You may be confronted with scenes like the ones below. Restoration is a commitment of time and financial resources and both are often required in good measure. The time and cash relationship can be manipulated any way you like, but a certain amount of time and money is needed to realise your dream. You might prefer that someone else completes the whole project and you are in a position to pay for services rendered. This is a relatively straight forward approach where you seek out the right restorer for your vehicle.

Another way is to project manage the restoration yourself. You may already have some of the skills required to get the job done and just need some direction. If you are a hands on person, you could tackle various tasks yourself which could offset some of the monetary cost of the project. Skills associated with restoration can be learnt with patience and practice. Perhaps take a short course at TAFE or evening college to improve your abilities in any given area. It may be necessary to send various components to qualified people to complete for you. This project managed way would mean you will probably assemble the components or vehicle yourself at the end of the day. Careful attention to detail is required along the way as this method can be fraught with difficulty if a close eye is not kept on all aspects of the work. The aim is for the vehicle to fit nicely together at the end and operate as a cohesive whole rather than an assembly of seperate parts. For example there could be problems if two different people are doing the chassis and the body at the same time BUT at different locations. A collaborative approach may be required – relaying information back and forth between them or have the chassis done first before it goes to the coachbuilder.

For the things you can’t do yourself, seek out talented people who can work with you. You’ll be surprised at where you can find just the right skills. For example, made to order saddlery experts could help you with bonnet straps, forklift motor repairers with generator or wiper motor rewinding, leadlight glass people for instrument and light lenses or enamel jewellery artisans for re-enamelling radiator badges.

Please click back to Workshop Services to check how Vintage Motor Garage can help you with various components.