the world to top 200 mph.

Despite best efforts the fastest the Bulldog ever went was 192 mph, but that’s not what ultimately killed the project. It was cash. Or rather a lack of it. By the time Gauntlett was at the helm of Aston Martin he needed to be pragmatic. Further development of the car was stopped, the original plan to build a run of 25 was canned, and the only existing Bulldog was sold to a Saudi prince after the Sultan of Brunei changed his mind.

During the 40 years since then the car spent time in Arizona, then went back to the Middle East, before reappearing ins Asia where it was tracked down by RM Sotheby’s. Now owned by Texas collector Philip Sarofim it has undergone a total restoration thanks to Classic Motor Cars (CMC) of Bridgnorth in Shropshire, U.K. Having had a variety of modifications over the years, including attempts to improve the cooling system, changing the paint and re-trimming the interior in a rather more gaudy style than Aston Martin intended, CMC have restored it original specification—with a few subtle improvements to make it more useable.

“We have tried to be as faithful as possible to the original design and concept by not only returning the car to its paint and trim scheme, but also engineering the car in such a way that major mechanical components are now located as the designers originally intended,” explains CMC’s Nigel Woodward. “This, and future-proofing the car so that it remains drivable now for ever, has been achieved by incorporating state of the art engine management systems and modern components such as liquid cooled turbochargers which will ensure that Bulldog is preserved for future generations.”

“We were fortunate in having a great team and being able to work with two of the original engineers Keith Martin and David Morgan, as well as Lizzie Carris, the wife of the designer of the car, William Towns. This gave us a huge head start on the project and there help was invaluable to the completion of the car.”

The restoration has been incredibly rapid, especially considering the complications of a global pandemic.  “It rather echoes the fact that they built the bloody thing in pretty much 12 months originally,” adds Gauntlett. “But you know, restoring is often a lot more time consuming than building. I think it just fits with the story so beautifully.”

It took some 6000 man-hours and over 18 months to bring the Bulldog back and now it is sitting on the flight deck of HMS Prince of Wales where normally an F-35 or two would be ready to take off. A Navy airbase at Yeovilton will be next on the Bulldog tour where testing will take place on its runway, before ultimately handing the car over to Aston Martin racer Darren Turner to finally attempt achieve the car’s mythical maximum speed.

“We all like a complete story,” says Gauntlett. “I love the idea of this neatly and tidily closing the book and for the engineers and people who were involved in this car like Keith Martin, to be vindicated for what they knew to be true, when their opportunity to show it was cruelly taken away due to circumstances.

“But I also I think it’s rather nice if we can not close the book on it because I think it’s got a life beyond us—a life of inspiring people and making kids drop their ice creams.”

The post The Bulldog, Aston’s flight of fancy, is back and aiming for 200 mph appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Nobody does historic restorations quite like Porsche. The storied German marque has warehouses full of era-defining machinery of both road- and track-going ilk. Among the racing legends, the Porsche 962 stands tall as one of Porsche’s all-time greats, with a competitive career spanning nearly a decade—the equivalent of a few lifetimes in race-car years. Porsche recently hauled one of its most famous 962s out of its warehouse and gave it a meticulous restoration that has us swooning like it’s the late ’80s.

This 962 C was piloted by Hans-Joachim Stuck, royalty even among Porsche’s illustrious pantheon of drivers. (The added consonant denotes this car’s conformity to Group C regulations, one of prototype racing’s greatest eras.) Stuck was reunited with the car upon completion of the restoration, and even got to turn some laps in the machine in front of a cadre of European journalists on hand for #17’s unveiling.

The 962 began life as the 956, an aluminum monocoque car (Porsche’s first of this construction method) designed to race in the World Sportscar Championship and IMSA’s GTP Championship. When IMSA regulations outlawed the 956 because the pedal box was ahead of the front axle, Porsche stretched the wheelbase 4.7 inches to place the axle centerline ahead of the pedal box assembly. Voila, the 962 was born. To keep the IMSA cars and the Group C cars separate (powertrain restrictions forced Porsche to run different turbocharging setups in each series), cars such as #17 were dubbed 962 C.

Stuck has a rich history with the 962. He drove one to victory in the ADAC Würth Supercup championship in 1986, then again in 1987, in the car pictured here. Shell came on board as a primary sponsor in early 1986, bringing with it the striking red-and-yellow livery that the car still wears today. Stuck and the 962 also hold the honor of being the first car/driver combo to test Porsche’s nascent PDK automatic transmission, an ancestor of the gearbox that now graces nearly every car in Porsche’s road-going lineup and is widely considered to be the best automatic design in existence.

The men responsible for the car’s restoration are Armin Burger and Traugott Brecht, of Porsche’s Historic Motorsport team. The two spent the better part of a year and a half reviving every part of the car, going as far as rebuilding long-gone parts of the car. “The cooperation with the other departments from Porsche was great,” says Burger. “We found almost everything we needed within a radius of just 30 meters.”

Burger and Brecht had help, of course. From the get-go, they brought in Norbert Singer, the 962’s designer and Stuck’s race engineer in-period, and Rob Powell, the car’s livery designer, to consult on the car’s restoration. This was—to no surprise—a smart move. Here’s Burger again: “When you hear the right people talking by the vehicle, everything immediately becomes clear. We learned an incredible amount from two witnesses who were right there when it all happened.” With the help of Singer and Powell, Burger and Brecht completely rebuilt the underbody, tweaked the layout of the radiators, and made a host of other bodywork adjustments that result in the car you see here.

The culmination of this group labor of love is a red-and-yellow nostalgia bomb that’s impressive even for Porsche, who has been known to haul out a few mic-drop cars every now and again. Better still: Porsche says this 962 C will hit the road for driving and appearance events aplenty, perfectly timed to coincide with Group C’s upcoming 40th anniversary in 2022.

Restorations are one of the best parts of the classic car hobby. When a force as powerful as Porsche throws its might behind a revival project—especially one as iconic as Hans Stuck’s Shell racing 962 C—the end result is just what we’d expect: Utterly fantastic.

The post After 35 years, Porsche’s factory-restored 962 C meets its original driver for a trackside reunion appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Tony writes:

I have a 1974 Pontiac Grand Ville convertible, with the 455. The power-window motors for both front windows need to be replaced. One is now stuck 4 inches from the top, the other one is really slow and the doors sag.

1. Can the hinges be adjusted to reposition the door or do I have to get new hinges?
2. How do I replace the window motors? The rear windows have a cover I can remove to replace the rear window motors, but the front ones don’t have this cover. There is a large hole in the door that I can reach in, but it’s really awkward. I can’t see what I am doing.

I’m not a gearhead, but I try to do as much work on the car myself. Basic things like fluid changes, tune ups, brakes, some part replacement I can do, but I have never had to work on the doors/windows until last summer.

Sajeev answers:

You can absolutely do this work yourself! Well, you probably need another set of hands for the door hinge repair, but that’s your call. And while a set of factory shop manuals is unnecessary for these tasks, this is a good time to mention their intrinsic value in classic car ownership.

With that in mind, let’s answer your questions:

1. Neither of your intended repairs likely apply here—instead you’ll replace the door-hinge bushings. These are sacrificial parts in all(?) door hinges that wear out over time. Dorman products makes a replacement kit, and a good video detailing the process is found here. If you undertake this and are not happy with the end result, the hinge can be loosened/realigned/tightened to the body either by yourself or a local body shop. But odds are that new bushings are all you need.
2. Power-window motors are somewhat easy to change, as three bolts attach the round “head” of the motor to the window regulator assembly. But GM often refuses to give easy access to the bolts, so you may want a smartphone-enabled endoscope to find the location of each bolt. This video (intended for G-body vehicles) suggests cutting holes in the door panel to access bolts you might not be able to reach. It has merit, as I ain’t too proud to admit I’ve done this before. (I used progressively larger drill bits and a rotary grinding tool to carve out a hole big enough for my socket wrench.)

One last point—I believe you are indeed a gearhead! You just need the motivation to leap from basic maintenance to full-on body and interior restoration. Finding local mechanics to undertake these labor-intensive (and less-profitable) tasks is often difficult, but they are something any skilled hobbyist can tackle themselves. All it takes is sourcing the right parts (and repair videos!) online, mapping out all the little steps that need to happen, and taking the plunge yourself.

Trust me, it’s worth your time to make this happen. Best of luck!

Have a question you’d like answered on Piston Slap? Send your queries to pistonslap@hagerty.com, give us as much detail as possible so we can help! If you need an expedited resolution, make a post on the Hagerty Community!

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Jack Weaver had been building custom cars for more than 20 years when he founded Acme Chop Shop in Grand Junction, Colorado, a decade ago. His business grew quickly, and he wanted to expand. But finding experienced help with the right blend of skills proved tough. “There wasn’t any well-rounded restoration help out there,” he says.

Weaver tried on-the-job training for a handful of people, but getting new hires up to speed took time, and business never slowed.

Instead of bemoaning the inexperienced help available or the general lack of knowledge around doing custom work, Weaver decided to do something about it. The result is Kustom Built Cars Educational Workshop.

“During the five-month course, we teach the full restoration process,” says Shelby Robison, the workshop’s lead organizer and first point of contact for students ages 18 to 24 looking to enroll. “From how to evaluate a project to the total disassembly of the car. Rust repair, metalwork, basic suspension, welding, painting, color sanding, engine work, and basic electrical—we prepare students for the real world of restoration, plus the day-to-day operations needed to run a successful hot-rod and custom car shop.”

After the inaugural class early in 2020, COVID-19 restrictions temporarily halted the program. Robison and Weaver used the time to turn Kustom Built Cars into a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. “This allows us to keep classes small—typically four or five students—apply for funding, and accept donations to help those who might not otherwise be able to afford to come here,” says Robison. Kustom Built Cars reopened to host its second class from February to July 2021 and offered scholarship money to a qualifying student.

By leveraging social media and name recognition built through a regular presence at SEMA, Barrett-Jackson, and other popular car shows, Weaver’s workshops attracted students from Oklahoma, California, Oregon, and beyond. The program provides students with B&B-style accommodations for the duration of their stay.

“The workshop was an absolute gateway into the world of restoration and the best five months I ever had in my life,” says 20-year-old Felipe Chavarria, a Washington native who took part in the 2020 workshop. For that project, Weaver chose a crumbling 1953 Chevy 3100 five-window pickup he found in a field.

Chavarria, who had never even picked up a wrench before the workshop, remembered thinking the job was impossible. “There was an actual pack rat living up in the steering column,” he says.

College studies never interested Chavarria, but cars did. “Every free moment, I watched videos about car history and car repair. I bought a newer five-speed Mustang, then a 1968 Mustang coupe that I wanted to restore—which is funny, because at the time, I was afraid to change the oil in a car.”

Over five months, Chavarria’s class worked under Weaver’s direction and watched their project slowly transform. They tackled every phase of the rebuild, including dropping in a supercharged 6.2-liter LS3 V-8, a new automatic transmission, and a four-link Camaro rear end. Along with Mustang II independent front suspension and four-wheel disc brakes, the class equipped the truck with an oak bed, chrome accents, a custom leather interior, Dolphin gauges, Vintage Air climate control, and a metallic Desert Sage Green paint job.

Chavarria had the honor of driving the truck onto the auction block at Barrett-Jackson this past March, where it sold for $99,000. More important, Chavarria returned to Washington with the confidence and skills necessary to begin working on his own car and—like everyone else in his class—land a job. “When I’m not working at Classic Car Addiction, a full-service restoration shop, I’m working on my Mustang. The goal now is to make the car my daily driver and to use what I learned at Kustom Built Cars to keep growing my skills. One day, maybe I’ll even have a shop of my own.”

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The proverbial “polished turd” is a pitfall into which many car enthusiasts eventually fall. Stories vary in severity, which is to say that some recently purchased rides arrive with an undisclosed patch of rust under the trunk carpet, while others are somehow more Bondo than metal. Even elite cars like Ferraris can hide surprises, and when we recently came across a particularly egregious example, it reminded us that the ugly truth is sometimes deeper than pretty paint.

The cars in question are two Ferrari 330s, in for repair at the great Tom Yang’s restoration shop in Hudson, New York. Yang runs his one-man outfit specializing in Ferraris, and he’s seen a lot throughout his years in that world. When a collector purchased a bright red over tan leather 2+2 back in July, he requested it be painted to match his late-model Ferrari. Tearing into the car to prep for the color change revealed some sour news.

Sadly, the poor thing was packed with body filler in some key areas. Yang was not surprised. “It happens all the time,” he told us after shutting off his welder to chat for minute. “There is rarely good news under paint. Rust-free cars exist and are out there, but we are looking at cars that are 50 to 60 years old. What car survives that long and hasn’t seen some damage, no matter how small?”

Not long after Yang got to work on the car, he began to suspect there was something going on underneath. The paint in the passenger door sill was not adhering properly, but even a good paint meter wouldn’t have been much help for the buyer ahead of time. “Paint meters can only do so much, and even if it says there is filler, or maxes out, that is only about 35-thousandths thick. So does that mean it is 1/8″ filler or 2″? There really isn’t a way to tell until the paint comes off.”

It’s all too easy to find these issues after the fact, and it happens all the time. We spoke with several different restorers, and the common factor whether at the high end of the market or the low end is that owners are cost-conscious. In reality, open-checkbook restorations or cost-no-object builds are extremely rare. Bodywork is one of those labor-intensive jobs that costs roughly the same whether you are working on a 1985 Chevrolet pickup or Pre-war Duesenberg, and no type of car or brand is immune to body filler.

So how does one avoid the inevitable? Yang shared with us expertise on how to dodge such body bullets:

Follow the paper trail

If the car was restored, find out who did it and pick up the phone. Any restoration shop will likely remember the car and the owner and has no reason to tell you anything but the truth about the work that was done.

Ask for restoration pictures

Request to see the metal work. Digital photography makes it easy for restorers to document the work of a job in progress. Most upstanding shops should be champing at the bit to show off the quality of their work; if that isn’t the case, find out why.

Take your time with inspection

No matter how you slice it, buying at auction is tough. Auctions rarely offer enough time to perform full due diligence, so the best advice is to use all the time you can. Hire a neutral party and get real expert eyes on the car. The cost of a pre-purchase inspection sounds off-putting until you are out five times that amount because the car was not what you expected or wanted.

“Too good to be true” exists

This one speaks for itself. Don’t be so distracted by the thought of something that you gloss over the reality. A 60-year old car is just that, which means it’s likely to have 60-year-old-car problems.

Any vintage car can end up a can of worms if not properly cared for, which means it is up to us as enthusiasts to collectively hold ourselves to a higher standard and help keep our beloved vehicles on the road for many generations. Shoddy bodywork glazed over with shiny paint is not the best way to preserve items we are so lovingly trying to keep alive. This Ferrari 330GT will be a lot more polish than turd when Yang is done with it, and though not everyone is a professional, proper care should be everyone’s goal.

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You don’t imagine for a moment that there might be disappointment when visiting a Bugatti specialist, but there’s a first for everything. It had been hoped that our visit would coincide with the firing up of the monstrous Bugatti Diatto Avio 8C but, unfortunately, during a trial run the day before a slight oil weep was spotted and Charles Knill-Jones quite sensibly would like to make further investigations before he and his team fire up the mighty 14.5-liter, eight-cylinder aero engine again. No matter, for there is plenty else to see inside the pristine workshops of Tula Precision, Bugatti specialists of world renown.

It didn’t start out that way and it wasn’t in the brief, but our Hard Craft series seems to have by chance turned into a celebration of youth in engineering. Our first subject, O’Rourke Coachtrimmers, is headed up by its eponymous owner who is yet to see his half century.

