Repair or Restoration - which will it be?

You’ve got a nice vintage sports car, but it hasn’t run in many years.  Auction prices for these cars are rising.  Should you restore the car to show condition, or just fix it up to drive it?

Here at Robison Service we see situations like that all the time.  Sometimes the prudent course of action is clear, but other times it’s hard to decide what to do.

Sitting in the garage, it's a memory or a dream, but making it real may cost more than you think . . . 

In today’s market, the cars that bring those jaw-dropping prices on the televised auctions have been meticulously restored and detailed.  We do that level of work but owners must understand it comes at a price, as compared to basic mechanical repair.

Let’s look at the restoration or repair of a Jaguar XKE front end as an example.  This photo shows a typical old unrestored Jag; this particular car arrived here a month or so ago to join two other similar specimens in line for fixing up.

The problems in this front end are pretty well visible. The brake rotors are rusted. The rubber boots on the ball joints have rotted away, and the joints are loose.  The brake calipers are frozen from lack of use.  And the wheel bearings are sloppy.  The fix: a complete front end and brake overhaul.

If this was a modern Jaguar, we’d be able to do this repair in a day, using complete hubs and exchange brake calipers.  The parts would pop off and the new assemblies would slide on.  Old cars don’t usually go that smoothly.   We  can’t simply buy new brake calipers for an old XKE; the calipers the car has must be rebuilt.   Same for the hubs.  Everything is more time consuming because we repair, rather than replace.

In addition the scope of these jobs tends to expand when compared to service on a new car.  For example, we might need to replace the steel brake pipes if they don’t unscrew.  We might struggle with rusty parts that won’t come apart, and we will spend time cleaning things up.

The one-day job on a newer Jag may become a two or three day job on an older car.  Here's an example of how a simple task like "do the front brakes' expands from fitting front pads and rotors.  You pull the rotor and hub off the car, and the bearings are galled and the grease is chunky.  Add a few hours to rebuild the hubs.   When you remove the brake caliper for access, you see the rubber hose has cracks.  Add some time to take it off.  When you remove it, the steel line to the master cylinder snaps. Add half a day to run a new line.  When you go to bleed the system you feel a "bump" when pushing the brake pedal.  On closer examination, you find the master cylinder was corroded inside and the extra push of bleeding has pushed it over the edge.  Add a few hours to replace the master.  Do this at all four corners of the car, and you've added several thousand dollars of parts and labor to a seemingly simple job.  Every job on a vintage car has the potential for this kind of expansion.

So far, all we’re talking is mechanical repair.  What if the goal is restoration?

That adds a whole new level of complexity, because everything has to look new as well as function 100%.   That affects every single task.

First of all, when the area is stripped down for service, we now have to look at the underlying frame or body area.  Is it rusty?  Does it need paint?  Several days labor may be expended preparing the front frame to be serviced.  In many cases we spend more time on the cosmetic restoration of the areas being serviced than the repairs themselves take.

It’s no longer enough to simply replace parts.  Parts may not be available new, or else the current replacement part is a low quality reproduction you don't want to use.  It may be "new old stock;" a part that sat in a warehouse forgotten for fifty years, and it may not be good anymore.  Parts are a major hassle for vintage cars.  In the end, we often find ourselves making parts ourselves, or doing our own machining and rebuilding.  Once again that eats up time and money.

In this shot you see how a simple brake repair has expanded.  The brake caliper pistons are corroded and leaky.  The parking brake has worn out. The hubs need overhaul.   "Simple" jobs are rarely simple on a forty-year-old Rolls-Royce



When restoring, a simple functional repair is not enough.  We must also return the appearance of the parts to a new condition.  That may mean corrosion repair, cleaning, painting or plating.  We may choose to use techniques that were not available when these cars were made, in the interest of finish, performance, or durability.  A good example would be powder painting.  We may need to find alternative processes because the old ways are no longer done due to safety or environmental issues.  Examples of that are lacquer painting or cadmium plating.   All that adds labor time, wait time as paint and plating is processed, and of course there is the cost of it all.

The one day job on a modern Jaguar becomes a week, maybe two, maybe more of restoration work on the vintage car.   Always remember this:  restoration means bringing back the appearance and the function.   A true restored car drives like new - maybe better than new.  It doesn't just look good.  Painting over worn out parts is not restoration, though it's all too common as a means of cutting costs.

