So You Bought a Fancy Vintage Car. Now Who's Going to Restore It?
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Re: So You Bought a Fancy Vintage Car. Now Who's Going to Restore It?
#2Re: So You Bought a Fancy Vintage Car. Now Who's Going to Restore It?
#3There's a great car restoration business near us. The sole proprietor is in his late 70s and refuses to take on any apprentice. Says he refuses to train his competition. Sad that all those years of experience and skill will go to waste.
Re: So You Bought a Fancy Vintage Car. Now Who's Going to Restore It?
#4There's a great car restoration business near us. The sole proprietor is in his late 70s and refuses to take on any apprentice. Says he refuses to train his competition. Sad that all those years of experience and skill will go to waste.
“Go to waste” is such a weird way to think about a 5 decade career.
Re: So You Bought a Fancy Vintage Car. Now Who's Going to Restore It?
#5There's a great car restoration business near us. The sole proprietor is in his late 70s and refuses to take on any apprentice. Says he refuses to train his competition. Sad that all those years of experience and skill will go to waste.
“Go to waste” is such a weird way to think about a 5 decade career.
He has so much skill he could pass on but refuses. That's a waste for the car restoration community.
Re: So You Bought a Fancy Vintage Car. Now Who's Going to Restore It?
#6There's a great car restoration business near us. The sole proprietor is in his late 70s and refuses to take on any apprentice. Says he refuses to train his competition. Sad that all those years of experience and skill will go to waste.
“Go to waste” is such a weird way to think about a 5 decade career.
Five decades is either trivial or enough time to contribute back to society.
Re: So You Bought a Fancy Vintage Car. Now Who's Going to Restore It?
#7"the $77 billion classic car industry"? That's from here.[1] For $4699 you can buy a copy of the full report.
The market size estimate may come from defining a rather large range of cars as "classic". The average auction price of a "classic car" is $45,000.[2] Not sure what definition they're using, but we're not talking about what goes to Pebble Beach.
[1] https://www.credenceresearch.com/report/classic-cars-market
[2] https://www.classic.com/insights/hagerty-2025-market-in-4-ch...
Re: So You Bought a Fancy Vintage Car. Now Who's Going to Restore It?
#8I knew a guy who did this sort of thing.
me: "that sounds really wonderful and interesting!"
him: "bunch of rusty cars"
Re: So You Bought a Fancy Vintage Car. Now Who's Going to Restore It?
#9Ironically, if it's a mid-century domestic, there is probably better parts availability, especially aftermarket, than anything made within the last decade or so.
Re: So You Bought a Fancy Vintage Car. Now Who's Going to Restore It?
#10I've just about got my 1981 Mini I bought in highschool for $600 NZD back in one piece. Wasn't going to touch the engine originally but thought why not, so almost 20 years later with almost everything aside from the shell refurbed or replaced here we are. It's been expensive and slow and I'd have been better off now having put the money into a house deposit instead. But now I know a fair amount about rebuilding a 45 year old car and I have about 10k in specialty tools I will probably barely use again, so I guess there's that.