The Hard Craft series, including this installment, originally hails from Hagerty U.K., which you can visit here. It’s been expatriated to our site for your viewing pleasure. Do indulge Mr. Goodwin his native vocabulary. 

By coincidence the proprietor of Tula Precision is himself a tender 48 years old. Before Knill-Jones tells us the history of his company and how at the young age of 25 he came to own it, he hands Louis McNair a box of gears. McNair is only 23 and looks it. Knill-Jones casually gives a short explanation of the work that needs to be done: Bevel this, ream that, make this pin, and other instructions that mean little to this layman. Although McNair is young, he hails from New Zealand, a country well known for its history of producing fine engineers and with it a spirit of mend and repair. Anyone who has seen the film The World’s Fastest Indian will already know this. By the time McNair was 21 he’d already built a microlight aircraft and restored a sports racing car that’s powered by a two-stroke Evinrude outboard motor.

Charles Knill-Jones was drawing bicycles and cars as soon as he could hold a pencil. “My mum said that I drove out of her womb,” he says. An alarming image, but petrol and engineering are clearly in the genes. “My grandfather was friends with Malcolm Campbell and although my dad ran the family printing company he owned a 12/50 Alvis.”

More importantly, Knill-Jones Senior was fully supportive of his son’s karting hobby. “He let me race karts from the age of 8,” explains Knill-Jones, “racing against guys like David Couthard. When I was 13 Dad asked me if I wanted to do a proper season of karting, funded as well as we could have afforded. I thought about it but instead I chose to go to boarding school so that I could be with my friends who were going.” Motor racing’s loss was academia’s gain as post school Knill-Jones studied material science and technology at Brunel University in Uxbridge, West London.

“I chose this course because I thought it would be the best way into Formula 1. It was a fascinating course and during it a team of us won the Ford Prize for technical innovation. We were among the first people to do 3D printing using engineering ceramics. We sold a patent to NASA for it. It was an interesting time but it made me realize that it was as near to theoretical work as I wanted to get. I also realized that Formula 1 would be very restricted. I wanted to be involved in a more hands-on world.”

That goal was achieved when Charles answered an advertisement in Autosport magazine for a young engineer to join Nick Mason’s Ten Tenths establishment to look after the Pink Floyd drummer’s comprehensive car collection.

“I started with Nick in 1996,” says Knill-Jones, “and within six months was sent to Tula Engineering in Cirencester to rebuild a Bugatti Type 35 that was being made for Nick’s wife Annette to race.”

Tula Engineering was founded by a chap called Richard I’Anson and one of his friends in 1969 to supply the burgeoning kit car industry with parts and services. Fate decreed, however, that the company would become one of the go-to specialists for Bugatti enthusiasts. “In 1998 Richard wanted to retire and asked me if I would take over running Tula,” says Knill-Jones. “Trouble was I really liked working at Ten Tenths. It was Nick Mason who came up with the solution: He suggested that I run the company out of the Ten Tenths premises and worked on Bugattis alongside Nick’s cars. It turned out to be the perfect plan. One of the greatest pleasures was taking Nick’s cars to various events around the U.K. and in Europe and the amazing characters that I met in historic racing. The sort of people that I would never have come across in F1.”

When you consider the hours involved in restoring the various different types of Bugatti, and Tula’s reputation, it should come as little surprise the company has about two years’ of work stretching out ahead of it. It handles minor jobs, ongoing care, motor sports preparation and complete, ground-up restorations, and as well as the U.K., clients come from France, Germany, and America.

To restore a Grand Prix Bugatti is, says Knill-Jones, around 2000 hours of work. A Type 59 takes that up to around 3000 hours—roughly the same as a touring type model—while a “Pebble Beach standard restoration can involve as much as 4000 hours of toiling.

“We like nothing more than getting our teeth into a full restoration,” he reports, “as the connection between and the car becomes so much deeper.”

Charles Knill-Jones made the move to this new premises in Northleach in 2019, taking on a building that used to be a sawmill. The attention to detail in converting it into a workshop—the high security doors themselves are a work of art in wood and galvanized metal—reflect the level of craftsmanship that you’ll find behind them.

The Bugatti Diatto Avio 8C is a thing of majestic beauty that, as well as being a formidable machine in itself, has a fascinating history. “Bugatti developed the engine for Italian engineering company Diatto who on September 23, 1916, sent Ettore Bugatti a telegram announcing that the engine had successfully run non-stop on a dynamometer for 50 hours and by the end was producing 210 horsepower. This engine is widely regarded as the basis for the Bugatti Royale’s eight-cylinder engine.”

Found in a museum in Turin decades ago, the Bugatti-designed Diatto Avio 8C passed through several hands before the current owner commissioned Tula to bring it to life a century after its birth. It is a wondrous machine but for sheer beauty you cannot beat the Bugatti Type 59 that sits in the workshop a few paces from the Diatto. “This car is actually a replica that was built years ago by Tula,” points out Charles, “the Type 59 and the Brescias are without question my favorite Bugattis. The Brescia was a really amazing machine and was the forefather of the performance sports car. I used to have one but sold it to buy a house!”

You need an expert on hand to fully appreciate the details and the engineering highlights on the Type 59. To not have a guide as knowledgeable as Knill-Jones to explain them would be like visiting the Valley of the Kings without a guide. He’s busy building a Bugatti engine upstairs but the man for the job should really be Michael Whiting. Whiting has been at Tula for 50 years, almost from the beginning. He retires in September and with him will go an immense amount of knowledge and experience. It was he who built the Type 59 that we’re looking at.

The Type 59 is the most gorgeous thing. Even if prewar racing cars are not your bag, anyone who has a passion for mechanical things cannot fail to fall in love with this machine. Not only is it a stunning looking machine, the detailing is incredible—from the hand-scraped hatched pattern on the cambox (it takes two weeks work to do that, explains Charles) to the gear-driven carburetor linkage. “Isn’t it wonderful?” asks Knill-Jones. “And look at the brake adjusting mechanism. Not only do the intricate chains and gears allow for brake wear front to rear, but also side to side. The attention to detail is simply stunning.”

You’ll remember from all our visits to specialists that a crucial part of their businesses is collecting and preserving archive material. Not just important for the company itself, but for the future of that particular marque or detail. It is the same at Tula Precision. Filing cabinets contain priceless drawings of parts; shelves contain patterns from which extinct components can be remade.

But it’s the people at Tula Precision who, along with a handful of other specialists around the world, will ensure that Bugatti enthusiasts present and in the future have the technical (and moral) support that their incredible machines deserve. It’s a small team at Tula but each fulfills a crucial role. Trisha Davis is the parts controller and in a previous life ran the Bugatti Owners’ Club parts department. Her knowledge is invaluable. Ray Nash has been manning the lathes and milling machines at Tula since the 1980s. Louis McNair we’ve already met, but with him in the workshop is another youngster called Callum Frost. Frost came from Crosthwaite & Gardiner. Another of our past subjects.

Staff will come and go—that is life—but there’s no doubt that the beauty and stunning technical detail of Bugattis will entrance new generations of engineers and craftsmen. Youngsters who would perhaps rather set up the supercharger and carburetors on a Bugatti Type 59 than develop the software for the infotainment system on an electric Bentley. One thing’s for sure, Charles Knill-Jones will never be far from his tool chest and his beloved Bugattis.

Via Hagerty UK

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If you could buy stock in budget Ferraris, now would be the time to do it. In my last column, I mentioned my newly purchased 1975 Dino 308 GT4 and wondered whether you’d like to read more about my amateur efforts to get this $25,000 prize back on the road. Perhaps Ferraris (the 308 GT4 was produced by Ferrari under the Dino sub-brand) are a turnoff to car people who generally favor Chevelles, Camaros, Challengers, and Mustangs?

On the contrary, you told me. Your response was fantastic, some 200 emails and counting, all of them affirming your interest in hearing more about the process of getting this old Italian back on the road. Thank you for reading, for writing, and for your enthusiasm. This outcome surprised me.

I routinely ask for your feedback to make sure Hagerty is always a welcome home, an escape from digital overload. When it came to the Ferrari, I half expected a tepid response. After all, the Ferrari brand is complicated. The cars are often brilliant and the history is juicy, but Ferraris are better known to the general public as status symbols, midlife-crisis machines. Sure, that’s not fair to the cars, but let’s be honest with ourselves and admit that what a car says about us is important.

Plus I’m aware that few of you own Ferraris, and car people tend to focus on their own particular brands. I’ve been wondering, though, if there’s a trend toward greater openness in the car enthusiast community. My Dino emails are just one data set, but don’t you agree that we’re all more accepting of other marques than we used to be?

Drivers Club member Devon Smith summed up the point perfectly. “Man, you speak the truth,” he wrote, “about folks picking a brand or model and sticking to it.” Smith is currently driving his fifth Corvette and apologized that he is no help with the Ferrari. That said, he also mentioned that he’s a gearhead and interested in more than Vettes. “Your project sounds cool,” he continued, “and we need pics, too. A lane switch is a good thing.” Amen to that.

So, I will gladly share restoration stories about my Dino, which suffers all the problems you’d expect in a car that has been lying dormant for 20-odd years. However, I’m operating at a snail’s pace right now. Usually, I put a strict timeline on my project cars because I can’t handle the shame of having them turn into garage storage units (we’ve all seen this). I want to do the Dino without the time pressure so I can enjoy the process. I’ve promised myself that I’ll get it on the road before it becomes a subject for our Barn Find Hunter video series.

Another complication is my 12-year-old son, who’s racing quarter midgets at a local oval track. I’m crew chief, which is unfortunate for him because these pint-size oval racers demand an experienced hand to adjust the chassis for speed. There are at least a dozen interconnected variables like cross weight, spring rate, stagger, and so on. The machine is a wheeled Rubik’s Cube to me and it’s soaking up every minute of garage time, so the Ferrari is on ice for the summer.

Please keep your feedback coming—you can comment here, or my email is lwebster@hagerty.com. We’re here for you, and we always want to know how we can make this magazine the best thing that lands in your mailbox or on your screen.

The post $25K Project Dino: A lane switch is a good thing appeared first on Hagerty Media.

I was 17 in 1980, riding shotgun in my buddy’s ’75 Trans Am, when this green Trans Am pulled up to the light beside us. The guy told me it was a factory color, then the light changed, and off he went. Over the next few years, I saw the car around town, and each time I gave the guy my number, if he ever wanted to sell it.

By 1999, my wife and I had just opened a business, bought a new house, and started our little family. Money was not something we had, but one day, I came across an ad that said “1973 Trans Am, needs work, $2000.” I called, and all I asked about was the color; when the seller said green, I went straight to the bank and withdrew nearly everything we had. After reminding him I was the guy who gave him my number a hundred times, I picked up the T/A for $1200, with the promise I would restore it one day.

It was all there but was rusty and needed a lot, so the Trans Am sat in my garage for a few years. My neighbor happened to be a body man and said he could bring the car back to life if I were willing to help. It took us a year to restore the shell. Then it sat for another 15 years.

When I turned 55, I knew I needed to have the Trans Am back on the road, so I found a shop to work with. During the two-year rotisserie restoration, we discovered that only a few Brewster Green Trans Ams made it to Canada in 1973, so mine’s a real needle in a haystack. I debuted it in February 2020 at the World of Wheels in Calgary, but I wasn’t able to drive it much. This summer, however, I cannot wait to get it on the road.

The post The 1973 Pontiac Trans Am I first saw at 17 is mine and ready to finally hit the road appeared first on Hagerty Media.

From the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, take Crawfordsville Road northwest for 12 miles, and you’ll come to Brownsburg, population 27,000. The town is home to many of the nation’s greatest race teams, and in one network of gray offices and subtly labeled shop spaces lie the headquarters for the most recent Indy 500–winning team (Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing), the Rolex 24 victors (Wayne Taylor Racing), and the NHRA Funny Car champs (Don Schumacher Racing). Tucked into this high-profile racing neighborhood, you’ll also find Rick Duman’s Turn Four Restorations.

The two-story shop currently houses 31 cars, and some, in two-story stacks, tickle the rafters. For a man who’s been hunched over the engine bays of race cars for more than five decades, Duman is light-footed as he moves about the place. He’s intimately familiar with each car in his possession: a prewar Miller, a 1960 Epperly roadster, a 1972 Gurney Eagle driven by Bobby Unser, Eddie Cheever’s Dallara, multiple McLarens—far too many open-wheel heroes to list, in various states of assembly or disassembly. Despite the large footprint and vast collection, Turn Four is remarkably tidy, with mise en place on stainless-steel workbenches under surgical white lights. Framed, faded photographs of Victory Lane celebrations adorn the pale white walls and hint at the lifetime Duman has spent in this world both racing and wrenching.

Duman grew up in the shadows of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Behind his childhood home at 25th and Georgetown, his father, Indy racer Ronnie Duman, built race cars out of his own shop. As a 15-year-old, Rick used to sneak into the track’s garages to help anyone willing to adopt an underage volunteer. “I would go in and clean, sweep floors, and polish cars,” says Duman. “I kept USAC tech happy, too.” Back then, officials were allowed to drink at the Speedway, but only after practices concluded. Every afternoon during those May practices, however, certain officials would find a spot obscured by the large wooden garage doors and Duman would slip them beers. In the ’60s, a young Duman tugged on the shirt cuffs of Indy’s giants. “Troy Ruttman gave me my first minibike,” he says, casually, like it was no big deal that the youngest winner of the Indy 500 remembered his birthday.

In 1968, Ronnie was killed in a crash at the Milwaukee Mile. Still, Rick decided to give racing a shot in the ’70s. It was a grind, and tough on the pocketbook. The young driver made a series of legitimate attempts at the grassroots level, but at the cost of his basic needs. “I was sitting in a house, 55 degrees, with my coat on, and I wasn’t really going anywhere, so I went back to work on race cars.”

Duman bounced from car to car, spinning wrenches for multiple mom-and-pop Indy teams, many of which built cars in Indy garages that they rented all year. “I worked for all of them, except Penske and Newman/Haas,” he says. “Back then, you could go to the Speedway and help anybody.” In 1992, he won CART’s esteemed George Bignotti Preparation Award, and in 2001, he became the lead mechanic for Chip Ganassi Racing.

Duman’s restoration career took hold when a couple of prolific race car collectors reached out to the accomplished mechanic with questions about vintage Indy cars. “I answered the phone and told the truth,” he says. Before long, the group agreed to a partnership, and Duman’s Turn Four Restorations was born.

It was Duman’s five decades of experience and familiarity that separated him from the numerous shops willing to bolt together old Indy relics for paying customers. “We worked on this stuff when it was new,” he says. In fact, many of the open-wheelers parked in Duman’s shop are old acquaintances, having spent time in his care when they roared around the 2.5-mile oval in anger. “Plus,” he adds, “we’re just damn good.” It’s the attention to detail, he argues. “The cars look better than they did back then. [A.J.] Watson never polished the tubs,” Duman says, motioning to a reflective monocoque, buffed within an inch of its life, leaning up against the back wall. “We do.”

Turn Four operates with only two full-time employees on staff. Next to Duman, Tim Whiting spends the most time in the shop. Whiting recently ran the IndyCar circuit, crewing on various teams as they trucked from shore to shore. Giving up a life on the road, Whiting traded suitcases for Supertanium and began working on vintage race cars, many much older than he. During my visit, Whiting stripped the brakes from a 1960 Lindsey Hopkins–owned Epperly open-wheeler. The sleek blue roadster, impossibly low slung (thanks to the Offenhauser four-cylinder mounted on its side), is a new addition.