Service and repair is usually limited in scope. Restoration isn’t.  You can’t restore the front frame of a vintage car and ignore the back.  You need to keep going.  The result can be beautiful, and impressive.  But it is very time consuming, and time is money.

Repair work is guided by our knowledge of good practice, and we have many opportunities to save money.  Restoration is often guided by that car make’s Concours Judging Guide, and we have to follow the code strictly if we are to deliver good value in the end. 

It’s very common for a big British sports car restoration (Jaguar, Austin Healey, Jensen, Aston Martin) to eat up 1,000-2,000 hours of labor.  No matter how reasonable the labor rate is in your area, that makes for a big bill.

Wood steering wheels are beautiful, but they were seldom original.  Opinions about these custom touches vary from owner to owner, and car make to make.

Some cars will justify that work.   A rare Jaguar – a 120 roadster, a three-carb XKE – or an exotic Aston Martin may fetch $150-250,000 when restored.  For those cars, a very high level of work is justifiable. 

What about their little brothers – Triumph, MG, and  other cars that are so much more common?   They may be a little simpler to restore, and parts will cost less, but a top quality restoration will still eat up 1,000+ hours of labor.  If top quality examples of your make only fetch $25k it’s hard to justify restoration unless you do it yourself, as a labor of love.  Indeed, that’s what many of these projects are.

The XK120 above has been in the same family for sixty years now.  How do you put a price on that?  If you're in it forever, nothing but the best will do . . .

The final car I’ll consider is the top end – Rolls-Royce and their ilk.  These are much more complex cars, with higher standards of fit and finish, more expensive materials, and “more car” in general to work with.  Where a Jaguar can eat up 1,500 hours in a total restoration the Rolls-Royce convertible may consume 3,000, maybe more.

Values of finished cars vary wildly.  A 100-point restoration on a Silver Shadow may still fetch only $50,000.  A one-off Phantom drophead that was only a little more work to restore may be worth ten times that much in the end.  In that world you need to pick your projects carefully if value is your goal.

And then there’s the custom job – the times we are asked to take a car that was built as one thing, and make it into something else.  We make 88-inch Land Rover hardtops into 130 inch pickups.  We make stock Rovers into fire-breathing rock crawling monsters.  We put Rolls Royce leather and wood into American iron that newer saw anything but Detroit vinyl.

For those people – and indeed for most of our clients – cash value isn’t the goal.  Rather, the value for them is the joy they get owning a fine one-of-a-kind piece of automotive machinery, and using it for its intended purpose.  Most of these projects are Dad’s car; Grandpa’s car; the car we first dated in; or something else that gives that particular vehicle special significance and a value that goes beyond dollars and cents.  And those owners tend to be our happiest clients.

So what’s the takeaway from all this?  Think carefully about what you want.  Don’t confuse mechanical fixing up with concours restoration.  Don't confuse nicely painted but worn out junk with restoration.   If you want a custom job, think that through before you begin.   Remember that different people are happy with different jobs, and there are no right or wrong answers, provided the work you choose is done well.  That’s what we take pride in most of all.

If you’ve got a project you’d like to discuss, call me at 413-785-1665 or email Robison@robisonservicecom

John Elder Robison

J E Robison Service

347 Page Boulevard

Springfield, MA 01104

The Philosophy of Car Restoration

Yesterday I posted some pictures of newly painted parts that are part of a Land Rover restoration we’re doing.  I captioned them “better than new,” and one of my readers asked if that was really the right goal of restoration.  Shouldn’t we follow the vision of the designers, he asked?

When we tackle a rusty old Land Rover Defender or Series truck, we are working with something that was originally a roughly finished utility vehicle made to a low standard of finish for use by military forces, farmers, and rural residents.

Today those vehicles are valuable, and often owned by very affluent people who are demographically very far removed from Land Rover’s original target market.  Land Rovers were built to be working off-road vehicles that would wear out in time, and be scrapped.  Today’s collectors have a very different expectation.  They don’t usually “work” their Rovers though they may attend club events.  Rather than expecting them to wear out and be scrapped, many collectors expect a level of quality they can cherish for a lifetime.

Where the original buyers bought for function and value, collectors buy for sentiment and sometimes-potential financial gain.  Most of the people who are drawn to Land Rovers discovered them years ago, perhaps on a farm, or at a camp in the wilderness.  Others – like me - saw Land Rovers in Wild Kingdom or National Geographic and dreamed.

