R4Sedan
Larry
Looks great George.
I fully agree with you.
Well, i need to say this.
You have come a long way in your welding and fabrication skills since i first met you, George.
A lot of this has to do with attitude, and the willingness to jump in, get your hands dirty, and not be afraid to try new things.
A lot of people would say, why not buy the AMD drop offs etc. because they fit better, blah blah blah.
These are also the people that insist on a $10,000 resto paint job.
For lack of a better way of putting it, you are showing the people on here what you can achieve by starting with a decent overall car that needs some love in the rust department, (and LOOKS a bit bad) using skills that a typical do it your selfer has or acquires by tackling projects like these.
(Having a decent shop and tools helps too i guess.)
You will end up with a car that is a good functional driver for someone when you pass it on, and though not a particularly rare car deserving a high dollar top end resto, it will be a nice car for someone to enjoy and have a lot of fun with and not worry about rust issues ever again.
This also represents a car your average joe that is on a lower end budget would like to fix up and personalize it after you get the metal work done and enjoy the rest of the build............
Isn't that what this hobby is all about?
Not everything needs to be bucks up and perfect to be a good functional car.
My hat's off to you for doing this and posting lots of pictures for all to see and learn.
Maybe this will inspire some others to tackle something similar and get another one on the road to be enjoyed.............
Thanks for
Oh my.........
I happen to have friends who do concourse restos. Those are on cars that deserve such. Not every car out there needs or deserves that kind of work. Some cars will actually be used and driven. Most of the cars that get "those" jobs done on them stay in a garage and only go to shows.......if that.
Sorry, don't take this the wrong way. Your business isn't for everyone, in fact, it's for very few. A limited few. There are far more people on budgets than there are with money to burn. Those of us, actually like the fact that "we" built the car. Be it perfect or not. That is something 99% of your clients don't have a clue about.
Carry on, I like show cars too, I just don't have any use for one. I believe those are just money sunk that won't be recovered.
I just read your two posts in their entirety.And that's where you're missing the point. Most of our clients do shows yes but most of out clients are return business and I happen to know a lot of them are also just as enthusiastic about this sorta thing as you and I. They have numerous cars, they do drive them and sometimes they drive them hard. "We" built them is a statement many of my clients can say. We work with everyone. I won't go into our clientele but we have everyone from music people, business owners, to ma and pa who did everything that they could at home and are looking for help to finish. As I've said, we, as in my family, only work on American vehicles. It's what we know. I don't think we've ever done a concours restoration here. Now, the other shop my father retired from and who brought me on as a consultant is a whole other level of clientele. Yes, they are the .1% who can afford such luxuries, and they are luxuries, but we will never see those people in our shop. Most our builds are under 20k, we have a separate shop on grounds for our higher level stuff, we don't mix the two. We do enough business at both to sustain but it is highly skewed towards budget builds.
I just hate the sentiment that putting in quality time and money on body and paint is seen as luxury or for show cars only. Imagine if BMW started stating quality bodywork and paint is an added cost, a luxury cost.
Now, me, I love this homebrew ****. I love seeing people innovate and expand their learning. What I don't agree with is anti-sentiment against the time that goes into quality work.
Thanks for the reply and apology, 74SwingerA."So, what's wrong if someone wants to learn how to do body work and paint themselves, as well as building an engine, installing a refurbished interior that's not perfect, rebuilding the suspension etc.?
Not all of us have deep pockets so we can simply write a check and get someone to ''restore'' a car for them and call it their own...........
There's no reason to belittle or undermine anyone about their efforts and their thoughts/dreams/enthusiasm.
I find that most of the fun is with rolling up your sleeves and jumping into a project, and learn as you go."
First I'd like to say sorry to those who felt I undermined or belittled their projects or work. It was not my intention and as I've said before I do respect work at all levels. I simply found issue in statement about how expensive paint jobs were a waste of money. I have deep respect for people at that level. So again, I'm sorry it seemed that way.
Second, I owe an apology to dgrill, I've hijacked your thread and made it a discussion about the polar opposite view points of the community.
So, thank you dartnut for your reply, I appreciate your passion and desire to "enjoy" your vehicles in your own way. As you've said it is a perspective. I can't speak for how people want to or do enjoy their vehicles. I have customers who are happy sitting around their vehicle collection and admiring the art of what they have built. But I also have people, like me, who like a good looking vehicle and don't care about resell value. If I mess it up over the course of 15 years I'll just rebuild it. It's not going anywhere. I'll love it, put the time in maintaining it and enjoy it in my own way.
Now, I won't say names but we have a customer at the concours shop who sells floor mats for vehicles. He's a rare exception, but, he drives two of his vehicles almost weekly. He's spent over 350,000 dollars restoring to concours. He flew out a DB4 that he had won at auction, told us he was tired of his friends winning best of show in this segment, told us cost didn't matter, restored the vehicle for Pebble, picked it up a couple days before the show, and drove it down. He does that with both his DB4 and a 365 GTB. The guy is eccentric and loves driving these priceless, rare vehicles. We've done well over five vehicles for him and are bidding on doing a certain rare Ferrari he won at auction recently. I found it to be quite an interesting and funny story, you see enthusiast at all levels.
Well ,it's about time you did a water burn out with the Coronet!Today I laid down the first set of Coronet tracks on my driveway! The Coronet has to move outside during certain tasks, so being rainy and slippery I figured why not? If you're not familiar, the Coronet followed me home in 2013. I can't believe it's been that long! My how time flies. I also played with the timing and idle a bit. Seems happier now.
Lol,and I've been laughing all day at your post Dartnut! Hopes and dreams! It's gonna take alot more than somebody on this forum to knock back my enthusiasm! I've been around way too long to worry about the little things, but you already know that. ;)
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