“All of these cars are special,” Duman says, “but the Coyote, that was pretty much a basket case when we found it.” His crew finished restoration on A.J. Foyt’s Indy 500–winning Coyote back in 2018 and had it ripping around vintage exhibitions across the Midwest. Since its completion, the car regularly rolls back through the large bay door at Turn Four for service. Unlike the practice at many restoration shops, once a Duman project is finished, it is not cast out, never to be seen again. Instead, many of Turn Four’s restorations are year-round installations.

But don’t confuse Turn Four for some high-dollar toy box. New projects come and go with the same frequency as the repeat offenders. The morning after my visit, Duman trucked to Illinois to pick up a McLaren M24. A day later, he drove down to Louisiana to drag back another Gurney Eagle. Past the Speedway, up Crawfordsville Road, into Turn Four, where there’s work to be done.

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By now it should be obvious that there is immense interest and demand for individualized, highly modified Porsche 911s, with examples in some cases selling for millions of dollars. What if you could theoretically get that same level of customization for your classic Porsche, or even for your brand-new one, albeit with the factory’s direct blessing? Broadening the scope of its Exclusive Manufaktur, Classic parts and restoration, and Tequipment performance services, Porsche’s expanded customization services even allow for “Factory One-Off” vehicles for the ultimate in personalization.

“It is our goal to provide customers around the globe with even more accurately tailored and demand-based products within the context of classic, existing, and new cars, and to also offer a comprehensive range of individualization options,” says Individualization and Classic Vice President Alexander Fabig. “Starting with new possibilities for individualization and personalization of individual components, through the additional range of Performance Parts, up to realization of uniquely individualized sports cars, we have the right option for every customer.”

The combination of these capabilities, according to Porsche, amounts to a modern interpretation of the brand’s Sonderwunsch (Special Wishes) program that kicked off in 1978. Sonderwunsch was the brainchild of Rolf Sprenger, a Porsche engineer who recognized the need and value in offering special services for clients who wanted something a little extra. If you wanted a different bumper, a little compartment for cassettes, a wooden dashboard, or a special boost dial for controlling boost in your Turbo, Sprenger made it happen. What started with engine, chassis, body, and interior upgrades morphed into a whole catalog of possibilities that served as the predecessor to today’s Exclusive program.

While Porsche already offers more than 700 Exclusive Manufaktur options, they will now be visible in the online Car Configurator. Joining that roster will be special touches such as custom exterior wraps, floor mat designs, logos projected from the doors, and individual serial numbers. “Factory Commissioning” of specific colors, fabrics, materials, or other components will be implemented at the sports car production center in Zuffenhausen. Also on the horizon is a line of Performance Parts, available on new models as well as “used and classic vehicles”—ostensibly everything from recent Caymans and 911s all the way to early 356s and the like. GT models will have their own set of performance parts from Porsche Tequipment.

Don’t count out the SUVs, either. Porsche Classic is highlighting its customization potential with two off-road-themed show cars based on first-gen Cayennes. Leaning on a mix of “Safari” aesthetic and real-deal rally racing heritage, Porsche is clearly recognizing enthusiasts of different stripes who might well have a creative vision in mind.

In addition to the existing parts program and Factory Restoration services in both Stuttgart and Atlanta, the more involved “Factory Recommission” program that was previously exclusive to Carrera GT owners will now be expanded. The extent of such work is visible in the recommissioned Carrera GT that debuted in 2018, a car that was fully disassembled and completed with an Oak Green Metallic paint finish, silver-rimmed and gold-plated wheels, fully restored carbon fiber components, and an all-new interior. The idea for this project came from the owner of a 2005 Carrera GT who essentially wished he could buy a new example tailored to his precise taste.

Porsche says it hopes to put the customer at the center of this personalization program, offering interviews with designers and experts from different departments to bring a vision into reality. “The customer becomes part of a project team consisting of experts from the Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur, Porsche Classic, and the Style Porsche design department,” says Fabig. “The customer experiences the development of their idea close up from the perspective of a project manager—from the first design sketch and the technical feasibility check through to construction of the highly individual sports car.”

If you have the resources, it’s a compelling way to realize the new or vintage car of your dreams. (Like, say, a brand-new 993 painted gold and cranked up to 450 hp.) The ultimate tier of Porsche’s combined powers is the Factory One-Off: a “systematic technical new development.” Theoretically, Porsche will do anything the customer asks, concerning a new or old car, provided it is technically feasible to the company’s standards, safe, and legal.

Naturally, just because it’s possible doesn’t mean it’s affordable. Just the planning and interview process can cost six figures before the project is even green-lit. Bespoke whale tail painted chartreuse? Your signature inscribed into the wooden shifter? Modern 4.0-liter flat-six dropped into a 914 with straight pipes and a Joplin-like paint job? Let your imagination fill in the blank check.

Ferrari has been doing this sort of one-off creation work since 2008—see rocker Eric Clapton’s unique SP12 EC built as a tribute to the 512BB. And, of course, the practice of custom coachbuilding goes back many decades. Nonetheless, this holistic, comprehensive approach to different levels of restoration and customization for both vintage and production-line-fresh vehicles is very much new territory for Porsche. Clearly the suits in Stuttgart see the business case for it, but whether specific cars will hold their value or carry a major premium will likely depend on the specific vehicle and whether it’s appealing to people other than the one who ordered it. As our data dive into Porsche colors showed, yellow and orange Porsches bring big premiums while green goes for a lot less despite being a rare hue. As always, money doesn’t buy taste, but with the new Sonderwunsch upon us, enough of it will buy your taste.

The post Porsche expands Exclusive and Classic programs, adds “One-Off” individualization for cars old and new appeared first on Hagerty Media.

There is a lot of change in the collector car market these days. New buying and selling platforms are cropping up. Younger enthusiasts are entering the market and paying big money for cars and trucks built in recent decades. In all this excitement it’s easy to forget about old and slow English sports cars.

That’d be a mistake, says David Silberkleit, aka the Bugeyeguy. “2020 was the best year in our history. Everything here has accelerated and expanded,” he said.

Silberkleit’s main shop is a neatly restored 1950s Quonset hut in Branford, Connecticut, located a few miles east of New Haven on Long Island Sound. He’s fluent in MG and Mini, but most of the cars coming in and out of the Quonset hut are Mk I Austin-Healey Sprites, commonly called “Bugeye.” He currently has 15 Sprites in the queue for restoration work and is booked out for three months on other jobs. The parts side of the business has grown dramatically over the past year, and earlier in 2021 Silberkleit sold his 300th Bugeye. “We hardly had time to celebrate! We sold the 301st a few days later,” he says. As of this writing, they’re on 307.

Impressive stuff for a business whose focus is so narrow, at least at first glance. The Bugeye only lasted from 1958–61 and, more often than not, was driven hard and put away wet. The short version of the Sprite story starts in the late 1950s, when the Brits were already selling as many two-seaters to sports car-hungry Americans as they could screw together. But Donald Healey saw another opening in the market. There were plenty of young enthusiasts itching for a nimble roadster who didn’t quite have the cash for something like a Porsche or even the Austin-Healey 100. Enter the Sprite, which for just $1795 bought you no windows, no outside door handles, no trunk lid, and modest performance, but a ton of driving fun. Its headlights, originally intended to be retractable, were left fixed in the up position rather awkwardly (but adorably) on top of the hood to save costs, earning it the nickname Bugeye (or “Frogeye” back in the UK).

The Sprite was a hit, filling countless grids at amateur sports car races and allowing racers and young gearheads to cut their teeth fixing a car on a budget. Nearly 49,000 were sold. After 1961 the Sprite got a more conventional shape and bigger, more powerful engines until being discontinued after 1969. It also spawned an MG version called the Midget (all Sprites/Midgets were built at the MG factory in Abingdon) that lasted until 1979. None of them, though, captured the spirit of the original. Used Bugeyes became entry-level cars for subsequent generations of sports car fans, who could often pick one up for a few hundred bucks. Today Bugeyes are worth thousands more than their “square body” descendants, not to mention bigger, more powerful MGBs. They’ve also held their value even as some older classics fade.

The Bugeyeguy himself remains infatuated with the humble roadster. “It is probably the greatest cult car with the greatest personality and the biggest smile. It’s a car with absolutely no pretensions, so it’s the opposite of something like a 911, and it has so much character. It elicits all kinds of responses from all kinds of people, from small kids to old racers. You just don’t get that with most cars.”

Silberkleit bought his first Bugeye for $1100 in 1978, when he was in high school. Despite life’s curveballs and other cars coming and going, he never got rid of it. “There were other phases in my life where I’ve had to pare down, ramp up, have a house, sell the house, etc., but my Bugeye survived it all.” He didn’t truly become the “Bugeyeguy,” however, until 2007. In the mid-2000s he was running an executive coaching practice, advising people to follow their passions in their entrepreneurial work. In part to provide an example for his clients and in part to indulge in his love for the smiley-faced two-seater, he ran a webpage and updated it regularly with articles, pictures, and other content he had amassed over the years as a Bugeye enthusiast.

Then the messages started coming in, not from budding entrepreneurs but from other Bugeye fans. “Because I had all this content, and especially back then when the internet was in its earlier days, I had this number one rating on Google. And then people just started contacting me about Bugeyes.” Silberkleit decided to follow his own advice, and pursue a passion-based career. “I was willing to take a flyer and see if we could make a business dedicated to just this one little car.”

One little car that appeals to many different buyers. “They can wear many different kinds of hats,” said Silberkleit. While the average buyer is a man in his late 60s who wants a sorted Bugeye that’s as headache-free as possible (“There’s no such thing as the perfect car. They do break”), Silberkleit also regularly sells cars to women and to younger car guys on a budget. Data from Hagerty’s insurance quotes shows similar diversity: Although Baby Boomers are the most common buyers, nearly a third of the people calling us about Bugeyes are Gen-Xers, 10 percent are millennials, and 3 percent are from Gen Z.

Silberkleit sells driver-quality cars, concours-quality show cars, high-dollar custom builds with superchargers and upgraded interiors, and cars with lengthened chassis for older clients to make getting in and out easier. Bugeyeguy has even done two electric conversions to Bugeyes and is working on a third with Tesla power.

Silberkleit has also been able to adapt the business. He credits much of his spike in last year to his large internet presence. In addition to the main website and usual social media channels (we got connected to Silberkleit through Instagram), he has been posting YouTube videos for years that highlight cars for sale or the shop’s restoration work. There are currently over 800 such videos on Bugeyeguy’s channel. And because of the website’s high search ranking after so many years of posting content, “if someone is Googling and looking to find out more about Bugeyes, they will almost always come across us.”

Despite custom builds that can run up to $60,000 (nearly twice our current condition #1, or “concours” value in the Hagerty Price Guide), he maintains his perspective on the Sprite’s humble origins. “You wouldn’t cut up a 246 Dino like this because it’s too precious and the value of a car like that is in its accuracy. But a Bugeye is just a Bugeye. You don’t have to take it so seriously. A lot of these restomod-type cars and re-imaginings like Singer Porsches are becoming really popular these days, and the Bugeye is very viable for that because it was never so literal.” Silberkleit also gives the Sprite’s chassis, which was relatively advanced for the late 1950s, plenty of credit. “More than so many of these old body-on-frame British cars, the unibody structure of a Bugeye is an exceptional asset since they’re so tight and nimble. Even a rusty one can drive really well if you work out the kinks.”

Over nearly a decade and a half the Bugeyeguy shop has grown to seven employees, including two 25-year-old McPherson College grads, and the business is growing even more to meet pandemic-induced demand. “There were people who had a Bugeye on the bucket list saying ‘You know what, I’m done waiting. I’m not going to be around forever.’ I’ve had a lot of those types of phone calls.”

Bugeyeguy’s biggest challenges these days are in finding quality parts and high-quality help. The custom builds are becoming more and more popular, and although he sees a bright future in the electric conversions, he’s been too busy with the standard cars to develop them as much as he would like. That said, his next Bugeye EV is going to a client who already has two other Bugeyes—one completely factory-correct car and another supercharged hot-rodded Bugeye. “Does this guy really need three?” asks Silberkleit. “Well, if you think about it, they’re three different cars for three different occasions. And I think he’s a great summary of how versatile these cars are.”

“Versatile,” “charming,” “fun,” “personality.” These are all ingredients of cars that stay at the top of enthusiasts’ wish lists decades after they go out of production. It’s why a smart business like Bugeyeguy can thrive even as tastes change and the market shifts. People will be driving Bugeyes for years to come, and they (both car and driver) will have a big grin on their face the whole time. A lot of those Bugeyes will come out of a Quonset hut in Connecticut. “A lot of people have had a second childhood from these cars,” Silberkleit says. Who wouldn’t enjoy a second childhood?

This story originally appeared on Hagerty Insider.

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Abrasive media blasting is the preferred method for preparing a surface for a complete restoration. But what if your vehicle has survived all this time with its original paint intact, and it’s got decades of grease, grime, undercoating and surface rust to contend with? You’d want to preserve as much of the original surface as possible, so anything abrasive wouldn’t do. Chemical stripping is effective, but it can be caustic, messy, and could have environmental impacts you wouldn’t want to get into.

Dry Ice Cleaning is a process that uses dry ice pellets propelled by compressed air to attack surface contaminants like rust, old undercoating, and flaky paint, but is harmless to painted surfaces. Dave Pickard owns ACT Dry Ice Services in Harleysville, Pennsylvania, and since 1998, he’s been using this unique technology as an environmentally safe, effective cleaning alternative.

“The technology was originally developed by Lockheed-Martin,” Pickard told us in a phone interview. Rounds of chemical stripping could eventually deform and degrade the aluminum skin on an aircraft and media blasting was out of the question, so Lockheed-Martin experimented with different blasting media, eventually arriving on dry ice, the solid form of carbon dioxide, which sublimates at a super-cold -109.2°F. Lockheed-Martin won a patent for the invention in 1977, but quickly realized it wasn’t effective at removing paint.  “What Lockheed-Martin figured out was that this process was terrible at removing paint, but it was great at removing everything else without damaging the paint. Well-bonded material will not come off. Only paint that has been poorly applied or actively flaking off is removed.”

The engineering giant’s trash was someone else’s treasure, and Lockheed and eventually sold the technology to a company called Alpheus, which went on to produce dry ice cleaning equipment. Dave Pickard’s father was the Northeast sales representative for Alpheus, and as he made his sales pitch to various companies, he learned that there was more call for dry ice cleaning as a service than there was for the equipment. With the investment in the equipment already done, there was still a living to be made, and the business pivoted its strategy with Dave in the driver’s seat. “I’d been waiting tables, and my parents had enough of that lifestyle,” Dave laughs. “I initially did a few jobs in 1996, but by 1998 I really started the business.”

In those early days, Dave’s biggest customer was a manufacturer of printing presses. “They’d repossess printing equipment, and by cleaning it with dry ice, they could add 20 percent to the resale price,” he says. As the printing business subsided, Dave transitioned to commercial applications like mold and fire remediation, using dry ice to removes soot and smoke damage without harming the underlying structure. Applications for auto restoration are ramping up, too.

The blasting machines are now produced by Cold Jet, the company that acquired Alpheus in 2003. The equipment is deceptively simple. Dave uses a 185-CFM compressor, and the hopper is stainless steel. Modern versions of the equipment only weigh about 120 pounds, versus the 400-pound versions he worked with in the late 1990s. The dry ice media comes in insulated containers with casters. With the media loaded in the hopper, he cleans the surface with the meticulous eye of a fine art restorer.

Along with the gentle treatment of the substrate, there are other significant benefits. “There’s nothing left behind other than the dust and dirt the process removes,” he says. As it cleans, the dry ice sublimates and disappears, leaving no sand or liquid behind to clean up. Safety equipment is the normal PPE worn when media blasting, with an emphasis on eye, ear, and breathing protection.

