I've just about got my 1981 Mini I bought in highschool for $600 NZD back in one piece. Wasn't going to touch the engine originally but thought why not, so almost 20 years later with almost everything aside from the shell refurbed or replaced here we are. It's been expensive and slow and I'd have been better off now having put the money into a house deposit instead. But now I know a fair amount about rebuilding a 45 year old car and I have about 10k in specialty tools I will probably barely use again, so I guess there's that.
Have you documented the rebuild process? It would be cool to see if you have a write up when it’s done. You might post it here. I think restoration and repair projects by HN users are great to see here when we get them.
Thanks for the encouraging words! I've got a large folder of photos and videos I've been meaning to do something with, this could be the catalyst that needed.
Sorry to burst bubbles, but I've been in a few: The new cars really do drive better. Smoother shifts, better engines, effective climate control, better seats, just more comfy, more driveable, more responsive, even feel better. This isn't like vintage pens I'm afraid, where old meant high quality materials. Old cars are mostly just crappy (barring a very small set of outliers).
I think it boils down to the fact that cars represent the pinnacle of engineering for that time period. Engineering only gets better with time.
In general, I agree. However, many older cars were small, light, simple, and raw - characteristics that have largely disappeared from modern cars. Automatic transmissions from the mid-90s and earlier generally sucked, though good old manual transmissions are not much different from good modern ones.
As an example, I owned a W126 S class from the late 80s, and it was fun in its unique way and no modern cars replicate its experience. It had somewhat heavy and very feedback rich steering feel, and Porsche-like firm and tactile pedal feel, while having a super supple ride over the most awful roads with SUV-like ground clearance and tremendous suspension travel. The car was also super simple and reliable; my 300SE had nearly 400k km with all original powertrain when I sold it, it never let me down, and it weighed less than a modern A class or CLA. While not as safe as modern cars, it was exceptionally safe for its era and comparable to normal cars of the early 2000s for crash structure safety.
The W140 (I used to own one too) had a much better powertrain, but it lost the raw tactile scrappy nature of its predecessor, and nor could it handle super awful potholed roads as well as the W126. There are no modern cars that combine the rich raw tactile control feel and super supple ride the W126 had.
Look at cars like the BMW E30, or Mercedes-Benz 190E (W201), or the superbly engineered workhorses that the W123 and W124 were. There are no modern cars that replicate the genuinely delightful driving experience of those.
Oh yes, preach the gospel of the W126. I had a 1986 300SD for a while, and I’d own one again in a heartbeat. I’ve never felt safer, or cooler, driving a car. You had a gasser, which I bet was faster than mine, but the sound of that diesel spinning up the turbo was something else.
I agree about the W123 as well. I’ve owned half a dozen of those. For a couple generations there it seemed that Mercedes had cars just about solved.
My daily is a W126 with the OM603. It's getting harder every day to find parts (when I need them, which is infrequent) but it's worth the hassle because like you say there is nothing modern that has the same combination of feel and ride quality. Or visibility! I can parallel park this car (long wheelbase too) in tiny spots easier than a modern compact because you can actually see.
I've got a W140 with the M120 and a W123 with the OM616 and a 4-speed too, and while they have their charms (especially the W123) nothing tops the W126. It truly was not just the finest production sedan Mercedes made, but ever made by anyone. (Other contenders being the W100, the W140, and the Lexus LS.)
> However, many older cars were small, light, simple, and raw - characteristics that have largely disappeared from modern cars.
I feel parent's point still stands.
Sure, you won't be able to go to a random Ford dealership and go home with a small light and simple car, but there are plenty of modern car accessible through a modicum of effort. Even buying something new abroad and bring it back home will probably be less hassle than restoring an old car.
I wonder if buying a kit car would still be simpler, for still better results.
Aside from the Mazda MX-5 (which isn’t the most practical car), almost all small, simple, and light cars made today are econoboxes. They’re not designed to have the rich control feel, balanced and satisfying handling near the limits, responsiveness, material quality, suspension sophistication, etc. compared to say German luxury compact cars of the 1980s (BMW E30 or M-B W201). Even cars like 90s Hondas, while front wheel drive and built to a much lower price point, had rich control feel, liveliness, and agility that modern cars don’t give.
