+ The standard advice is to never restore it yourself but to buy one
+ someone else has done because they'll lose their shirt and you'll
+ come out a winner. I don't know if this is so true. The big variable is
+ quality of restoration and most cars are botched.
The advice that I've heard is to either buy the very best car you find,
or to buy a basket case, and have it restored.
As for breaking even, it probably depends on what the car is worth
initially, and what it will fetch in a restored condition. For example,
something like one of the old TVR Griffiths might cost $10,000 to buy,
$30,000 - $40,000 to restore, and be worth around $40,000 when it's done.
It also depends what you want with the car: For example, if you want to
go racing, then it's probably best to buy a wreck, on the grounds that
you'll want to make a variety of modifications (roll-cages, fire
extinguishers, etc.), and it's a shame to cut up a nice car to do this.
Another thing to bear in mind is that you can effectively offset the
cost of the car over a couple of years if you're doing a restoration, if you
spread the work, and the cost of the work over the period.
As for the standard of restoration, it's worth bearing in mind that the
fashion in Europe is currently towards a sympathetic refurbishment, rather
than a bare-metal rebuild. I think that it's really to do with an
appreciation of the patina that a car builds up over its lifetime, and a
full concours rebuild will tend to strip this away.
Graeme
|