For vintage car owners that want to preserve undercarriages and engine bays without removing the paint, which may be original, it’s a relatively quick process. “I can typically do what I need to on a car in four to six hours,” he says. His rate for dry ice cleaning is $275 per hour, and working with the car on a lift is a requirement. “I recently did a 1957 Chevrolet truck with a NAPCO 4×4 conversion. Dry ice cleaning is a game of angles, and while it had plenty of ground clearance to move around, not having a lift really made changing those angles difficult,” he says.

Dry ice cleaning’s usefulness goes well beyond undercarriages, too. The process can be dialed back to for more precise cleaning of everything from instrumentation, electronics, taillight assemblies, carburetors, emblems, and electrical components.

Of course, this approach isn’t the best application for every situation. There are ways to avoid the expense of dry ice blasting, but they typically require days under a car with a scraper and chemicals, and then there’s the mess to contend with. And if your project requires removing paint, for example, media blasting is probably the best choice.

Dave gets a lot of automotive conservation work locally because his base of operations is roughly an hour outside of Philadelphia, in prime classic car country. He does work for Ragtops & Roadsters in nearby Perkasie, which specializes in British drop-tops, as well as its sister restoration shop, Pollock Auto Restoration in Pottstown, which handles just about everything else. He’s also doing a lot of work for Mustang Barn American Classic Restoration in his hometown of Harleysville.

There are other shops around the country that also specialize in automotive conservation—companies like Yeti Restoration in Ohio, Cryo Werks in San Diego, California, and Cryo Detail in Coral Springs, Florida, have all been successful with the process.

Cars and trucks that retain as much of their originality as possible sell at a premium today. While restored cars will always make up a huge percentage of the classic vehicle hobby, there’s a subset of hobbyists that are passionate about preserving what was applied at the factory, or by hand. Dave is a big classic car fan himself, owner of both a 1910 Packard Touring Car (one of 52 built, and the last surviving example) and a 1966 Triumph Herald. As he says, “Conservation is the new restoration.”

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Ever discover a show you like and realize there are three seasons available to binge on Netflix? If you’re not familiar with Tom Perazzo’s 1974 Porsche 911, then you might want to grab some popcorn and settle in for a watch session. Perazzo has chronicled the build of his 1974 911 on YouTube in more than 150 videos, and he’s nearly done. If you’ve got some time to kill and want to be inspired by some serious dedication and craftsmanship, give his channel a watch.

We first learned about Tom’s project back in 2018, when the 911 was just getting underway. We introduced our readers to the build and would check in every few months to see the progress. Tom recently got in touch to let us know that the car was road-worthy, so we met him in Los Angeles for a quick look at the car. It was nothing like the pile of panels he started with three years ago.

The car began as a $4000 shell, and Perazzo went to great lengths to not only restore but improve upon the car, all while sticking to a modest budget. Knowing that the stripped shell of the car would never be original again, he felt free to make some creative changes along the way, taking his time to scrounge for used, aftermarket, and cast-off parts to build a fun weekend car for much less than it would cost to source a complete, ready-to-drive 911.

The list of modifications is long, but the basics are that Perazzo backdated his 1974 911 to look like a 1973 RS. The front end now wears a long hood so it resembles a 1973 model with cleaner bumpers. The rear fenders received the flares from an RS, and he stiffened the chassis considerably. In the rear, dimple-die reinforced braces are ready for coilovers and the rear suspension mounting points have been relocated. The evidence for all of these tweaks is plain to see, as there’s no rear seat to cover the work. In the front, reinforcements for an upcoming X-brace are visible, along with the hundred or so inch-long stitch welds that make the front of the car much more solid. Of course, there’s also the roll cage that gives Perazzo a harness bar. It features a removable door bar that will offer up even more rigidity.

Perazzo’s car was made from a hodgepodge of different donor 911s, and their origin was kept an open secret by leaving a circle of each panel’s original color intact. Each of those circles is in an inconspicuous place: in the door jamb, on the inside of each door where it will eventually be covered with upholstery, and on the underside of the hood and decklid.

The vast majority of the work was done by Perazzo himself in his home garage on evenings and weekends. One of the few tasks he didn’t complete himself was the application of the Bahama Yellow paint. He was a little rusty with a spray gun, having been years since he last painted a car, so he wasn’t totally familiar with the newest paint products. “I definitely kept learning,” Perazzo said, as he found his way around the latest paint processes and managed a solid job spraying the engine bay and dash. He had a friend spray the exterior. He is still up in the air about how to finish the bumpers, but they’ll likely get painted to match. As you can see from the photos, the car is still not 100 percent complete. It needs door glass, carpet, some sound deadening, door skins, and the aforementioned paint, but it’s on the road, and Perazzo didn’t need much prodding to hop in and meet us for a quick look at the car. In fact, he was so eager to get the car road-worthy that it’s currently powered by a four-cylinder engine from a Porsche 912. The car will eventually be powered by a 3.2-liter six-cylinder, but that engine still needs some wrenching before it’s ready for prime time.

This isn’t Perazzo’s first rodeo, having a 356 restoration under his belt as well, so we asked him if he had any advice to pass along. “It certainly takes longer than you anticipate.” Perazzo answered, noting that he wound up spending just a bit more time and effort in order to get a better result than simply “good enough.” He admits that part of it was part of the “While I’m here” mentality of going the extra mile knowing that it will be much harder to go back and change things once the car is all together. Perazzo’s budget, which he set out more than three years ago, was $10,000. He admits that he missed it, but all told he has just $12,500 invested in his beautiful Porsche so far (not including that upcoming 3.2-liter flat-six). You don’t even have to be familiar with vintage 911 prices to see how much sweat equity has paid off.

If you’re in need of some inspiration to take on your own project or learn some tips on DIY bodywork and fabrication, Perazzo’s 911 restoration videos offer up hours of great content. If you start watching now, the car may all be one color by the time you’re caught up.

The post Watch this 911 basketcase get resurrected in a home garage appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Ford might be a major supplier of police-service Tauruses and Explorers today, but back in the 1970s, it supplied a handful of American promotional machines to a very different peace-keeping force. These “Lawman” cars toured the Pacific theater at several U.S. military bases. Just two of them made the journey home. One of these Lawman survivors—a magnificent Boss 429—has been restored to its former glory.

Credit Al Eckstrand with all things Lawman. Eckstrand was a fairly successful drag racer in the early 1960s, a side gig for his day job as a corporate lawyer at Chrysler. You’d be right to assume that his was something of a Jekyll and Hyde lifestyle, which he nodded at with the “Lawman” moniker that appeared on all of his drag cars. Eckstrand was good, too, holding several NHRA national records. That success, combined with his connections at Chrysler, let him run a Hemi Charger and big-block Barracuda through the latter part of the ‘60s. His ambitions, however, were bigger than this, and they included carrying the drag-racing torch overseas to Europe.

In 1966, with the help of Chrysler, Eckstrand formed the American Commando Drag Team. The mission was to take American muscle cars to England and Santa Pod Raceway, which had just opened up as the only 1/8- and ¼-mile drag strips in Europe. The cars would then tour military bases in Vietnam and other Pacific nations. American muscle cars were in high demand at the time, and this type of exposure promised to make big splash in a foreign market.

In 1970, Ford enlisted Eckstrand’s standard-bearing skills for a similar type of marketing program. The idea behind the Lawman Performance Team was to bring some of the latest Detroit muscle cars to the men and women of the Armed Forces who were serving overseas. A team of drivers went along with the cars to conduct demonstrations and seminars, all aimed at cutting down on a rash of street and highway crashes that had killed 55,000 people in 1969. Remember, this was when equipment like drum brakes and unassisted steering were standard, and even seat belts were considered a nuisance to some drivers.

On January 14, 1970, in Detroit, Ford held a press party officially announcing the Lawman program. Ford worked with major sponsors including Goodyear, Motor Wheels, Hurst, and more to create six Lawman vehicles. Five of them were Cobra Jet cars, built in Dearborn and taken from the Ford assembly line to Roy Steffe Enterprises in Fairhaven, Michigan, where they were modified and converted for Military Performance Tour service. The sixth was a Boss 429 shipped from Kar Kraft, where all the other Boss 429s were built.

That lone Boss 429 was built to demonstrate not what was readily available from the dealer, but what a racer and hot rodder could do with it using old street-racing tricks and performance equipment. What emerged was a supercharged monster with close to 1000 horsepower mated to an automatic transmission. It was the only Boss 429 to be fitted with an automatic—all the other Boss 429s were four-speed cars.

The cars were transported to various military bases in Vietnam, the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan, where it is estimated close to 40,000 troops were able to see them in safety seminars and demonstrations. During the tour, the Boss 429 was accidentally destroyed when a shipping container fell on it, but the Performance Tour team managed to arrange for a replacement Boss 429 to be delivered. It’s this second car that you see featured here, with a VIN of XXX429.

Four of the Lawman Mustangs were left in place overseas, perhaps because the effort of bringing them back and prepping them for resale exceeded the reward. Two made it back to the States: a Cobra Jet and the supercharger 429. Ford Promotions stripped the Lawman lettering from the doors, pulled the Hampton blower, and eventually sold the latter to Dave McCormick, who raced in the Detroit area through the 1970s. He campaigned the car as the “Blue Devil”.

McCormick eventually passed away, and the Blue Devil was sold to one or more other owners until it ended up back in the hands of Al Eckstrand, who had returned from living in Europe sometime in the early 1990s. Eckstrand returned the car to its former Lawman-look glory and ran it for a few years before selling the car. The new owner let it sit for about a year until listing it to go across the block at Barrett-Jackson in 2003, which is how the car’s current owner, wrestler Bill Goldberg, bought it for his truly drool-worthy muscle car collection. It had a mere 890 miles on it when it crossed the auction block, and Goldberg was well aware of the car’s history.

“I was wrestling in Japan and Mr. Bob Johnson from Barrett-Jackson called and told me they had a Mustang called the Lawman that was about to go across the stage,” Goldberg explains. “I already knew the car, having watched a 60 Minutes episode about it, so I was very interested and ended up buying the car on the spot.”

Much of Goldberg’s interest stemmed from what the Lawman meant to service members. “Even if they couldn’t participate in the program to drive the cars, they could go to the window in the VA and see this car slamming down the tarmac. To them it represents what they were there fighting for. The red, white, and blue—it gave them every semblance that they knew about home.”

Given the car’s history, Goldberg knew that a restoration of the Lawman would demand thorough time and research. He went looking for a top-notch expert and found one in Marcus Anghel of Anghel Restorations in Scottsdale, Arizona. Both men consider this car the ultimate Boss 429. Once Marcus compiled and pored over all of the period photos and documentation to verify the compelling history, the real work could begin.

“I had been chasing after this car for years—as much as anything I just wanted to see the car with my own eyes,” says Anghel. “In the Mustang world this car has been legendary. I had to re-invent myself as not just an expert on restoring one of these early Mustangs or Boss 429s, but becoming well versed with early drag racing culture and creating a new network of people who helped with the restoration and historical information.”

Because both Anghel and Goldberg were so dedicated to doing this project justice, there were no set deadlines on finishing the restoration. “In discussing with Bill how to restore the car, he simply said to do it like it was my own car, which I did, paying attention to every single possible detail and putting it back to day-one condition,” says Anghel.

“It has to be done right, period. End of story,” insists Goldberg. “And if you want something done right and you can’t do it yourself, you find the best person to do the work, and that’s how I chose Marcus.”

The Lawman was torn down to an empty shell. The engine went out to Brian Duffee (Duffee Motorsports) for a rebuild—it had some valve-to-piston contact back in the day but the block is stock and numbers-matching for a Boss 429. In addition, Don Hampton built a new 8-71 blower (painted to look like the magnesium original) and the Hilborn mechanical fuel injection was refurbished. Joe and Bretina Perkins at American Traditions painted the car, and Efrain Gonzales applied the letting on the doors in true gold leaf. The assembly process took a while, as Marcus was careful to make sure that all the period-correct details were retained. The end result is a stunning restoration worthy of a one-of-one Boss 429 Mustang with a totally unique history.

Each nut, bolt, and screw on the car is period-correct, down to the original-style clamps that had to be specially sourced because the ones used in the late ‘60s and ‘70s did not have any metric measurements like the ones today. Even the parachute is 100 percent original. The fire extinguisher is a period-correct unit, dated from 1970 with a metal bracket and handle that’s unusual in comparison with modern units that use plastic. As for the tires, original slicks are notoriously difficult to find, but the Lawman restoration crew was able to scare up a set that had been stored for 50 years.

“So much of this car is not only wrapped up in the passion of the restoration but also respect and honor to the soldiers and community it served in that early part of 1970,” reflects Anghel.

Goldberg has the Lawman stored at his Texas ranch, but he’s thinking about the future. Plans for the car are as yet unclear, but deciding where it will go has been “a very intensive process,” the wrestler says. What’s for certain is that keeping this treasure of muscle car and U.S. military history alive is a debt of service, and worthy of salute.

The post Lawman Mustang: The Boss 429 sent to war in the Pacific appeared first on Hagerty Media.

I was 8 years old the day we went to pick up our brand-new car in October 1969. It was the first and only new car my dad ever owned. He was going to trade in his old Mercury, but it died two blocks from the Ford dealer in Montebello, California, so he and my uncle and my sister and I walked those two blocks to the dealership. My dad handed over the keys to the salesman and told him where he could pick up the Mercury.

The Brittany Blue Torino fastback sat on the lot. It was so sharp, and even sitting still, it looked fast. It had a 351 emblem on the fenders and GT badges on the wheel covers, the grille, and the rear (fake) gas cap, with chrome hash marks by the rear side windows to emphasize the sleek body. Inside, the light blue interior had bucket seats with headrests and a center console for the three-speed automatic shifter.

That Torino became a big part of my childhood and teenage years. My sister and I learned to drive in it, and it was the car I used for cruising with friends and dating. Later, when my dad retired, the Torino was rarely used. Dad never really took care of the car and only did what was needed to keep it running. By then, I had moved from Southern to Northern California and was busy raising my own family. Each time I went home to visit, the Torino looked worse than the last time. Unfortunately, his Social Security income wasn’t enough to keep it up.

When Dad passed away in 2015, I inherited the Torino and shipped it up to my house. It had only 81,000 miles on the clock, but the whole car looked rough. The paint had faded and the hood was rusty. There were dents and scratches everywhere. The interior was a mess, too. The center console had become brittle and cracked, the carpets were badly stained, and the front driver seat was ripped open. You could see the springs inside it, and my dad had stuffed some old towels and newspapers in there for support. The engine still ran, but it didn’t run well, and it seemed very tired.

I loved that Torino, so I vowed to restore it—and to keep it as original as possible. Using some faded memories and a Polaroid photograph that was taken shortly after we got the car, I spent the next three years working on the Torino. I resprayed the factory blue paint and replaced the interior with new light blue Corinthian leather, plus a new center console, carpet, and headliner. I had the transmission and rear end rebuilt and kept the 351 totally stock; turns out it just needed the carburetor rebuilt and a good tuneup.

Today, I’m pleased to say the car looks like it did in the Polaroid, and it drives exactly like I remember. My one wish is that I could have done this while my dad was still alive. But I know he’s got a big smile on his face as he sees the Torino restored to its original glory. Someday, I’ll pass it down to my son, and he, too, can share the story of our family Torino with his kids.

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The story of someone trading a paperclip for a house is not new. If you need a refresher, a young person started off with a paperclip and negotiated their way through strategic swaps until, eventually, they had a house. The concept is comical at first blush, but this phenomenon happens more often than you might expect. Case in point? This 1984 Porsche 911 Targa with a rusty fender.