Modern luxury cars from essentially all brands around the world have become huge, heavy, numb, and over-complicated. They’re much faster and quieter than the say the old Benzes and BMWs of the 80s, but they don’t have the fun raw feel, small size, light weight, tossability, and simplicity of the old cars.
A BMW E30 or M-B W201 have a weight somewhere between a Mazda MX-5 and Subaru BRZ, but are far more practical than either for passengers and cargo despite being around the same width and only slightly longer.
The only modern cars with similar size and weight are some European market compact cars and econoboxes like the Mitsubishi Mirage, Nissan Micra, and Chevy Spark (which are also disappearing from North America). For steering feel, handling, general raw and connected driving feel, powertrain responsiveness, and interior quality, these modern economy cars can’t compete. Some of the European market specific B-segment cars come closest to those older compact luxury cars, but they still don’t match them for the qualities I described.
Kit cars generally suck from a practical perspective compared to well engineered 80s/90s cars and aren’t a very practical option either.
> They’re not designed to have the rich control feel, balanced and satisfying handling near the limits, responsiveness, material quality, suspension sophistication, etc.
Sounds to me like you're looking for a Lotus or a 911 at budget prices. I agree with you that's pretty far from the "simple, simple, light" vehicle, and it's fully in the hobby realm.
If you're that deep into cars, I'd say more power to you, and spending ungodly amount of money time and effort on vintage cars is probably a pleasure as well.
That’s the thing - old German compact luxury sedans from the 80s had the control feel, balance, and light weight you get from a Porsche, while also being practical family cars. There’s nothing like that made today. They were also decently safe and comfortable and reliable and generally just good.
Also the bigger ones like the W126, while not as light and agile as a Porsche or Lotus, still had similar control feel, very comfortable and spacious interiors, and could glide over the worst most broken and potholed roads better than any modern car I’ve driven. They’re also much simpler than any modern luxury cars, much less to break, and they just keep going and going as long as you take basic care. From personal experience, a much younger used W220 or W221 S class needs far more maintenance and repair than an old W126.
The more powerful but still reliable engines and nicer transmissions of the late W140 or W220 would be nice to have in a W126 though. My problem with the newer S classes is the complexity and fragility of the rest of the car.
Of course, these are 40 year old cars and need more care and maintenance than a new car, but they’re not too bad either as long as you get a good example of the car. They’re pretty reliable once sorted, and can last a very long time and very high mileage as long as they’re at least somewhat cared for.
I don't agree. I was in the market for a European offroad SUV just recently and the most looked after models are between 1995 and 2005.
The gear, the V6 boxing motors, the massive steal frames, the actual pulling power and that all on 13 litres.
Newer models have 3 thousand sensors I haven't asked for, can't even reach common repair things without special tools, effektive usage hasn't changed or depends on hybrid (which is a joke for pulling), repair parts are 5-10 times as expensive, you loose half of the cars worth first time you visit a forest ...
Mid 90s acura transmissions were great for me. Shifts really solid and stiff. Stiff clutch with clear engagement point. I drove 2015ish era manual transmissions too (nissan and vw) and they were jokes in comparison. Gear shifter felt like a toy, like it was plastic or something even though I know it couldn't be. Clutch was way too light with engagement point not as crisp and a lot lower in the pedal travel too. Worst of all you couldn't feel the rpm of the engine at all in your hands or feet like in the 20 year older acura.
I bought a new car and have since decided I would prefer an older car.
* The features are annoying and you can't disable everything you don't need. I had to download an app and by a connector to disable the warning message that told me not to crash everytime I turned the car on. There's still plenty of things that I can't disable. If I want to turn off the centre console (which is most of the time), it's several clicks through a clunky ui.
* It only looks nice when it's clean and keeping a car clean is not something I want to invest my time in.
* It's too powerful, so I can't really give it a bit of a push without going well over the speed limit.
* it aluminates the logo onto the sidewalk when I park. Very embarrassing.
* it's heavy which you can feel (despite it being a tiny new gen car).