When I grew up one of the things I became was an automobile service manager.  I watched people use Land Rovers to work power line projects and go where no other car could, and we fixed them when they sustained damage.   I saw the compromises Land Rover chose to make the vehicles affordable, and I saw how they subsequently fell apart in the field.  I learned how engineering oversights and errors could leave a person stranded, alone in the middle of nowhere.  I saw how New England winters turned bare metal undercarriages to cheesecake, and I wondered what might be done about that.

When I began overseeing restoration work I saw how cars are put together, and I began to understand the tradeoffs designers and engineers had to make to deliver a combination of cost, performance and durability.  One of the first things I learned was that cost is one of the most important design goals of every car engineer.  If a dollar could be saved by leaving a hidden metal part unpainted, Land Rover was very likely to do it.

Other carmakers – like Rolls-Royce – had bigger budgets and made fewer of those compromises.  They had their own issues, to be sure, but initial finish was not usually among them.

People would say thing like, “I want my Rover to look just as it did when new,” and at first I took them literally.  However, when we saw the results it became clear my clients did not really want the rough fit and finish of the original, even though it was true to their words and the way Rover had done it.  When they said, “like when it was new,” they were actually envisioning an idealized “new” where it was hand built, hand fitted, and near perfect.  That is quite far from what the factory did.

The more of these jobs I did the more I realized that our clients put a lot more emphasis on finish quality than any factory ever had.  That meant all parts needed to be painted or finished even if they never had been before.  

As we acquired more experience our philosophy of restoration diverged farther and farther from the manufacturer’s philosophy of car building.    Every step down that road made our clients happier.  We acquired the ability to restore cars so that they looked great and drove better than they did when new.

We built a reputation as a shop that built vehicles to perform, as well as look great.  Too many restorers see their job as cosmetics-only, and we could never agree with that point of view.  If I had a choice I’d take a fine running car that had some cosmetic imperfections over a beautiful trailer queen any day.

When we do cosmetic work, we always consider how it will perform in addition to how it will look.  If we weld up a custom bumper, we ask if it will hold the weight of the car on a floor jack.  When we paint something we ask if the finish will hold up when our clients use the vehicle.  Often that leads us to use more rugged techniques like powder coating.

When someone comes to us and says, "I want to drive my Land Rover on the beach," we think long and hard about how we can minimize corrosion in that hostile environment.  Every part we successfully protect today is a part that won’t have to be chiseled off, ten years down the road.

Here's one of our projects, from beneath.  It's not the perspective most people see, but it looks good and more important it will be durable.

Then there’s the matter of customization.  As much as some people like originality, I like tasteful custom work because it’s an opportunity to express our creative skills.  We love building custom bumpers, hidden winch mounts, or special racks and carriers.  Those things are like custom cabinets in a fine home – you can look at them forever and know they were made just for you, and not bought from a parts catalog.

Obviously the word customization can mean many things, all the way to the Batmobile or the George Barris custom rods of the sixties.    If you have something far out in mind, make sure the restorers share your vision.  Otherwise you run the risk of being like that sailor who passed out in the tattoo parlor . . .

We’ve also learned how much time quality work takes.  We know a full restoration can easily consume a thousand of hours of labor.  Some complex cars can take far more.  Jobs like these can take a year, maybe more to complete.  But the results will be worth the wait.

If you’re thinking of restoring a car – Land Rover or otherwise, I urge you to talk to the shop.  Learn their philosophy and make sure it’s in line with what you want.  Remember attitudes can vary with car lines.  I’d approach a 1954 Rolls Royce with a very different mindset than the one I’d apply to a 1978 Land Rover pickup.  Some people want to work on one line only but I’m happy to take a variety.  There’s room in the restoration world for all of us.

One final piece of advice – pay attention to how the shop manager communicates with you.  Ask whomever you will be dealing with to explain some aspect of their trade and listen close.  Do you get the sense they really understand the theory behind what’s proposed to do?  If you have doubts – watch out!  Some of the biggest mistakes I see come from well intentioned ignorance.  Another thing to watch for is specialized knowledge.  If you care about originality the shop should know what is and isn’t correct for your year and model.

Ask how they will update you on progress.  We send updates with images and text every week.  People may roll their eyes at endless images of wheel bearings and pistons but they sure know what we are doing, every step of the way.  We may send a client a thousand images in the course of a job.  We want our clients to be fully informed so there are no surprises when they see their finished car.

Best wishes for the holidays
John Elder Robison

JE Robison Service
Springfield, MA, USA