Paweł Kalinowski was just another man in the middle of restoring his 911 SC when he hit a barrier. The technical detail stickers in the engine compartment were in rough shape and he couldn’t find any replacements. Kalinowski, however, was a problem solver. He gathered the information, found the material, and went to a printer to have the stickers made. If you’ve been in a similar situation, you know the next roadblock in the story—minimum order required.

Kalinowski didn’t need 500 stickers, of course. He just needed five. Rather than scrap that piece of the project and move on, he ordered all 500; he had a hunch that, if he was searching for these pieces, other Porsche fans probably were, too. A single forum post selling 495 extra stickers ultimately grew into Car Bone, a business that specializes in parts and pieces for Porsches and also does custom builds.

As the company grew, Kalinowski stumbled upon a 911 Targa with a peculiar history. The previous owner was living out of the car, and eventually lost it to a tow yard when he couldn’t afford the fees to reclaim it. Kalinowski was intrigued by plight of both car and driver; while he never found the owner, he vowed to help return the car to its rightful glory.

Kalinowski was determined to only purchase the parts and pieces he needed from people, not from warehouses. This decision led him to discover fun folks and build friendships with a variety of fellow Porsche lovers he might not have met otherwise. The relational network became a delightful side effect of Kalinowski’s Targa restoration project, the latest chapter in a story Kalinowski can trace to five stickers in the engine compartment of a 911 SC.

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Once I had a gentleman on The Tonight Show who had climbed Mount Everest, which is an amazing feat that is nearly impossible for most people under the best of circumstances. But this guy was also blind. Imagine being 29,000 feet up, grabbing at snow, not knowing if it’s night or day, with the wind howling and every breath a challenge, and you can’t see anything. Anyway, he was a nice gentleman and an incredible athlete who afterward had been doing motivational speaking. I asked him how it was going and he sort of grimaced. He said the frustrating part was the meet-and-greet after, when at least one person in every audience would come up and say, “Yeah, I was going to climb Mount Everest, but, you know, the kids have soccer and work is crazy and I just haven’t gotten around to it.”

Like it was so easy except, you know, soccer practice. Here this fellow had trained his whole life to do something that maybe one out of 10 million people can do, had endured incredible hardship, and had even overcome the fact that he was blind, and people were so dismissive of it.

Maybe it’s because life has gotten pretty soft and we don’t make anything for ourselves anymore, but we’re losing respect for other people’s accomplishments and hard work, for what the human hand can do instead of just the human brain. I hear this all the time from guys who have their cars restored and who have never turned a wrench in their lives: All mechanics are crooks, they’ll overcharge you at every turn. They’ll moan about the high cost of a paint job, for example, not realizing that the paint is $600 a quart and somebody has to spend hours sanding it and finishing it because a good finish doesn’t come out of a rattle-can of Rust-Oleum.

Our appreciation or understanding of other people’s hard work is fading, and that rankles me. The last time I pulled a transmission out of something here at the garage, it took hours and my hands were bleeding and covered in grease, and I thought, “Some guy only makes a couple hundred bucks for doing that?” That’s why I don’t usually question a quote for something we need to get done outside the garage. Good work doesn’t seem expensive when you think about how much actual effort goes into it, and that someone needs to be able to make a living doing it or else nobody will do it. Besides, I have yet to meet anyone who is getting rich by sandblasting rusty parts or re-chroming bumpers. They’re not overcharging—in fact, they’re probably undercharging.

Well, nowadays we watch these shows where they restore a car in a weekend, literally, and it seems so easy. The sparks are flying and guys are trying to ram a big-screen TV into the dash, and after a couple of commercial breaks and some pounding music, the car is done. It gives people an unrealistic picture of what it takes to restore a car—the thousands of hours, many of which are never billed. Just the amount of research a restorer has to do, figuring out how things go together and what is supposed to be original, is huge.

These days, Amazon will drop a package on your doorstep the same day you order it, so we’re also losing touch with how long things take in the real world. A very famous country western star called me not long ago and said, “It’s my husband’s birthday, he’s always wanted a 1953 Ford F-100, a red one, and I want to get one for his birthday. Can you get me one?” I said I couldn’t promise it would be red, but I would look around. Then I asked when his birthday is. She said, “Thursday.” I said, “This is Tuesday! I’m not going to find a car in two days. It takes awhile!” She didn’t get it.

Next time you’re walking a car show, before you judge some guy because his paint isn’t perfect, think about how much of the work you do yourself. Unlike everything else we buy these days, there’s nothing quick, easy, or cheap about old cars. And while few of us will ever climb Mount Everest, restoring a classic car is enough of a mountain for most people. Give them some credit.

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A factory restoration of your R32, R33, or R34 Nissan GT-R won’t come cheap, but when you watch this video of the detailed process you’ll understand why.

First the car is completely disassembled and the bodywork blasted back to bare metal. The stiffness of the monocoque is tested and any required repairs are made. The body is dipped for rust protection and painted while the rest of the components are either fully-refurbished or replaced. The interior is deep cleaned to come out factory-fresh.

Every stage of the process is documented and tested, with the engine going on a dyno after its rebuild, and the finished car also undergoes a dyno and road test. A long list of factory upgrades is offered so you can have the suspension fettled or the legendary GT-R RB26 straight-six engine boosted to close to 500 hp.

Restorations are offered in different stages.  A “section refresh and overhaul” costs around $233,000, while a full restoration to standard specification is almost $330,000. The average Nismo customer apparently typically spends something north of $420,000 on the exercise, which suggests most are using the opportunity to add a little extra go their Godzillas.

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Classic car restoration virtuoso Bob Mosier is calling it quits. Since starting his career 49 years ago as a teenager working for Phil Hill, he’s practiced his craft on hundreds of award-winning cars ranging from Brass Era Pierce-Arrows to Art Deco-inspired Talbot-Lagos. A few weeks before closing his shop in Inglewood, California, the 67-year-old Mosier reflected on how the collector car hobby has changed over the past half-century. The transcript of this conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

How’d you get together with Phil Hill?

I loved cars and worked on them all the time. I knew Phil because we lived in the neighborhood [in Santa Monica]. I would ride there on my bicycle when I was kid, and I would drive there and hang out when I got older. When I graduated from high school, he asked me to come work for him at his house. I didn’t know anything about old cars, but my attitude was: If Phil Hill likes ’em, I like ’em.

What was his restoration philosophy?

Phil believed that his best experiences with automobiles were always when they were new. So that was the goal. The idea was to do whatever it took—re-machine, re-bush, re-bearing, realign—to make the car function like it did when it was new.

You were there when Hill and Ken Vaughn bought two collections and began restoring cars on spec. How did they start restoring cars for other people?

We were conspicuous because we were on the street outside Phil’s house, painting things, removing things, repairing things. Friends would come around and ask, “Can I get you to fix this or that on my car?” The answer always was, “Well, we really don’t do that. These are cars that belong to us, and we’re fixing them up for sale.” Eventually, a local eye doctor prevailed upon Ken and Phil to restore his 1931 Packard. That was the first car they restored for money. Hill & Vaughn was the first place in Southern California where you could take your car unrestored through the front door and have it come out the back door restored. Otherwise, you were your own general contractor, and you ferried your car from the engine overhaul guy to the paint and body guy, then to the upholstery guy, then to the tire and wheel guy, then to the brake guy.

Of course, the collector car universe was much, much smaller back then.

It was a small hobby. When I was a kid, people who restored old cars were thought to be a bit quirky. Why would you want to horse around with a 50-year-old car? The first time I went to Pebble Beach in 1972, it was a small show. There were 50, 60 cars there, and I would park on the tennis courts with my camper and sleep overnight. Now, you can’t get within five miles of the place. The event’s gotten bigger and more prestigious. The demographics have changed.

How so?

We started out in the ’70s working for millionaires, and now we’re working for billionaires. It’s a whole different milieu. Pebble Beach is just one stop for the jet set. They go to the Kentucky Derby, they fly over to Europe for this, they go to China for another thing, they live HUGE lives.

We started out in the ’70s working for millionaires, and now we’re working for billionaires. It’s a whole different milieu.

We did a job for a guy one year, and at the same time we were restoring his Bugatti, he was having a home built, he was having a yacht built, he was having a plane customized. So how could he possibly devote the emotional attention to a car that the hobbyists used to back when the car was their primary focus?

The financial calculations have changed too, haven’t they?

In the ’80s, the cars began to be quite a bit more valuable, and then in the ’90s, there began to be a speculative element where guys were working an equation in their mind: If I spend X on the car and put B into it, I want to sell it for X + B + a profit.

For the first 10 or 15 years I was in the business, a car was not an investment. I draw a parallel to a boat in the marina. You buy a yacht and you start writing checks, and you don’t stop until you get rid of that boat. Nobody’s sitting at the bar of the California Yacht Club imagining they can sell their boat for a profit.

Let’s switch gears and talk about the restoration shop side of the business. You left Hill & Vaughn to form your own company in 1978. Why?

At that time, we had 25 guys at Hill & Vaughn, and to keep them busy, we were working on cars that five or eight years earlier we wouldn’t have looked at sideways. I was very selective. I didn’t want to restore your car if I sensed you weren’t interested in doing a really careful, really thorough job. When a customer comes in and says, “I want to come up just a little bit short of perfection,” that’s code for “I don’t want to pay the normal price.” I wasn’t willing to make the compromises that come along with meeting a bottom-line number. I wanted to be in the business of “best effort.” Every decision you make is easy because you just do it the best way you could possibly do it. But you need a cooperative customer who understands that a really careful, really thorough job is really expensive.

How did things go when you opened your own shop?

I started with one guy, Greg Morrell. Our first job was a 1937 Packard Twelve Convertible Victoria. The very first show we ever went to was at the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard. It was the most prestigious show in Southern California. We won Best of Show, and at Pebble Beach, we won our class and were runner-up in Best of Show. So immediately, the phone was ringing. At the risk of boasting, I’d say our jobs were the nicest on the West Coast—better than Hill & Vaughn, actually, because we were able to control the work better, and we were working more thoroughly, more carefully, to higher standards. For quite a while, we were the shop to beat if you wanted to win prizes.

But as times changed, so did your approach, didn’t it?

My attitude at first was: Only I know what you should do with your car. I would do only best effort, 100 point, every bushing, every bearing, every seal brand new. Then I evolved to the point where if you came to me with a project, and you had some ideas that didn’t rhyme with mine, I could suffer your ignorance and let you have what you want. Then I evolved even further to the point where I am today, where only you know what you want to do with your car, and it’s none of my business.

My attitude at first was: Only I know what you should do with your car. I would do only best effort, 100 point, every bushing, every bearing, every seal brand-new. I evolved … to the point where I am today, where only you know what you want to do with your car, and it’s none of my business.

A guy like [mega-collector] Chip Connor has a lot of cars, some of which we have restored to absolute perfection. But other cars just aren’t going to be lavished with that level of attention.

And, of course, attitudes about restoration changed too, right?

Phil, Ken, and I were some of the instigators of the over-restoration approach. It was akin to what the guys were doing with hot rods at custom car shows. Everything was bejeweled, everything was glossy.

I like to think that the 1933 Packard 12-cylinder Dietrich Convertible Victoria I did for [former Los Angeles Times publisher] Otis Chandler helped start the pendulum moving in the other direction. It was EXACTLY like a brand-new 1933 Packard Twelve. It was done accurately, and it was done authentically, and it was well-received.

What do you make of the fascination with barn finds and preservation cars?

A barn find is novel, yes, and it’s probably very low-mileage. But one of the timbers of the barn fell in and broke the roof, and nobody ever drained the water out of the engine, so it rotted clear through the block, and now you literally can’t drive the car. That’s not a preserved car. That’s a dilapidated car. A preserved car is a car that’s always been in service. It probably had its top replaced at some point, and it’s probably been repainted here and there and perhaps entirely. But it’s presentable in sort of original condition, and it’s well enough preserved mechanically that it can be used without any danger to itself. Those cars are very difficult to find, and very valuable when you do.

You’re pretty well preserved yourself. Why are you closing your shop?

I’ve enjoyed this business. Trust me, I will be eternally grateful for the career I’ve had doing this stuff. But I’m weary of it. I’ve done it long enough. One by one, the guys here aged out and retired, and I didn’t replace them. I’m at a point now where I can lease this building, and the tenant will have to pay me more in rent than I normally make in a month. So I have that happy scenario where I go home and I get a raise.

Via Hagerty Insider

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My Honda XR250 has lived a rough life. The skeleton currently sitting on my lift table is facing a rough life in the immediate future, too, but whether I legitimately use or heartlessly abuse this bike lies in preventative maintenance and general upkeep. I plan to ride the bike hard, but I’ll be just as dedicated to servicing its needs.

Right now the project’s in a bit of an odd spot, since some parts are out for service. With time on my hands, I decided to restore the Honda’s plastics. It’s a fairly simple job, and you don’t have to spend much on tools to get a really nice finished product. In fact, the process is quite similar to what a lot of folks do to restore the clarity of plastic headlights.

The side number panels, headlight surround, and gas tank are all in varying stages of neglect. Deep scratches and heavy oxidation cover most of each piece, and replacements range from reasonably cheap to quite expensive. Since I am not building a show bike, I decided to shell out my time instead of my money. The only tools I needed to restore these plastic components were a razor blade, varying grades of sandpaper, and a clean buffing wheel.

The process is the same for all the parts and centers around removing small amounts of material until you reveal fresh, unoxidized plastic. Then, you can buff it to a good shine. There is one caveat here: Regardless of how much time you invest and how carefully you attend to detail, your restored plastic part will never exactly match the brand-new version. You can get pretty close to an off-the-shelf finish, but a keen eye will know yours was restored rather than replaced.

The worst piece I tackled was this airbox cover. When I bought the Honda, this cover was missing and I bought the cheapest one I could find to make the machine ridable. The oxidation on this red plastic is the thick, chalky stuff that you can mark up with your fingernail. Removing the worst of that substance is the first step in the process. Use a razor blade held perpendicular to the surface to scrape away the oxidation and uncover workable plastic. Be careful to not gouge the plastic. You are going to put scratches in it—that’s actually the goal here—but the razor blade should be removing only the oxidation.

Now, it’s time to go through the sandpaper. Do a small amount of prep here, and trim some three-inch squares of paper from the larger sheets. Add each small section of paper to a bucket to soak in water while you work. I chose to start with 400-grit, which worked quite nicely. (If your plastics are very rough, it might make sense to start at 220 to speed up the work.) Sand with this first, aggressive paper to remove as much oxidation and scratching as possible. You want a nice, even color, though initially the finish will be dull and heavily marked with sanding scratches. That’s okay—in fact, that’s the point.

Now do the same process, progressing though each finer grit of paper. For my project I used 400-, 600-, 800-, and 1000 grit before moving on to buffing. Take your time on each step. I found that audiobooks tempered the mind-numbing boredom of sanding for hours on end. Tempted to hurry? Don’t. Cutting corners or rushing the process during these steps will produce a finish that looks like you did exactly that.

The final step is give the plastic a shine. Even at the 1000-grit level, sanding will still produce fine scratches, which buffing can remove. Use a clean (I prefer a new) buffing wheel. You do not need to add buffing compound like you would when buffing or polishing metal. You are not actually removing material like regular polishing; you’re simply using the friction of the buffing wheel to carefully heat the plastic until it has a uniform shine. The buffing wheel works every time and has a larger margin for error without destroying your part.

Even with that tolerance for small mistakes, it’s important to be careful here: Keep the buffer moving. You don’t want to overheat any portion of the plastic. Some folks use a heat gun for this step, but I have never achieved a consistent finish that way. That said, I could be suffering from operator error—feel free to give the heat gun a try if you are more comfortable with that technique.