I preferred my old beater that I could just thrash around. It's worth having to deal with some sort of mechanical problem every now and then.
Take a ride in an early 70s "land yacht" and you'll get an idea what "comfy" really means. All newer cars regardless of actual type somehow seem to be converging on a "sporty" feel, which is very different.
How about an older Porsche or Mercedes? I stand by my original statement.
I had a friend who collected and restored very old BMWs. He certainly wasn’t doing it for the ride quality or features vs a modern car. I just picked the F1, because it’s a shining example of a car people love that is impractical compared to modern cars of equivalent specs.
I'm not certain why folks are talking about cars they've restored to working order, the kind that get taken out on weekends when the weather is just so, as if that's the same class of vehicles the article is discussing. I used to know someone who owned a bunch like the article describes. To him it was an investment. Some had undergone expensive restorations like the article describes, they were meticulously stored, people were paid to maintain these not-driven vehicles, etc. Well, this guy wasn't young, but he died kind of unexpectedly. In a few weeks he went from not feeling well to gone.
So the family sold the cars in one auction at one of the big events like the Concours d’Elegance. This was not a sale timed to maximize the return but rather a sale to free the family from the obligations of ownership. Even so, it was 30 or so vehicles and they went for about $70 million.
The cars in this article are more like artwork investments. These may get three miles added to the odometer in the course of a year with multiple event showings or loans to museums. The cars are absolutely drivable but they are not driven.
"the $77 billion classic car industry"? That's from here.[1] For $4699 you can buy a copy of the full report.
The market size estimate may come from defining a rather large range of cars as "classic". The average auction price of a "classic car" is $45,000.[2] Not sure what definition they're using, but we're not talking about what goes to Pebble Beach.
I've seen firsthand the attrition in restoration work. It's in a pretty sad state. My dad runs the garage his dad started in Kansas City decades ago, and his business partner is in the back half of his 80s. They're rushing to get work done and knowledge transferred before it's gone forever, but he's always telling me about people who have had to stop working, or died. I can never believe what people are paying to get work like chrome plating or upholstery done or the wait times. I wonder if there will be anyone left by the time we get around to restoring one of our own.
There's a great car restoration business near us. The sole proprietor is in his late 70s and refuses to take on any apprentice. Says he refuses to train his competition. Sad that all those years of experience and skill will go to waste.
For somebody in their 70s, a more productive viewpoint would be to be passing on a legacy. Even with a long healthy life, competition should no longer be a big concern.
For most of human history, refusing to pass down your skills to the next generation was seen as a profound moral failure. A waste is putting it lightly and emblematic of the individualism of the times.
Ironically, if it's a mid-century domestic, there is probably better parts availability, especially aftermarket, than anything made within the last decade or so.
I'm not a car person, but I can sort of relate. I have a vintage computer, a Commodore 64. I am absolutely tempted to buy other vintage computers - For instance I see old Norwegian Tiki-100 machines for sale on occasion.
But I know these machines require a bit more electronics work to not become self-destructive due to various aging components (one memorably caught fire during a demo event a few years ago). Work I'm honestly not very good at. So it's better to leave it to those who can do it. The C64 requires little or no work, and they're also not remotely as rare as the Tikis, so even if something should break I wouldn't feel too bad about it.
I have a 1963 Mini, which for a while I used as a daily driver. It's a very fun car for city driving, though it lacks some modern niceties. But every couple of months I'd have to spend a fortune to get various parts of it fixed with refurbished parts. Eventually I got a new cheap hatchback which I drive instead. Now the mini sits there with flat tires and cobwebs under a rain cover, and it looks quite sad.
I've thought that if I ever took a sabbatical, maybe I could try retrofit it with an electric system, but I just know it's going to take me down another money hole.
My parents bought an old Renault and kept another one with the idea of restoring them. Never happened.
But... I know someone else who did actually restore one of those.
And... I worked with a guy who restored a Porsche including rebuilding the engine, it used to sit in his office! (he was a mechanical engineer) and another guy (another engineer) who restored some old American car (forget the brand, maybe a Ford Crown Victoria?). Both these engineers had access to a fully equipped workshop and spent looong hours every day after work building and fixing parts.
