Secrets to Finding a Vintage Car

The secret to finding a vintage car for you may be different the “perfect” classic car.

We have been collecting and restoring old cars and trucks for many years, and up until the past few years I kept making the same mistake over and over again. I would buy a vintage car that was perfect for me exactly the way it was… and then change it. Now mind you, the operative words in the previous sentence were “perfect for me.” Not “perfect.”

We are now at the point in our lives where driving our classic cars & trucks and enjoying them are more important than taking them to shows and winning trophies. But driving a perfect collector car for pleasure has certain inherent risks. These risks range from the relatively benign trip through a puddle to the catastrophic, life altering parking lot ding. The thought of an actual traffic accident is just too unbearable to even contemplate. 

We would always keep our eyes open for finding a vintage car with great intrinsic value.

Maybe it would be a “survivor” with a few nicks and scratches. Or a “muscle car” that had seen a few too many trips to the track, but had lots of original documentation. It might be something rare that was mechanically perfect but somewhat cosmetically challenged, or something that was cosmetically perfect but needed a little tending to mechanically. With little or no work these old cars would look great and they could all be driven and enjoyed with a high degree of dependability.

But they would not be perfect. So, invariably, we would decide to restore the car to perfection. As anyone who has restored a car will tell you, there is absolutely no way to financially justify a full restoration. It is less expensive to buy a restored car than it is to restore it. Not to mention the year or two that the restoration will take. Since we could not justify the restoration from a financial perspective, we were forced to find a less quantifiable justification. We found that justification in five simple words. “Because the old car deserves it.”

In retrospect we realize that we have suffered with this disassociation from reality for a long time. Many years ago I worked with a gentleman who want to buy his sister a Karmann Ghia convertible and specifically a yellow one that she dreamed of as a teenager.

I search all over for a car and found an orange one in Maryland which we bought and shipped to Massachusetts for a complete restoration and color change. We completed the car and it matched exactly what she wanted. The car was shipped from the restoration shop to her home in Florida.  The problem was that when he presented her with the car on her birthday the car came out so nice that she was afraid to drive it; after all the searching and work the car was shipped back to New York and sold to a friend of theirs at far less than all the costs put into the class car.

Now many years and antique car restorations later we are finally starting to “get it.” “Perfect” does not have to mean absolute cosmetic and mechanical perfection as in “Pebble Beach Concours Quality.” And believe us, even those cars are not perfect, although the imperfections are usually known only to the owners. Perfect for one person may be completely different for another.

For us a perfect classic car is beautiful and dependable. At least from five feet away. Copious amounts of plastic filler are not acceptable, but a stone chip here and there is. An engine with a bearing knock, or a clunky ball joint will find its way to the shop immediately, but air-conditioning that does not blow cold air…well, that can wait until the winter to fix. Or maybe even next year. Maybe.

When we sell one of my cars and a potential buyer asks us for an honest description we answer this way. “My cars are beautiful, and capable of winning just about any local car show. But if you enter it in a show in which it will be judged against the best of its type…it will lose.” But to us, and to the people who compliment my cars at stoplights, gas stations, and the occasional cruise-night, they are perfect.

At this point we do not want to suffer the anguish of a minor scratch or dent, but simply a little polishing compound removed most of it, but it really didn’t bother me. Now that’s our idea of finding a vintage car that is perfect.