The last step for me was to use some automotive-grade vinyl to replace the white number panels. These pieces are available pre-cut for most popular vintage bikes (and also many modern machines), but my XR requires just a bit more attention. I laid on the vinyl and trimmed it with a razor blade. This first try came out okay, at best. I’ll likely give it a re-do, since this is only a couple dollars’ worth of vinyl.

Restoring the plastics on this bike was time-consuming—but, considering the cost of new panels, I’m satisfied with the trade-off. I’m also expecting to use this bike rather intensely; though I could get new pieces, the investment doesn’t make sense and would be a bit overkill. I’ve got far more time than dollars, and, even with the DIY approach, this bike is going to look more than presentable.

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For most, a dead or dying classic radio is a useless piece of technology, easily replaced with a remanufactured example or newer one that boasts modern accoutrements like an AUX port, Bluetooth, USB interface, or even a full smartphone interface. It takes a special kind of automotive restorer to tackle the innards of a car stereo, especially the more complicated ones from the feature-packed 1980s.

However, that’s exactly what Ronald Finger did while as he pursues a full restoration of the 1985 Pontiac Fiero that pulled out of a field. He documented everything he’s doing to breathe new life into Pontiac’s star-crossed sports car, including what went wrong inside the Delco stereo.

The 1980s were an impressive time for growth and maturity in automotive electronics, and while Ronald’s Delco stereo isn’t quite as memorable as a Delco-Bose audio system, this unit had electronic tuning, an auto-reverse cassette deck, and enough power for four speakers.

An annoying problem creeps up with these radios as time goes by, long after warranties expire: the Delco’s circuit board has electrolytic capacitors that eventually fail and lead to poor audio quality. The fix is to replace them with more modern ceramic capacitors … except when that is not the problem! Apparently the circuit board in question already had the improved ceramic capacitors, which forced Ronald to fully disassemble, clean and re-solder the board’s faulty connections in pursuit of a functioning system. The end result? The display, all lights and buttons work once more. And much like an older Ferrari, it’s a good idea to do a belt service before reassembling a cassette player: Don’t worry, it only involves a cheap rubber belt, cleaning with isopropyl alcohol, and strategically placed lubricant on the mechanisms.

Did Ronald’s hours of research, labor, and testing work on the Delco stereo’s circuit board? You better believe it did! Not only has the Delco radio gone back to full functionality, it proves once again that Ronald’s efforts to restore a Fiero are both worthwhile and anything but boring.

The post Getting “board” with rebuilding a Delco cassette player appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Chassis 190 RTJ lay, unloved, beneath a pile of rubbish, for perhaps 20 years, maybe more, no one’s sure. The Iris Blue MGA roadster was lost inside a debris-filled double garage, near Shaftesbury in Dorset, U.K. A 1960 model, its plugs had lost their spark, the pistons hadn’t stretched their con rods, the tires were shot, and the seats were sagging beneath the weight of the junk dumped on them. For decades it was crying out to be saved, but nobody heard its call.

In January, its luck changed. Auctioneer Charterhouse was instructed by the executor of a will to visit the associated cottage property and carry out a valuation for probate. There the neglected MGA was be discovered.

Richard Bromell, director of Charterhouse, takes up the story. “It was always my dream as a schoolboy to go around the countryside looking for classic and vintage cars which have been locked away for years,” says Bromell. “Today, although it rarely happens, there are still discoveries to be made such as this beautiful MG, although it took a long time to dig it out of the garage.”

Photographs show the MGA half-buried beneath a pile of wood, plastic, cables and general household waste. “To give you an idea of the environment we encountered, it normally takes the team we use two days to go through a property and check and sort everything within. This one took us 10 days,” Bromell tells Hagerty.

It’s a crying shame, given the later, 1600 model enjoyed a reputation for being the most complete variant of the MGA range.

That’s not how it always was, though. When the car first arrived at its home, some 50 years ago, it was widely loved. So much so that in the 1980s, the MGA roadster was treated to a restoration at the property, with photographs from the time documenting the step-by-step refresh. The car passed through the hands of three owners, all from the same family, who over time all lived at the same, 16th-century, thatched-roof cottage.

Over the past couple of decades, however, circumstances changed and the car was parked. It was not removed until the team from Charterhouse were instructed to visit the property.

“The car would seem to have been bodily restored, and then wheeled back into the garage for work to the engine, and perhaps it all got too much or life got in the way, and there it stayed, unfinished,” says Bromell. “With the engine reassembled, it would make a nice Sunday driver, the perfect car to pop out in the morning and pick up the papers, eggs and bacon, and it would get plenty of attention along the way.”

Bromell adds that the mileage of the car can’t be verified, but a host of paperwork and accompanying photographs document much of its life and later, unfinished restoration.

Now it’s ready to leave its place of slumber and find a new home. Charterhouse is estimating a sale price of £8000–£12,000 ($11,100–$16,700), when the MGA goes to online auction on April 11, at the planned venue of the Haynes International Motor Museum at Sparkford, Somerset.

The MGA was launched at the Earl’s Court Show in October 1955. Given that a concours-quality, condition #1, 1960 MGA 1600 roadster is valued at an average of £44,000 ($62,000, versus $41,000 in the U.S. market), but it would no doubt take serious investment to get this car in such a state. Still, it’s a compelling survivor story, and for that alone this garage-find MGA is likely to attract interest.

Via Hagerty UK

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Certain responsibilities are beyond the scope of what regular folk can handle. When the mission at hand calls for superhuman dedication, saint-like patience, and a healthy dose of obsession, you need That Guy. When Toyota realized it wasn’t in a position to restore a survivor 1972 Sprinter Trueno fastback, it required That Guy‘s services. That Guy, in this case, is Corolla Guy, a.k.a Mike Muniz. And if his dead-nuts accurate, jaw-droppingly perfect restoration of this Perseus Green, Corolla-based JDM coupe is any indication, he was the right guy for the job.

Mike, 51, has owned dozens of TE27 (1972 to 1974) Toyota Corollas. He was born in the Philippines, and their abundance in that country during his teenage years supported his early rallying habit. In the United States, where he has lived since 1988, their relative obscurity was the seed that grew into an enduring appreciation for this humble Japanese compact.

It was a red TE27 that started Mike’s infatuation with the first-generation Corolla. “I was just going home from school, and then I heard this car coming down the hill,” he recalls from when he was 15 years old. “And it was one of these cars. I have been obsessed with them ever since.”

He counts 36 TE27 Corollas that have passed into his ownership, though many were simply soldiers for motorsports that were sacrificed in the war for speed. Choosing the TE27 for rallying in the Philippines was motivated in part by economics. When one was bent too far out of shape to put back on the road, he’d buy another at an affordable price and transfer everything from his wrecked car.

“It was just available. Parts were available. I didn’t really see them as anything special performance-wise, but what I liked was [that] it was a light chassis. And then I love the style of it, it’s so European, the way it looks, it looks like a MGB GT, which was its competition back in the day,” Mike explains.

The rally-crazed teenager was soon turning wrenches at a local Toyota race shop after school, starting with carburetor rebuilds before growing the skills to hand-assemble engines on his own.

After moving to the U.S. in 1988, when he was about 18, Mike transitioned away from brutalizing coupes over long stage rallies. The Corolla obsession was far from over, however, and three decades later he is the proud owner of a diverse TE27 trio. Mike stores them at his Southern California home in a two-car space that he describes as a “three-Corolla garage,” thanks to the cars’ pint-sized dimensions. Fittingly, there’s even red one that he built over the past three decades into a bang-on recreation of a period rally car. The second, a traffic-cone-orange canyon-carver, is designed to blast down any mountain road with confidence and agility.

It’s the third family member that really stands apart as a profound, pristine example of the TE27’s working-class motorsports legacy. Not unlike the factory-lightened 1967–72 Olds 442 W-30, Mike’s 1972 Corolla Sprinter Trueno J offered Toyota buyers the maximum possible performance and reduced weight. The Sprinter Trueno was Toyota’s higher-end trim level for the Corolla, stacked above the lower-cost Levin. While the two trims were based on the exact same car, they were branded and sold essentially as two separate models and in different Japanese showrooms—something like the relationship between the GMC Yukon and Chevy Tahoe, as Mike puts it. What makes his Sprinter Trueno truly special, however, is the unique “J” badge on the decklid, indicating that this modest-appearing sports coupe is one of Toyota’s rarest machines.

“The [total production] numbers on this are unclear,” Mike says, “but [Toyota] came up with a J-badge model. It’s the lighter model, so it’s considered the ‘Junior.’ It had no radio, no air conditioning, and came with a limited-slip differential and a stiffer, lower suspension. It was the racier, sportier model.”

Toyota squeezed at least 110 hp out of the 1600cc four-cylinder 2T-G engine, thanks in large part to its Yamaha-blessed, dual-overhead-cam cylinder head. Five Sprinter Trueno Js are known to still exist, according to Mike, and most are in various states of disrepair in Japan. That possibly makes his the only known running and driving example on the planet. These J-badged Sprinter Truenos are especially elusive because Toyota only sold them for a few months, between March and July of 1972.

Documentation from this era is murky, but Mike and his contacts at Toyota believe that the J model was an attempt at the foundation for a homologation race car. Should Toyota have wanted to take the TE27 racing, the Sprinter Trueno J served to meet the necessary production volume requirement.

How did Corolla Guy come across this holy-grail Corolla? Over the years, through his own personal research and parts hunting, Mike had built up a relationship with many people in the Toyota world, including some of the staff at a Toyota museum. (One contact even operated something of a TE27 wishlist for Mike, scouring Japan for rare NOS components and what few original parts still exist for these increasingly uncommon Corollas.) This particular Sprinter Trueno J landed in Toyota’s lap by way of the original owner’s son, who had inherited the car after his father’s passing. The man had never witnessed it run, let alone seen it in one piece. Originally purchased in the Kanagawa prefecture of Japan, the TE27 was only driven for a handful of years before the owner, for reasons unclear, parked it. Mike suspects that it was torn down for paint, with parts getting boxed up as they were removed. “He eventually got married, had five kids, and then the car just kinda sat there until he passed away,” relates Mike. “The son who inherited the car knew that it was special to his dad, and he was the one who reached out to the museum.”

Because of the scale of the work the car required, Toyota had to pass on what would have been a budget-draining project. One of these secret contacts called up the only person die-hard enough to restore it accurately: Corolla Guy.

Thankfully, Muniz had a lot of help with what was surely the most involved project he’d ever attempted. “I was going to actually not buy the car ’cause if it was that rare, I was afraid I was not gonna be able to restore it,” he admits.  “And then I got support from the other classic Toyota people in Japan to help me source parts, and some of the parts that are actually on the car are NOS parts that were found by some of the museum staff.”

The Sprinter Trueno J had sat under a carport for decades, basically falling apart. Soon, replacement parts for everything that had been destroyed came out of long-forgotten closets and the darkest swap-meet depths of Japan. TE27 collectors were donating all sorts of items—the usual interior panels and the like—but when sealed set of factory Bridgestone tires arrived, it set this restoration over the top. Somehow, the period-correct 1972-built set of tires had been stored since new, nearly a half-century, in vacuum-sealed bags. When Mike took delivery of them, the original stickers were still on the tread. Recognizing their immense rarity, he only mounts the tires on suitable occasions, before deflating and repackaging them for safe keeping.

Many of the cosmetic parts for his Sprinter Trueno J are NOS, but the heart and soul of the car lie with the car’s original equipment. Mike was able to save the 2T-G’s rusty bores without having to hog them out to remove corrosion, allowing him to retain the engine’s original displacement. Even the hardware under the hood that was lost or corroded over time was replaced by factory-correct pieces, with Mike going so far as to match the individual cadmium or zinc coatings for each nut and bolt by inspecting the unexposed portions of the hardware for the original coating. This automotive archeological dig was necessary, as there was no reference material like you’d find with a dime-a-dozen pony car. The transmission and rear end were rebuilt, along with the rest of the chassis, to bring it back to showroom condition.

This was a car from the 1970s, so showroom condition didn’t necessarily mean perfect. One of the pitfalls of a restoration like this is that a car can become “over restored” if it’s made nicer than the factory could have achieved. We’ve seen it all: Paint that’s been cut and buffed for longer than it took the assembly line to slam the whole car together, panel gaps that are much too perfect, the exhaustive list of small touches that are disgustingly too nice to match the quality of mass production in the car’s era. For Mike’s Sprinter Trueno J restoration, he became wary of avoiding such an outcome as he began researching the paintwork.

To get the finish correct, he had to identify the original paint codes and processes used, leading him once again to his Toyota contacts in Japan. In these email exchanges, Mike got in touch with the ultimate TE27 paint guru out of sheer coincidence. One of the original painters from Toyota’s factory happened to be in Southern California for a Disney Land vacation and offered to respray the car, one that he very well could have originally laid paint on four decades before. In Mike’s mind, this painter’s memory held cherished secrets:

“He said when the car was built, it was a huge factory, so the frame and engine compartment were painted at one end of the factory and then everything was assembled, and then by the time they assembled the doors, fenders, hood, and the trunk, [all] that was painted at the other end of the factory.” This historical detail indicated that the paint was sprayed under different conditions, from the ambient air to the painter’s exact sprayer settings that day. “The engine bay and the floor pan, under the carpet, came out to be a yellow-ish type of green green instead of a darker green,” Mike explains.

While they couldn’t recreate the exact conditions that resulted in this slight mismatch, the retired Toyota painter mixed in a slight yellow tint before spraying the shell. Another subtle touch: Mike and his Toyota paint guru recreated a defect in the original fender stamping, going so far as to do a period-correct “dealership repair” on the panel, echoing the type of sheet-metal glitch fix a dealership would have had to contemplate before selling the cars. All these details are akin to the mock grease marks and intentional overspray that can be seen in concours restorations of domestic muscle cars and classics—a way of rebuilding the evidence of authenticity that may have deteriorated over time.

The restoration took about six years to complete, taking place between 2011 and 2017. The finished car’s appearance in the classic Toyota and import scene has been met by shock, awe, and many jaws hitting the floor. A slew of awards followed. A first for Mike, too, are the requests he is getting to show the car in private collections (it’s currently on loan overseas to a sheikh). Even with all this attention, he stands by his staunch refusal to sell the one-of-a-kind Corolla, recognizing that the duties to preserve such unique blips in automotive history are a life’s work. When the natural time comes for Mike to pass the world’s rarest TE27 on, it will enter one of Toyota’s museums under permanent stewardship.

More than just saving a piece of Toyota’s legacy, Mike’s Sprinter Trueno J is something so different compared to yet another Porsche 911, Dodge Charger, or even a Fairlady Z or Skyline. Desirability for lesser-known Japanese classics has always been a complicated subject here in the United States. Some of the legendary poster cars had their moments, yes, but one could argue that even a Chevy Chevette has more street cred in Main Street America than this ultra-rare Corolla. Mike’s theory is that films like The Fast and The Furious did more harm than good, with Hollywood’s caricature of Japanese car culture poisoning the notion that these cars deserved a seat at the table with more traditional American and European classics.

“It made the Japanese tuning or building cars almost look like a joke,” Mike contends. “Like it’s just cars with a bunch of electronics and video games inside, putting on nitrous oxide and all that. There was really nothing that proved that a Japanese car could be restored to the level of a concours restoration.”

As collectors increasing look past auction headliners that honor more of the usual suspects, restorations like Mike’s become vital footholds in preserving unsung automotive history. A unique car like this, restored with such diligence and respect, will be a defining point of reference for generations to come.

The post This stunning 1972 Sprinter Trueno J is a Toyota Corolla like no other appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The rough-and-tumble condition of my Honda XR250 has been its best feature over the last year. The mismatched and broken plastics combined with the torn, duct-taped seat meant that I simply had fun riding the thing. If I or a friend dropped the bike on the trail, no one needed to feel the least bit of guilt. There were plenty of vehicles in my garage with nice paint and carefully preserved finishes, but this XR wasn’t one of them. That is all starting to change, though.