I used to do some work on my own car and motorcycles. It's hard work.
There are a lot of enthusiasts who do this... I see them in old car shows. Not sure how many hire others to work on them...
I enjoy watching Kinding It Design, Wheeler Dealer and similar shows. I suspect that some people might be inspired to consider those careers after watching the gleeful professionalism of the people featured on such shows.
> “Younger kids do not have the same work ethic,” says RM’s Morreau. The immediate satisfaction normalized by cell phones and social media is antithetical to the know-how required for fabricating, say, the burled walnut dashboard of a pre-war Rolls-Royce.
Oooooor, the pay is crap and the work environment is abusive.
Any time someone trots out the "kids don't have the same work ethic" argument, they can immediately be ignored. People have been literally saying that continuously since people have been around to write the complaint down, and it's been exactly as true then as it is now.
I wonder if those same people have ethic to pay their employee well? Then again, I do not think it is easy industry. But passion takes people only so far especially when receiving wages.
I've just about got my 1981 Mini I bought in highschool for $600 NZD back in one piece. Wasn't going to touch the engine originally but thought why not, so almost 20 years later with almost everything aside from the shell refurbed or replaced here we are. It's been expensive and slow and I'd have been better off now having put the money into a house deposit instead. But now I know a fair amount about rebuilding a 45 year old car and I have about 10k in specialty tools I will probably barely use again, so I guess there's that.
Have you documented the rebuild process? It would be cool to see if you have a write up when it’s done. You might post it here. I think restoration and repair projects by HN users are great to see here when we get them.
Thanks for the encouraging words! I've got a large folder of photos and videos I've been meaning to do something with, this could be the catalyst that needed.
People have launched youtube careers filming and posting stuff like this.
Project Binky is well worth a watch if you enjoy car restoration, upgrades/rebuilding, and generally extreme make-overs on classic cars.
Sorry to burst bubbles, but I've been in a few: The new cars really do drive better. Smoother shifts, better engines, effective climate control, better seats, just more comfy, more driveable, more responsive, even feel better. This isn't like vintage pens I'm afraid, where old meant high quality materials. Old cars are mostly just crappy (barring a very small set of outliers).
I think it boils down to the fact that cars represent the pinnacle of engineering for that time period. Engineering only gets better with time.
In general, I agree. However, many older cars were small, light, simple, and raw - characteristics that have largely disappeared from modern cars. Automatic transmissions from the mid-90s and earlier generally sucked, though good old manual transmissions are not much different from good modern ones.
As an example, I owned a W126 S class from the late 80s, and it was fun in its unique way and no modern cars replicate its experience. It had somewhat heavy and very feedback rich steering feel, and Porsche-like firm and tactile pedal feel, while having a super supple ride over the most awful roads with SUV-like ground clearance and tremendous suspension travel. The car was also super simple and reliable; my 300SE had nearly 400k km with all original powertrain when I sold it, it never let me down, and it weighed less than a modern A class or CLA. While not as safe as modern cars, it was exceptionally safe for its era and comparable to normal cars of the early 2000s for crash structure safety.
The W140 (I used to own one too) had a much better powertrain, but it lost the raw tactile scrappy nature of its predecessor, and nor could it handle super awful potholed roads as well as the W126. There are no modern cars that combine the rich raw tactile control feel and super supple ride the W126 had.
Look at cars like the BMW E30, or Mercedes-Benz 190E (W201), or the superbly engineered workhorses that the W123 and W124 were. There are no modern cars that replicate the genuinely delightful driving experience of those.
Oh yes, preach the gospel of the W126. I had a 1986 300SD for a while, and I’d own one again in a heartbeat. I’ve never felt safer, or cooler, driving a car. You had a gasser, which I bet was faster than mine, but the sound of that diesel spinning up the turbo was something else.
I agree about the W123 as well. I’ve owned half a dozen of those. For a couple generations there it seemed that Mercedes had cars just about solved.
