There are many obstacles to building a vintage vehicle. Especially when it's a real steel hunk of pure potential that was manufactured over 50 years ago-that would be any year before 1955. And it adds to the burden if that PP hulk has been subjected to cruel and unusual punishment over its extended lifetime. Thank goodness there's an ever-growing number of manufacturers providing replacement steel chassis and panels for many of the most popular vintage Fords and Chevrolets. There are even a few vintage Mopar replacement chassis and panels available now, as well as ornamentation, for the more popular makes.
In addition, if you're willing to repair your project with a few 'glass items, like the hood, fenders, and running boards, you can save even more time, headaches, and cost in your effort to rebuild and restore that precious-often holy-steel. But I believe an all-steel vehicle will ultimately earn a higher resale value if the panels are restored professionally.
I've found one of the most (if not the single most) troublesome element of building or restoring a vintage truck to be: finding a quality shop that charges reasonably affordable rates and performs all those tasks that the shop has promised to perform. It's extremely frustrating to get what might be an optimistic estimate for what ends up costing twice as much. Also, I find there are yet even fewer shops that can tackle all assigned restoration tasks to a satisfactory-quality standard. And I have plenty of experience for why I believe this to be true. One would think there are plenty of affordable and experienced fabricators who provide reliable service across the country to go around. Why there are so few for the average truck lover is a frustrating dilemma.
Most recently I've been struggling with moving my '40 Ford pickup truck project along. My truck always seems to be waiting behind some other customer's project, even though my truck has been in the shop longer. And, to add insult to injury, a significant amount of money has been paid up front. I'm beginning to wonder about the wisdom of paying before any work has been performed-especially when the shop is small and has too many projects for their few employees.
I remember writing an article (almost 17 years ago) about a new hot rod shop that had opened for business near a more established shop in an active hot rod area on the West Coast. The owner of the more established shop warned me that this new shop was taking on more high-dollar projects than the less experienced staff could deliver in a reasonable time period. They were also asking for larger-than-normal amounts of money up front to kick-start the more extensive projects. Sure enough, within a year the owner of the new shop was in serious legal trouble and the business was struggling to survive-even with a shop full of projects. Customers were understandably irate when the shop was locked up (by the authorities) with their unfinished cars inside. The more established shop is still in business today, and has a solid reputation for building and delivering precisely what they say they will.
Yes, it's common practice for a busy shop to bill time and materials to a reasonable monetary deposit. But the customer is entitled to an itemized invoice, for both materials and labor, specifically listing what work was performed and how long it took. With an itemized list of time and materials, it's possible to evaluate the shop's performance against another. And you might be able to detect if they're taking shortcuts with the more difficult tasks of body panel restoration, fabrication, and assembly-or getting more creative with their billing than with the work performed. At least you will be armed with solid information to make an intelligent decision about the contract you've made with the shop doing the work.
In my past experience, I've tried to under-promise and over-deliver when dealing with trade-outs of my money and resources in exchange for the efforts of others. In most cases this has created positive results for both parties. Unfortunately, problems can grow rapidly when a contract is renegotiated after the fact-or when one begins to suspect that the basis for trust has disappeared. At this point you may have no alternative than to move your project to another shop, and begin to build trust once again. -Rich Boyd