I’ve torn this machine all the way down to its skeleton, and I’m carefully rebuilding it to function flawlessly but still be genuinely usable. One item that wouldn’t pass muster was that duct-taped seat. Even when I tried to ignore it, that tear bothered me. It wasn’t simply an aesthetic problem, either, because the rip was allowing the foam base underneath it to deteriorate. The seat needed a new cover.

Re-covering a seat is not a big deal, assuming you know a couple simple tricks. Here are the four key ones.

Buy the best quality cover you can

Many car- and bike-related components have dropped in production quality recently, but replacement seat covers for motorcycles have suffered particularly badly. The race to produce the cheapest cover has made it difficult to find one worth your coin. The colors and markings rarely match OE-spec, even if you’re willing to expand your search to any and all materials. If you can buy a seat cover of good quality, do not be cheap. The fit and finish is worth the money, and it will also likely be easier to work with as you install it.

Splurge for an electric or pneumatic stapler

Along the same lines of argument, spend a few bucks and get yourself an electric or pneumatic stapler. In this case, I took a trip to Harbor Freight and bought the wide-crown pneumatic stapler. It’s just over $30 and will perfectly serve my needs. Replacing a seat cover with the right tools will still make you wish for a third hand, but the ability to accurately and quickly place a staple will make the finished result look much cleaner.

Don’t be scared of the heat

My workspace is heated, but I keep it at just 50 degrees for most of the cold Michigan winter. That is not nearly warm enough to allow the vinyl cover to stretch properly. In a perfect world I would lay out the cover in the warm sun for the morning while I disassemble the seat, and it would be nice and flexible by the afternoon. For this late-January project, the electric heat gun got pressed into service. Careful—and I mean careful—application of heat will make fitting the new cover so much easier. The reason you need to be extra careful is that vinyl, and especially cheap vinyl, doesn’t give you much warning before it melts and becomes quite ugly. Anything above warm to the touch is dangerous, and most decent heat gun will heat thin vinyl up to that point rapidly.

Head to toe, then side to side

For off-road-type seats like this one, it’s easiest to start with the leading edge (which would sit against the gas tank). Get the material nice and centered and tack it in place with one or two staples. Then move to the rear of the seat, leaving the sides loose. With the cover centered and secured, start at the front and alternate from side to side, stretching and stapling the cover in place to eliminate wrinkles or awkward pulls. Tuck the rear corners nicely, and you are done.

I’ve only outlined a few tips and not the whole process, but in the slideshow below you can see each of my steps in re-covering this particular seat. The finished product is good but not great, which means that it will certainly suffice for the abuse the XR is likely to see this year. I expect to replace this cover again next winter, not because of improper installation, but because of accumulated wear and tear.

The post 4 tips for re-covering a motorcycle seat like a pro appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Just like rock or jazz is to pop, pickup truck racing runs counter to stock car racing’s mainstream appeal. Modern fans love the rebellious nature of the sport. The trucks look different, drive different, and take fast and furious racing to another fun level of spectacle. But what many don’t know, Israel Acosta says, is where NASCAR’s current version of the sport got its start.

“Two-time Grand National stock car champion and hall-of-famer Buck Baker started the National Pickup Truck Racing Association (NPTRA) in 1983,” says Acosta, a 21-year-old RPM scholar and McPherson College sophomore. The cash-strapped NPTRA ran only 10 races that first season. Baker hoped to sell the series, but NASCAR took a pass.

As the story goes, Bob Harmon and sponsor Dick Moroso stepped up in 1984 and renamed it the Performance All-Pro Truck Series. That run, too, soon ended after health issues sidelined Harmon. NASCAR revisited the idea in the ’90s, and the “Truck Series” we know today was born.

Growing up in tiny Cistern, Texas, midway between San Antonio and Houston, Acosta developed a passion for pickups when he was young. “I started busting knuckles early and first learned to drive a pickup on our ranch when I was 8 or 9,” Acosta says. When the truck needed to be fixed, he remembers holding the light for his dad. “When I wasn’t getting yelled at for not holding the beam steady, I learned how an engine works.”

Acosta’s father worked on a cattle ranch nearby, and Acosta helped where he could until the ranch hired him when he was 12. As a junior in high school, he was gifted one of the trucks—a 1979 Ford F-100 Custom—which had become a touchstone for so many memories and good experiences he’d had at the ranch.

“I loved sports in high school and thought I might go into sports marketing in college. At the same time, everybody knew me for my truck. I always loved working on it, loved the power and making it go fast.”

One month before graduation, Acosta realized the traditional college track wasn’t for him. The circle track called instead, especially when he began learning about the history of NPTRA. “Those early racing pickups used factory-production chassis and bodies, not tubular frames and fiberglass bodies,” he says. “To me, that allows the truck to still feel like a road vehicle that can also race.”

If Acosta were confined by modern NASCAR rules, he adds, he wouldn’t have much left of the original Ford. And that’s at the heart of what made early racing pickups so enticing—that he could re-create a truck capable of running two-hour races at average speeds of 110 mph. All Acosta needed was some expertise in metalwork, fuel, and electrical systems, paint work—all the restoration and mechanical skills necessary to transform his beloved Ford, in other words.

“The RPM (Restoration Preservation Mentorship) scholarship I received is helping me get my bachelor’s degree from McPherson. And that’s paving the way for me to complete my personal project. I have dreams of racing my truck at Laguna Seca one day. But I also love exploring the hypothetical. My objective is to show people that you can have a lot of fun with old drivetrains and traditional chassis and explore just how far Baker’s original idea could have gone.”

The post This transformed farm truck is a tribute to vintage pickup racing appeared first on Hagerty Media.

After spending 40 years under a tarp in a Long Beach, New York garage this 1967 911 Targa has been brought back to life by Porsche’s official Classic Factory Restoration team in Germany.

The three-year project began when the owner discovered the rare soft-window Targa, neglected after four decades, but largely complete. The short-wheelbase car was fitted with the S engine, making it one of only 925 models made between 1966 and 1968. The car was originally delivered to a dealer in Dortmund, Germany, and was sold to an American customer in 1969. Extras fitted to the Targa included a Webasto auxiliary heater, tinted windscreen, Blaupunkt Köln radio, leather seats, fog lamps and an outside thermometer.

After buying the sorry-looking Porsche in 2017 the new keeper decided to send it home to get the care it deserved, and the restoration project took until the end of 2020 to complete. As with every car that undergoes the Factory Restoration program, the Targa was completely dismantled, the engine and gearbox disassembled and rebuilt. For this special car the owner wanted it to be restored to completely original condition rather than taking advantage of any potential modern-day improvements.

Porsche had to raid its parts warehouse to find original components rather than use modern or aftermarket offerings—even cable clamps and rubber grommets are 1960s stock.

The targa roof could have been replaced by a current material which is tougher than the 1960s fabric, but instead Porsche’s in-house experts had to create a bespoke roof, bonded and stitched as it would have been decades ago. The client even refused a modern powder coating to protect chassis and engine parts, preferring a two-part black paint just as it had in 1967.

The bodywork took around 1000 hours to prepare for painting in Polo Red, where the customer did consent to a modern paint protection finish as he plans to drive the car as much as possible. That’s what we like to hear.

The post Porsche took three years to bring this barn find 911 back from the dead appeared first on Hagerty Media.

NISMO just announced that it will begin offering customers a comprehensive restoration service for R32 Skyline owners that want a factory-fresh version of their favorite GT car. The legendary R32 GT-R is among the hottest JDM collector cars in the United States and in the last few years they’ve been making their way, legally, onto U.S. shores.

To start the procedure, NISMO technicians will fully disassemble and inspect the vehicle in order to assess which parts need to be swapped with reproduction pieces and which ones they merely suggest be touched up or restored. Bodywork, aided by 3D measurement, will then return the car’s chassis and body to proper factory specs. Nissan previously announced that it has developed technology allowing for panels to be formed without the original dies used to stamp parts, so panels bent beyond repair can be created as needed. The ingenious process uses robotic arms that sit on opposite sides of the panel that press the steel into the proper shape.

Once the body has been restored to the correct dimensions it can then be fully stripped and recoated to give it the original level of corrosion protection, if necessary. Next, the body heads to a fixture to check torsional rigidity. That’s not something you’ll find at your average body shop.

NISMO’s paint shop will then prep the body panels for paint, which may involve prepping the original finish or the undercoating, depending on how thorough a restoration was deemed necessary.

Meanwhile, the R32’s legendary BR26 engine will be disassembled and scrutinized just as thoroughly as the body. Worn components will be replaced and the entire engine will be assembled with even more precise tolerances than were available back in the ’90s when they were new. Thanks to NISMO Heritage, RB26 engine blocks are back in production, so even the most high-mileage R32 can have a fresh engine built to the original specs. Once reassembled, each engine will be dyno-tested to ensure proper performance and no fluid leaks.

With the body and engine complete, focus then turns to the transmission and the rest of the drivetrain, which receives the same level of attention. Components are scrutinized, restored when possible, replaced when necessary, and balanced for the car’s return to service. The same goes for the car’s computer and wiring harness.

The last step in reassembly is the interior. Improved fire retardant standards meant that the original fabrics aren’t available, so the interior is reupholstered in materials from the R35 GT-R.

Before delivery, each R32 will be driven by a NISMO test driver and the car will be measured for NVH characteristics as well as steering feel and shock tuning. Finally, the owner will take delivery of their restored R32 along with documents certifying its restoration.

We’re happy to hear that NISMO is taking care of some of its most beloved models and are glad to add the R32 to the growing list of models that manufacturers are rebuilding to the highest standards.

The post NISMO now offering in-house restoration service for R32 Skyline appeared first on Hagerty Media.

When AMC senior manager Frank Lipare opened his garage door in Manhasset, Long Island, to reveal a wide-shouldered, blue AMX, teenage Joseph Belfiore was dumbstruck. It was the mid-1970s, and he had sought out Lipare for advice regarding hopping up his own 1970 AMX. The homebuilt race car before him was the meanest piece of American Motors machinery he’d ever seen. Little did Belfiore know that, decades later, he’d buy Lipare’s car—not once, but twice—and spend eight years restoring it in his own garage.

Lipare and a few other managers built out this specific AMX for SCCA competition in 1970. American Motors Corporation never backed its employees’ road-racing campaign, so the car’s 1970–75 career was an amateur effort of the most honest sort. New York’s Jocko Maggiacomo worked his magic on the car’s V-8 (it’s unclear whether the car originally had the 343- or the 390-cubic-inch engine). Lipare and co. enlisted another Long Island shop, this one specializing in bodywork, to fabricate the car’s bulging fiberglass fenders. The stripped, rollcaged AMX spent most of its five-year road-racing career in the Northeast, at Bridgehampton Race Circuit in New York and Lime Rock Park in Connecticut.

Though the team disbanded in 1975, Lipare couldn’t stay away from the race track for long. Roughly a year later, he and the AMX hit the club racing circuit, revisiting tracks familiar to both of them—Bridgehampton and Lime Rock. Belfiore met Lipare during this phase of the car’s life. The younger man even tagged along to a few track days.

Belfiore’s own AMC obsession began with a street-spec silver 1970 AMX (above). He convinced his father to buy him the silver car when he was in high school. He still had his car in 1982 when he received a phone call from Lipare offering him its racing counterpart. Lipare wanted $10,000, but Belfiore didn’t have it. Six months later, Lipare called again. “How much you got?”

Belfiore couldn’t let this chance slip. He sold his AMX, called up his father and brother-in-law, and bought Lipare’s AMX for $6500.

“I bring it home, it’s race-ready—tires, window net. I made it streetable—headlights, wipers.” He put DOT-legal tires on it and took the AMX street-racing. Instead of the stock cross-ram intake, Belfiore ran a Torker unit and a Holley 850 carb. “Even in road-race trim with the 3.54 [rear] it was a total beast.”

Belfiore loved the attention the racing veteran brought on the streets. “I used to get pulled over by the police, they’d ask, ‘what is this?'”

“Then I did something really stupid,” he says. “I got married.” He sold the AMX in 1987 to a guy who, after “torturing” the car, dumped it in a storage garage. The buyer only contacted Belfiore about the beleaguered AMX when his father, who owned the building in which the AMX sat, decided to sell the facility. Belfiore agreed to shelter the car—”it was a mess”—in 2002, and it sat for ten more years, until Belfiore finally bought the car. “I thought, this car, as bad as it is, has got to be resurrected—I’m gonna do it.”

Thus started an eight-year-long, mostly at-home restoration project. Belfiore’s goal was “to get the beast back on the street again.” He decided on a few modern updates—a power-steering system, MSD electronic ignition, and disc brakes all around—but he wanted to preserve the car’s road-racing roots. Though he left paintwork to a professional shop, Belfiore’s shop was well-equipped for such an extensive restoration. Frank Lipare passed away in 1988 leaving no documented history for the car, but thanks to his tutelage, Belfiore had the AMC know-how to do the AMX justice.

Some seasons, Belfiore made rapid progress. Other times, progress slowed to a shuffle. In April of 2017, the AMX ran for the first time—for 10 minutes, when it shut off with no spark. A month later, Belfiore broke his fibula on a fishing trip. A plate, eight screws, and four months later, he was tackling a cracked oil pan.

In November of 2019, the AMX ran smoothly, had zero leaks and functional brakes, and was on the trailer to the paint shop. After rebuilding the carburetors this September, Belfiore says the project is 95 percent done—he’s fitting some interior clamps and perfecting a belt attachment section of the rollcage.

What Belfiore hadn’t anticipated, however, was the enthusiastic—and helpful—audience the AMX would garner. In 2012, he started a thread on theamcforum.com. Today, it’s a 56-page chronicle of his struggles, his triumphs, and the AMC community’s assistance. One person helped him find the rear window louvers. Another sourced the black C stripe. Still another provided meticulous measurements of the exact location of the AMX decal on the rear quarter panel—thanks to the flared fenders, the factory indentation on Belfiore’s AMX was gone—so Belfiore could fit a pair of AMX decals, carefully patterned after the originals, in their proper place.

Today, the AMX sits proud. It wears a new steel rear bumper, to replace the fiberglass original, and the body is painted in an early-2010s Porsche silver. Under the hood sits a 390-cu-in engine, kept cool by an L88 Corvette radiator and topped with a set of Holley 600 double-barrel carburetors. To make the car more streetable, Belfiore chose a tamer cam than the one he used on the 390 in his street-racing days. The engine’s headers are a custom affair made by Offenhauser for the car’s SCCA days. A set of custom side pipes help tame the monster’s roar enough for residential jaunts.

The powerplant is mated to a Kevlar clutch and a T-10 four-speed gearbox, and the rear end is a Dana 60 paired with 3.54 alloy axles. Vintage Hurst Airheart four-piston calipers clamp down on 12-inch vented brake rotors at all four corners. Belfiore sourced the front suspension from Control Freaks, and ordered 18-inch wheels from Centerline to which he fit Pirelli P Zero rubber.

“It’s really the coolest AMX on the planet,” Belfiore says. “There’s a lot of restored AMXs that are 100-point show cars—and that’s great, I respect it. Mine, being modified and having that kind of history—it really has brought a lot of attention.

“The AMC enthusiasts—they love the car. I’m not gonna race it, just gonna take it to shows and stuff. It’s part of my history.”

The post This unique AMX SCCA veteran is ready to rumble appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Looking for someone to turn those COVID-19 lemons into lemonade? Jason Prince is your man. Prince, a middle-school math and science teacher, was looking for something to do with his extra time after the pandemic closed schools and classes were moved online. He found the needed occupation in a 1962 Chevrolet Impala, much to his wife’s chagrin—at first.