My daily is a W126 with the OM603. It's getting harder every day to find parts (when I need them, which is infrequent) but it's worth the hassle because like you say there is nothing modern that has the same combination of feel and ride quality. Or visibility! I can parallel park this car (long wheelbase too) in tiny spots easier than a modern compact because you can actually see.
I've got a W140 with the M120 and a W123 with the OM616 and a 4-speed too, and while they have their charms (especially the W123) nothing tops the W126. It truly was not just the finest production sedan Mercedes made, but ever made by anyone. (Other contenders being the W100, the W140, and the Lexus LS.)
> However, many older cars were small, light, simple, and raw - characteristics that have largely disappeared from modern cars.
I feel parent's point still stands.
Sure, you won't be able to go to a random Ford dealership and go home with a small light and simple car, but there are plenty of modern car accessible through a modicum of effort. Even buying something new abroad and bring it back home will probably be less hassle than restoring an old car.
I wonder if buying a kit car would still be simpler, for still better results.
Aside from the Mazda MX-5 (which isn’t the most practical car), almost all small, simple, and light cars made today are econoboxes. They’re not designed to have the rich control feel, balanced and satisfying handling near the limits, responsiveness, material quality, suspension sophistication, etc. compared to say German luxury compact cars of the 1980s (BMW E30 or M-B W201). Even cars like 90s Hondas, while front wheel drive and built to a much lower price point, had rich control feel, liveliness, and agility that modern cars don’t give.
Modern luxury cars from essentially all brands around the world have become huge, heavy, numb, and over-complicated. They’re much faster and quieter than the say the old Benzes and BMWs of the 80s, but they don’t have the fun raw feel, small size, light weight, tossability, and simplicity of the old cars.
A BMW E30 or M-B W201 have a weight somewhere between a Mazda MX-5 and Subaru BRZ, but are far more practical than either for passengers and cargo despite being around the same width and only slightly longer.
The only modern cars with similar size and weight are some European market compact cars and econoboxes like the Mitsubishi Mirage, Nissan Micra, and Chevy Spark (which are also disappearing from North America). For steering feel, handling, general raw and connected driving feel, powertrain responsiveness, and interior quality, these modern economy cars can’t compete. Some of the European market specific B-segment cars come closest to those older compact luxury cars, but they still don’t match them for the qualities I described.
Kit cars generally suck from a practical perspective compared to well engineered 80s/90s cars and aren’t a very practical option either.
> They’re not designed to have the rich control feel, balanced and satisfying handling near the limits, responsiveness, material quality, suspension sophistication, etc.
Sounds to me like you're looking for a Lotus or a 911 at budget prices. I agree with you that's pretty far from the "simple, simple, light" vehicle, and it's fully in the hobby realm.
If you're that deep into cars, I'd say more power to you, and spending ungodly amount of money time and effort on vintage cars is probably a pleasure as well.
That’s the thing - old German compact luxury sedans from the 80s had the control feel, balance, and light weight you get from a Porsche, while also being practical family cars. There’s nothing like that made today. They were also decently safe and comfortable and reliable and generally just good.
Also the bigger ones like the W126, while not as light and agile as a Porsche or Lotus, still had similar control feel, very comfortable and spacious interiors, and could glide over the worst most broken and potholed roads better than any modern car I’ve driven. They’re also much simpler than any modern luxury cars, much less to break, and they just keep going and going as long as you take basic care. From personal experience, a much younger used W220 or W221 S class needs far more maintenance and repair than an old W126.
The more powerful but still reliable engines and nicer transmissions of the late W140 or W220 would be nice to have in a W126 though. My problem with the newer S classes is the complexity and fragility of the rest of the car.
Of course, these are 40 year old cars and need more care and maintenance than a new car, but they’re not too bad either as long as you get a good example of the car. They’re pretty reliable once sorted, and can last a very long time and very high mileage as long as they’re at least somewhat cared for.
I don't agree. I was in the market for a European offroad SUV just recently and the most looked after models are between 1995 and 2005.
The gear, the V6 boxing motors, the massive steal frames, the actual pulling power and that all on 13 litres.
