Custom Car Restoration

Custom Car Restoration

How to Decide What You Want In A Restoration

First of all are you a traditional type of person, or do you like the better things in life, do you like everything in it's place, or are you looking for something different, no matter how you look at your car restoration project, your way is the right way.

You'll hear a lot of people who are purest telling you that you should never modify your old car, and to an extent that's true, if you restoring in the car for investment purposes, you might want to leave it as original as you possibly car, because it will retain more value that way.

But if you building the cat as a driver, and you have some ideas that you think would be a good idea to do,I say do them if you have the cash, but don't do anything that can't be UN-done, and always keep the parts that you take off of the car that your building.

There is nothing harder then trowing the parts away, and then later realizing that you can't find them when you need them, in any case I say give your car that custom paint work, upgrade the suspension, steering, and brakes to the modern equipment.

You'll never be satisfied with your car until you get exactly what you want, I'm not saying to locate an L88 corvette and hack the hell out of it, modify a car that they made a lot of, a standard camaro, corvette, or mustang, not the special car that they only built a few of.

I'm all for making your car what you think that it should be, modern suspension and braking systems are a great way to make you old car handle, and stop better, the old cars usually had a problem in the stopping department, they just didn't do it very well.

These days you can buy a high performance crate motor right from the factory that will do about anything that you want it to, and if you purchase it from the factory, you'll have the added advantage of a factory warranty on the engine, and this is a nice perk.

I say do as you please, because there have been a lot of things that have improved over the years in the automotive industry, but be very careful, there are a lot of things that are just crap also, don't get sucked in to custom goodies that have no point, you'll just be unhappy with the car.

You should take some time to think about what you want, don't get excited and rush yourself, the more that you can explain to the shop about your ideas, the closer that they can get to your idea in the end, most shops are very good at interpreting a customers ideas.

You should still be careful when taking your car to a shop, some shops will rip you off if they think they can, make sure that you ask a lot of questions to the owner of the shop, questions like have you worked on cars like mine, can I see pictures of some of them.

Most shops these days have a web site, with a blog where their customers can come and comment on their work, or they have a page for customers to send in little blubs about the way that they did their work, ask the owner for their web site address.

Last but not least you should ask the owner for references from past customers about the work they performed on their cars, most shops are proud of their past work, and they are glad to give a reference or two, if they won't it should throw up a red flag.

Muscle Car Restoration

About the Author

I've been in the automotive business for about 20 or 25 years, I have worked in all facets of the industry, from parts to restoration, all different makes and models, I just want to keep people interested in the old cars because it's where my heart is.

Car Restoration - How To Community

Looking for a good car restoration book.?

We're working on a 1949 4-door Mercury. I want to find a restoration/custom manual. I found a couple of archived Hot Rod Magazine articles. I just want something more complete to use as a reference.

We are definitly going to chop, channel and shave. Not sure how much yet. I like things subtle, my husband wants to go crazy. We might have to build 2, a His and Hers.

We hit the car swap meets and hot rod shows. Thanks to all you guys for sharing your tips and experience.

Try Borders books yet? or any major large book store? I am sure they will have a section pertaining to this.

otherwise the rest of us learn by the trade being handed down by others, that is how I learned all of my paint and cosmetics experience.

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