Prince, who teaches at Highlands Middle School in Grand Rapids, Michigan, hoped the shutdown wouldn’t last long, but with the situation in limbo he began looking for something to do, just in case.

“When the stay-at-home orders came down, I had to find a project,” Prince says. “I’m not a sit-around guy; I have to be doing something.”

And that something, he decided, should be restoring a car. His wife, Lynn, wasn’t so sure. We’ll get to that.

As a teenager growing up in Southern California in the early 1990s, Prince learned bodywork skills at Cerritos Community College in nearby Norwalk and put that education to good use by rebuilding a “rust bucket” 1966 Mustang convertible. He also worked for his then-girlfriend’s father, Ron Kunkle, who built 1962 Chevy 409 clones.

Prince eventually sold the Mustang and enrolled at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, a cross-country move that paid off in more ways than one. Not only did he earn a teaching degree, he met his wife there. The two married in 1998.

Fast-forward to March 2020 and Prince’s interest in a project car. In Lynn’s defense, no one could blame her for wincing at the thought, since Jason had been there and done that—and it hadn’t ended well. He’d owned a black 1960 Impala and was fully intent on restoring it, but … “That thing was so rusted—rockers, frame—it was never going to be a show car. I kind of got bored with it and sold it 7–8 years ago.”

Motivated to do something productive in the face of the COVID stay-at-home orders, Prince scoured Craigslist and found what he thought was the perfect candidate: a 1962 Impala that the previous owner had already started to restore.

“It was pretty solid, and it had been stripped down so you could see exactly what you were getting,” Prince says. “It had all the interior and chrome pieces; it just needed bodywork. I thought, ‘I can do bodywork. I think I remember how to do that.’”

That was on a Monday, and the asking price was $5000. Jason approached Lynn with the idea. Nope, not happening. He looked again on Tuesday. The Impala was still available for $5K. No again. Ditto on Wednesday. “I couldn’t believe it was still there,” Prince says. “I thought, ‘Why isn’t anyone snatching up this car? It’s a steal!’”

Then Thursday arrived. To his surprise, the price had been slashed to $3000.

“I told Lynn, ‘This is a blessing from God,’” Jason says. As it turns out, so was her reaction: Go for it.

“I called the guy, Don, and asked to see the car, and then he started interviewing me,” Prince says. “I could really tell he cared a lot about the car. He asked if I had bodywork experience. He listened to my story. Then he asked if I had a trailer or access to one. I told him I didn’t, but I’d rent one. Instead, he volunteered to trailer it to me—and he lives in Portland (Michigan, about 45 miles away).

“Come to find out, he thought he’d sold the car to someone else the day before, but when the guy got there, he tried to sneak under the dash and pull some wires, maybe hoping to make sure it didn’t start so he could get it for less money. Don told him to take off.”

When the price dropped, Prince pounced. And after Don graciously delivered the Impala, Jason wasted little time in getting to work.

“It’s such a huge car [that] I had a lot to do,” he says. Each morning he would watch a YouTube video to prep for whatever task he wanted to tackle, teach his classes (via Zoom), and then work on the car.

“I worked on it every single day except Mother’s Day. I’m not an idiot,” Prince says, only half-joking. “It was fun being outside while everyone else was cooped up inside. And I felt like I was making really good progress. Every night I’d look at it and think, that looks so much better.”

Lynn also grew to appreciate the Impala and the impact it was having on her husband. “She liked knowing that I was out there doing something positive instead of getting exposed [to the virus],” he says. Prince’s neighbors, on the other hand, didn’t know what to make of it.

“They’d take a walk around the block, they’d see me out there, and they’d give me feedback … at first it was, ‘Why did you buy that piece of crap?’” Prince says with a laugh. “People are blown away by it now.”

Actually, some of those same neighbors were more than willing to help with the project. “Within a block of my house there are two other guys with ’62s, so whenever I got stuck I had those cars to look at,” Prince says. “And one of my neighbors, Darian Thompson, did all the paint work. He painted it in pieces … I’d put the trunk lid or the hood or a door into our Honda Odyssey and drive it down to him, then I’d wait until he was finished to pick that up and drive something else over.”

It was a time-consuming process, if you can call an astounding three-month restoration time-consuming. “I was kind of thinking two months when I started,” Prince admits. “It took a little longer than I thought. I had a few delays.”

Brief ones. Prince was determined to stay on-track so that he could be finished by the end of the school year. A friend stopped over and asked if he could photograph the car when it was completed—“in what, about a year?” Prince told him he’d be finished in weeks, not months.

The project gave Prince an opportunity to introduce his 15-year-old son, Noah, to the joy of restoration, but it didn’t exactly light him up—the same can be said for Noah’s 18-year-old sister, MaryHelen. “My love for cars has not been passed down,” Jason jokes. “Noah helped sometimes, but he didn’t love it. I took pictures every time so at least I have that.” There’s also photographic proof that Lynn lent a hand.

Finally, on June 7, Prince unveiled the near-complete restoration project on the last day of school.

“I had it all done except the windows,” he says. “My father-in-law (Jay Smith) loves puzzles, and the carpet and windows were like big puzzles that we had to put together.”

Now complete, the two-tone Chevy wears Silver Blue paint and a white top, as well as all of its original chrome except the front emblem. Under the hood is an upgraded 305-cubic-inch small-block V-8, and Prince also swapped out the Powerglide transmission for a Turbo 350. Among his other upgrades: a front disc brake conversion from Classic Performance Products, polished billet aluminum wheels from Vision, new steering bushings and linkages up front, and air bags. He also cut 6 inches off the rear springs to create a “California low look,” a nod to his Southern California upbringing.

“I’m pretty happy with it. I think it turned out pretty cool,” Prince says. “My wife loves it now. She calls it our marriage saver, because I would have driven her crazy if I’d been just sitting around.”

Hindsight is a beautiful thing. So is the Impala.

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By and large, 2020 has been a difficult year, with pandemic, political strife, and the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree all playing their part. Yes, our silver linings seem to be made of pewter right now, but there are precious bits out there if you look hard enough. This month, I discovered such a silver lining—in the wretched, revived shape of a 1957 Volvo 445 Duett.

In the spirit of the season, I’d even argue we should all be thankful for this car, not because Duetts are awesome (they are) or fast (they’re not), but because of what this car exemplifies, seemingly against the odds, in this year of years. It has a good, pure, honest, friendly, bend-over-backwards, full-of-love story arc that every so often enters our wonderful old-car sphere.

Back in November 2018, Pam Kirby’s son Cameron didn’t have much work left to get his late grandfather’s old Volvo back on the road. It had been inoperable for several years, but the young mechanic had towed it up from Sacramento to his home in Paradise, California, where he could get it sorted for Pam, who had inherited the car from her father. Now that he had the fuel tank repaired, Cameron just needed to install it. In the meantime, the tank sat on the Volvo’s hood until he could find the time. The morning of November 8, however, driven by 50-mph winds, the Camp Fire, which would kill 85 people and become California’s most destructive wildfire on record, tore through the Sierra Nevada foothills and decimated Paradise in a matter of hours. In the moment, Cameron debated hooking up the Volvo and towing it out, but there was no time, so he fled. “He made it out with his life and his dog and a few things he could throw in his truck,” Kirby says.

In the fire’s aftermath, Paradise residents weren’t immediately allowed back to their properties. “But my husband has a friend, a magazine photographer,” Kirby says, “and he called to tell us he’d been assigned to go shoot in Paradise.” He offered to go look at things for Cameron and check on his property. “It was because of him we knew very early how bad the damage was, that the house was gone, that everything was gone.”

The Volvo, too, was gone. The fire had eaten its paint and warped the sheetmetal beneath it. All the glass, plastic, and pot metal melted. The car sagged on coil springs fully compressed, and the interior was gutted save for a frantic network of dead seat springs.

“I was so heartbroken to lose my dad’s car,” Pam Kirby says. “I grew up in that car. I was a toddler camping in it. I learned to drive in it, and I drove it in high school. It’s been in my life for forever.” In the weeks after the fire, though, she recognized there wasn’t anything she or her family could do for it. She also knew she couldn’t bear to send it to the junkyard. In January 2019 she joined several Volvo groups on Facebook. “I posted pictures and asked if anyone could take it on. Three people responded.”

One of them was Nick Haas, who runs Red Block Performance, a Volvo shop in Portland, Oregon. Haas was fixing up his own Duett at the time and was initially interested in the Kirby’s solely for what he might scavenge from it. Then he and Pam Kirby got on the phone.

“I spoke with her and saw how much she loved her father. I saw how much this car meant to her, and I knew I had to try to get it back on the road,” Haas says. “This Volvo was so important to their family, and I wanted to make sure it didn’t just die in vain.” Kirby still had not been back to her son’s property since the fire, still had not seen the Duett, but she told Haas to come get it.

Soon after, Haas drove down to California towing a flatbed. “When I arrived in Paradise that January, I was surprised by the devastation,” he says. “I came to this hillside covered in crosses and had to pull over and regain my composure. Even just seeing the car and pulling it out of the ashes, it was heart-wrenching.”

Back in Portland, Haas spent two months stripping the car down, grinding and wire-wheeling it to bare metal. He then coated everything underneath with POR-15 rust converter before painting it all with a rust-inhibiting heavy-equipment enamel. “I wanted to preserve everything you don’t see,” he says. “But I tried to leave the exterior and exposed parts as close to as-found as possible.”

Most of those “as-found” bits get regular treatments of boiled linseed oil to keep rust at bay. Rain will kill this car as fire could not, so for the rest of its days, the Duett will need to lead a charmed life, ideally garaged, in a warm, dry climate.

As he dug into the Volvo, Haas also got a glimpse into the Volvo-owning life of Lee Pearce, Pam Kirby’s father, who had purchased the Duett new in Sacramento from John’s Motor Sales. He proved a meticulous record keeper.

“The car came with a five-inch stack of receipts, dealership brochures, a Sears parts catalog, Lee’s notes and calculations for various things, and an original Volvo shop manual with his notations,” says Haas. All of it was pristine, too—no tears, no creases, nothing faded. In fact, Lee Pearce turned out to be a true “Volvo guy,” and he owned several models during his life. In 1970, after an accident totaled his 145 wagon, Pearce brought it and the Duett into the high school shop class he taught, and he and his students replaced the latter’s 85-hp, 1.6-liter four-cylinder B16 and three-speed manual with the larger 101-hp B18 and four-speed from the 145.”

Surprisingly, or perhaps not, Haas didn’t have to open that engine. “Didn’t even replace the head gasket,” he says. “Fire so hot it melted the glass and warped just about everything else, but that motor still runs fine.” Bear in mind the B18 is the same engine that powered famous Volvo owner Irv Gordon’s P1800 for more than 3 million miles. “You can’t kill these engines. You just can’t.”

Haas didn’t touch the engine, but the interior certainly needed help. When he put a post on Facebook looking for parts to restore the car, the Volvo community delivered. A guy in Lebanon, Oregon, donated the steering wheel and the taillights. A family in Reedsport, Oregon allowed Haas to camp on their property for a long weekend and mine their six Duetts for parts. The gauge cluster was donated by a fellow in France. The temperature gauge—“new old stock and totally unobtanium”—came as a donation from someone in Germany.  “There are parts on this car from all over the place,” Haas says.

Haas’ own creativity is all over this car, too; the doors and ceiling are a collage of California road maps, Volvo ads and brochure pages, vintage post cards, and 1960s fruit crate labels, all with a Paradise theme. “We weren’t going to get a cloth headliner back in here,” he says, “so this seemed like the next best thing.”

When he got the Volvo to a certain point—as a reliable running, driving, stopping, delicately preserved artifact—Haas felt like he was finished with it, so he called Pam Kirby to offer it back to her. “As a family we went around and round about it,” Kirby says. “But none of us were at a place in our lives to do anything with it. It might just sit in a garage, but no one would see it or enjoy it.”

Haas ultimately decided to put the car on eBay, with proceeds to benefit the American Red Cross disaster relief fund. Before that, however, he needed to take this special old Duett on a road trip.

He set out from Portland on November 7 and the next day, exactly two years after the Camp Fire ravaged more than 150,000 acres, nearly 19,000 buildings, and one 1957 Volvo 445, he arrived in Paradise to meet Pam Kirby and her family and reacquaint them with the car they all loved. “It was such a remarkable feeling,” Haas says. “Next to holding my son for the first time, I’ve never experienced something so powerful.”

Pam Kirby agrees. “That car was my dad’s love. I felt like he was smiling at us, that he knew we did the right thing by saving it.” Despite all the seat time she’d had in the Duett over the years, Kirby decided against driving it one last time. “It was too emotional. It was so neat just to sit in it and turn the engine over, so I sat in there by myself and revved it, and that was enough.”

Haas made the auction listing live that day, a condition of the sale being first right of refusal to Pam Kirby should the buyer ever decide to sell it. By the virtual gavel drop on November 18, fourteen bidders had taken the Duett to $7200. In Portland, Nick Haas cheered on the last-minute bidding frenzy from one of the bays of his shop. In Sacramento, Pam Kirby did the same from her mother’s hospital bedside.

“I’m so happy that it’s going to someone who will love it,” Kirby says. “As a family that was our big concern. We never wanted it to just go to junk.”

For Haas, parting with Lee Pearce’s Volvo, and this chapter of his life, is bittersweet. “I’ll never build another car like this,” he says. “It’s the culmination of a lot of love and support from a community that cherishes these cars and which just wanted to see this thing live. Exponentially, this car is everything that is car culture: history, family, community, love. It makes me cry to think about it.”

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Be it gauge cluster lenses, windows into your HVAC or stereo control panels, or gloriously fake woodgrain, automotive interiors have relied on highly finished plastic surfaces since the 1970s. I’ve restored lenses dating back to 1972 (in my Continental Mark IV) that were scratched, stained, and foggy. My work culminated in a handful of poorly aged lenses on my 1995 Lincoln Mark VIII’s gauge cluster, trip computer, stereo, graphic equalizer, and automatic climate control module. (NOTE: The following advice does not apply to touch screen or anti-glare screens inside newer cars.)

Here’s a before and after of my Mark VIII’s clear plastic interior screens: Note the haziness on the HVAC controller and the horizontal scratches/spots on the Kenwood graphic equalizer in the before pic. My camera phone in the afternoon sun doesn’t do the final product justice, but believe me that just a few minutes of polishing with the right products makes a huge difference.

All you need is a clean microfiber cloth and a plastic cleaning liquid. There are numerous brands available, but suffice to say that anything marketed to clean foggy plastic is gonna work a treat.

After removing the modules from the dash (very easy on a 1990s Ford product), I dabbed a drop of plastic cleaner on the lens and used mild-to-medium pressure to polish using a microfiber cloth. I applied it three times, in three directions: circular motions, then horizontal and finally vertical motions. Let the cleaner dry to a haze between each directional polish, buff it clean, and visually inspect trouble areas that aren’t turning brilliant before reapplying the plastic polish. Make a mental note of the spots that need extra polishing before you go back to it.

Most trouble spots will disappear with the three applications/polishing motions, but those circular spots on my graphic equalizer were stubborn: Focused polishing in a circular motion were needed to clear them up. But honestly, I was rather sloppy in my restoration, so have a look at AMMO NYC’s instructional video for the best in plastic screen refurbishment.

Oh yeah, he totally did a better job than I did! It pays to sweat the details, so perhaps I should have given my modules to a local paint correction specialist to receive a far superior product. But no matter how you restore your interior plastics to a brilliant sheen, the end result will bring a smile to your face every time you slip behind the wheel, twist the key, and watch them come to life.

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