Newer models have 3 thousand sensors I haven't asked for, can't even reach common repair things without special tools, effektive usage hasn't changed or depends on hybrid (which is a joke for pulling), repair parts are 5-10 times as expensive, you loose half of the cars worth first time you visit a forest ...
Mid 90s acura transmissions were great for me. Shifts really solid and stiff. Stiff clutch with clear engagement point. I drove 2015ish era manual transmissions too (nissan and vw) and they were jokes in comparison. Gear shifter felt like a toy, like it was plastic or something even though I know it couldn't be. Clutch was way too light with engagement point not as crisp and a lot lower in the pedal travel too. Worst of all you couldn't feel the rpm of the engine at all in your hands or feet like in the 20 year older acura.
Stiff clutch with high engagement point is a sign of wear and should be replaced.
I bought a new car and have since decided I would prefer an older car. * The features are annoying and you can't disable everything you don't need. I had to download an app and by a connector to disable the warning message that told me not to crash everytime I turned the car on. There's still plenty of things that I can't disable. If I want to turn off the centre console (which is most of the time), it's several clicks through a clunky ui. * It only looks nice when it's clean and keeping a car clean is not something I want to invest my time in. * It's too powerful, so I can't really give it a bit of a push without going well over the speed limit. * it aluminates the logo onto the sidewalk when I park. Very embarrassing. * it's heavy which you can feel (despite it being a tiny new gen car).
I preferred my old beater that I could just thrash around. It's worth having to deal with some sort of mechanical problem every now and then.
Take a ride in an early 70s "land yacht" and you'll get an idea what "comfy" really means. All newer cars regardless of actual type somehow seem to be converging on a "sporty" feel, which is very different.
Land yachts still exist. We just call them by "SUV" today.
SUVs have a very different roadfeel, not to mention they've also gone in the "sporty" direction. Perhaps an old Suburban would be close.
Can an SUV be a "yacht" if it doesn't have fender skirts ?
I love classics, but they are not safe to drive at all and a 65 v8 mustang performs worse than a 90’s civic in just about every way.
I don’t think people are buying vintage cars for the ride quality. The owners I’ve seen with them see it as a passion.
Much like the McLaren F1 has a cult following, yet no traction control or turbo.
So great that you picked one of those rare outliers. There's nothing quite like the McLaren F1, not then, not now.
How about an older Porsche or Mercedes? I stand by my original statement.
I had a friend who collected and restored very old BMWs. He certainly wasn’t doing it for the ride quality or features vs a modern car. I just picked the F1, because it’s a shining example of a car people love that is impractical compared to modern cars of equivalent specs.
I'm not certain why folks are talking about cars they've restored to working order, the kind that get taken out on weekends when the weather is just so, as if that's the same class of vehicles the article is discussing. I used to know someone who owned a bunch like the article describes. To him it was an investment. Some had undergone expensive restorations like the article describes, they were meticulously stored, people were paid to maintain these not-driven vehicles, etc. Well, this guy wasn't young, but he died kind of unexpectedly. In a few weeks he went from not feeling well to gone.
So the family sold the cars in one auction at one of the big events like the Concours d’Elegance. This was not a sale timed to maximize the return but rather a sale to free the family from the obligations of ownership. Even so, it was 30 or so vehicles and they went for about $70 million.
The cars in this article are more like artwork investments. These may get three miles added to the odometer in the course of a year with multiple event showings or loans to museums. The cars are absolutely drivable but they are not driven.
https://archive.today/Xj71N
"the $77 billion classic car industry"? That's from here.[1] For $4699 you can buy a copy of the full report.
The market size estimate may come from defining a rather large range of cars as "classic". The average auction price of a "classic car" is $45,000.[2] Not sure what definition they're using, but we're not talking about what goes to Pebble Beach.
[1] https://www.credenceresearch.com/report/classic-cars-market
[2] https://www.classic.com/insights/hagerty-2025-market-in-4-ch...
I've seen firsthand the attrition in restoration work. It's in a pretty sad state. My dad runs the garage his dad started in Kansas City decades ago, and his business partner is in the back half of his 80s. They're rushing to get work done and knowledge transferred before it's gone forever, but he's always telling me about people who have had to stop working, or died. I can never believe what people are paying to get work like chrome plating or upholstery done or the wait times. I wonder if there will be anyone left by the time we get around to restoring one of our own.
