| The two shops, which are unique in the region, have specialized in the art of restoring and repairing vintage street and race cars. “(Mine) is a very expensive hobby,” said Ward, who used the shop’s services last year to restore the back of his Siata after it was damaged in a race in Italy. “The most important thing here is that they’re fair. They are good. And they know what they’re doing.”
Vintage car owners from all over the East Coast stretch between Washington and Boston bring their vehicles to Automotive Restorations.About 65 cars are currently being restored or repaired at the two shops. Other vehicles are at the shop’s three warehouses in Stratford and Bridgeport, waiting for auto parts and the like.
The extensive list of vehicles includes models such as a 1939 La Salle, owned by an Armonk, N.Y., resident. The car was restored at Automotive Restorations to take part in the Antique Automobile of America contest last year in Hershey, Pa., where it won first prize in the senior category.
Some of the vehicles being repaired are as new as a Mustang built in the 1970s. Others date back to the pre-World War II period, such as a Fairfield resident-owned 1922 Buick. Mechanics are repairing the engine, chassis and suspension of the car, which still retains the original paint. The oldest automobile ever restored at the shops was a 1908 Oldsmobile owned by a Torrington man.
A Branford resident’s 1932 Ford Model A is scheduled to be restored this winter. The car is the same one the customer drove the first time he dated his wife in the 1950s.
“What people tend to be attached to is a car from a period of their lives – usually when they were teen-agers or in t heir early 20s,” said Automotive Restorations owner, 42-year-old Kent S. Bain, a Milford Resident.
The work at the shops is skilled, labor-intense, and demands a great deal of time. Some vehicles arrive in terrible shape and have to be rebuilt from scratch. Spare parts, such as wooden doors for old models, are not available in the market and have to be manufactured in the shops.
That’s certainly reflected in the prices charged for the services. The restoration of a 1966 Jaguar, which will take nine months to be completed, will cost somewhere between $35,000 and $40,000.
“In essence, you’re building a new car. It’s fairly expensive financially,” Bain said. “You can rush, but there’s an awful lot to do. (Clients) want their cars just the way they were.”
The high costs, however, don’t seem to be scaring away customers. Automotive Restorations is booked for the next six months for long-term restoration projects, Bain said.
The number of people waiting for the service is actually down, Bain said, because of the sluggish economy. A few years ago, he added, customers would often be on a waiting list from one to two years.
In addition to restoration and repair work, the business also stores and maintains about 35 vintage cars in its warehouses. This service is usually requested by customers who do not have space at home for the cars.
On the weekends, Bain said, several customers from Manhattan take the train to Connecticut, where they spend the day cruising the streets in their vintage cars. They then return to New York, leaving their vehicles in the warehouses.
These street vehicles are stored side by side with some 40 vintage race cars, which are used in vintage car races all around the United States and Canada.
These models are continually checked at the warehouses, so they are ready for the hardships of racing. The shops also transport the cars to race sites and send a group of mechanics to repair the vehicles during the events.
Five models stored at the warehouses and another four privately kept vehicles late in August were transported to California, where they participated in the Monterey Historic Laguna Seca Race n Monterey.
Car owners and a three-member crew of mechanics headed by Bain flew to California.
The total cost paid by a car owner at races across the country can range from $4,000 to $10,000, depending on where the race is and how many car owners are splitting the expenses.
But things do not always work as expected, Bain said. Two years ago in the Monterey race, he recalled, an Elva driven by a New York City customer simply stopped halfway through the race.
The car was the fastest in the first and second parts of the race, but it had a problem during the third phase of the competition that mechanics weren’t able to fix.
“He was impatient,” Bain recalled. “He got up and said, ‘Look, you fix it.’”
That’s exactly what Bain and the other mechanics tried to do all race long, and then until late at night.
But the car just wouldn’t run.
The New York man, though, is still Bain’s customer.\ “He was upset,” Bain said. “(But) if people known you’re trying, they are reasonable.”
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