There's a great car restoration business near us. The sole proprietor is in his late 70s and refuses to take on any apprentice. Says he refuses to train his competition. Sad that all those years of experience and skill will go to waste.
For somebody in their 70s, a more productive viewpoint would be to be passing on a legacy. Even with a long healthy life, competition should no longer be a big concern.
“Go to waste” is such a weird way to think about a 5 decade career.
He has so much skill he could pass on but refuses. That's a waste for the car restoration community.
For most of human history, refusing to pass down your skills to the next generation was seen as a profound moral failure. A waste is putting it lightly and emblematic of the individualism of the times.
Five decades is either trivial or enough time to contribute back to society.
Ironically, if it's a mid-century domestic, there is probably better parts availability, especially aftermarket, than anything made within the last decade or so.
Definitely. I had to have a few parts machined but for the most part i was able to get parts online without any hassle.
Why would you buy a classic without the ability to restore and maintain it yourself?
Ive restored a couple and I cannot imagine the cost of outsourcing all that work.
I'm not a car person, but I can sort of relate. I have a vintage computer, a Commodore 64. I am absolutely tempted to buy other vintage computers - For instance I see old Norwegian Tiki-100 machines for sale on occasion.
But I know these machines require a bit more electronics work to not become self-destructive due to various aging components (one memorably caught fire during a demo event a few years ago). Work I'm honestly not very good at. So it's better to leave it to those who can do it. The C64 requires little or no work, and they're also not remotely as rare as the Tikis, so even if something should break I wouldn't feel too bad about it.
Yeah but was your work concours grade?
I typically do frame off restorations back to factor using authentic parts wherever possible.
Im definitely slower, and I do outsource the paint and any particularly dusty bodywork.
I have a 1963 Mini, which for a while I used as a daily driver. It's a very fun car for city driving, though it lacks some modern niceties. But every couple of months I'd have to spend a fortune to get various parts of it fixed with refurbished parts. Eventually I got a new cheap hatchback which I drive instead. Now the mini sits there with flat tires and cobwebs under a rain cover, and it looks quite sad.
I've thought that if I ever took a sabbatical, maybe I could try retrofit it with an electric system, but I just know it's going to take me down another money hole.
Classic cars are an expensive interest.
My parents bought an old Renault and kept another one with the idea of restoring them. Never happened.
But... I know someone else who did actually restore one of those.
And... I worked with a guy who restored a Porsche including rebuilding the engine, it used to sit in his office! (he was a mechanical engineer) and another guy (another engineer) who restored some old American car (forget the brand, maybe a Ford Crown Victoria?). Both these engineers had access to a fully equipped workshop and spent looong hours every day after work building and fixing parts.
I used to do some work on my own car and motorcycles. It's hard work.
There are a lot of enthusiasts who do this... I see them in old car shows. Not sure how many hire others to work on them...
I knew a guy who did this sort of thing.
me: "that sounds really wonderful and interesting!"
him: "bunch of rusty cars"
I enjoy watching Kinding It Design, Wheeler Dealer and similar shows. I suspect that some people might be inspired to consider those careers after watching the gleeful professionalism of the people featured on such shows.
It’s fun to DIY. Porsche, BMW well German IN GENERAL REQUIRE SPECIALIZES TOOLS
but Japanese a standard metric kit is about 99% of what you’d need
> “Younger kids do not have the same work ethic,” says RM’s Morreau. The immediate satisfaction normalized by cell phones and social media is antithetical to the know-how required for fabricating, say, the burled walnut dashboard of a pre-war Rolls-Royce.
Oooooor, the pay is crap and the work environment is abusive.
Any time someone trots out the "kids don't have the same work ethic" argument, they can immediately be ignored. People have been literally saying that continuously since people have been around to write the complaint down, and it's been exactly as true then as it is now.
I wonder if those same people have ethic to pay their employee well? Then again, I do not think it is easy industry. But passion takes people only so far especially when receiving wages.