bjpotter

I was watching Restoration garage on Velosity Channel and it featured a 91 Camaro Z28. The guy bought the car new and wanted to restore it for his daughter. He was going to spend 40K to restore it. He failed to make his 2nd payment and they shelved it for now. They had just begun to swap a firebird body for the rusted hulk of the Camaro.

eseibel67

I've seen that episode. The guy that owns that 91 Z28 is very dim bulb. He buys the car new and drives it through Canadian winters to transform it into a rust bubble. Then against all the advice of the shop, he authorizes the restoration for a cost that could buy him 3 gently used 91 Z28's. Then the big spender runs out of money. Impressive.

bjpotter

Yeah. I was looking forward to the rebuild and poof, it's all over.

MrPackstin

iTrader: (9)

Just watched.

Javier87z28

iTrader: (1)

Darn guess I missed that episode

MrPackstin

iTrader: (9)

s01e09

bjpotter

I hope this wasn't a lesson on commitment to a restoration. I would like to see the car finished. Though the money to repair a fairly common car, is more then I would do. At some point, no matter how attached, it becomes a lost cause. You replace so much that its not really the same car anyway.

Hylton

Netflix?

okfoz

Why would I watch a show about some guy that had aspirations to overspend and overestimate about restoring a car, only to run out of money and now the car languishes in the back yard or in some shop somewhere... I can get stories like that every day. I had a friend (haven't seen for years now) that took a running Austin Healey that he was going to retrofit a 350 and all this great stuff to it only to get it apart, lose interest and then let it sit. When he moved that one out to the curb (we literally put it on its side, and slid it out the door) he got a rust free Chevy 1983 pickup truck that he picked up from a friend, he was going to put a big block 454 in it, cut a hole in the hood, and once again lost interest... When we rolled that out to the trash heap he got a Arizona 1965 Impala 327 SS drove it for a while and then decided to tub it out, put a roll cage in it, only to tear it apart put the fake roll cage in it (He used exhaust tubes).. once again he lost interest, my brother in-law picked it up for a song and he was going to do something with it but decided to sell it too.

Word of advise for all of you out there that just want to do all this great stuff or to rebuild your car. If you have taken apart your stereo to try to fix it and it has sat on your bench in the basement because of a blown fuse... PLEASE do not do it to a car, it is much more expensive, and it will go to the land of broken dreams... the junkyard. If you cannot follow through on the little things, what makes you think you will follow through on something like a car that literally has thousands and thousands of parts. You need to save your money and get one that is already done for you...

bjpotter

Well said. I went through this 2 years ago when I sold my Camaro. Facing a motor rebuild, tranny replacement (Cracked Housing), body work and paint, I decided to buy a 3rd gen already in good shape. I loved that Camaro and drove it for 240,000 miles. Facing a minimum of 15,000 to fix it up was more than I was willing to spend. I'm happy with my decision. The Camaro go's on as a dragster now, or so I have been told. I'm happy it landed with someone who is using it, and not rotting in my driveway anymore.

okfoz

No matter your passion, folly will follow those that do not weigh all the options prior to making a decision. To save a 240,000 mile car for $15,000 is very unwise, especially when you can get a low miles IROC for that price...

You chose wisely.

tom3

40K to restore a third gen pretty much tells us the guy was a flake. And if you put a Firebird body on a unibody Camaro, the Camaro ceases to exist anyway.
Whole deal is a load of crap.

IROCgiraffe

iTrader: (3)

just saw the clip.... WOW

http://www.velocity.com/tv-shows/res...irechicken.htm

mjdavis68

iTrader: (1)

He wanted it for his daughter to drive and was hoping to have his house sold to fund the entire Pro-ject as they say in Canada eh?

AmorgetRS

iTrader: (6)

Why would they be paying $2500 for a Firebird body alone? What did they plan on doing with it? Cutting it up to make patch panels? I would think a call to a place like Hawks would get you the panels you need. Complete "rebody"? Making a Camaro out of a Firebird body would take a ton of panel replacement (like the entire rear 1/4s). Seems to me the shop is just a stupid as the owner...

eseibel67

I'm not sure, but I think the only difference between Camaro and Firebird shells are the tailight openings. The high price for the body is because any car that has served daily driving duty up here in Canada is rusted. Good used bodies have to be imported from the southern USA.

And this shop does some very high end work. They hand built a 1935 Bugatti out of titanium. Only reference they had to go on was a few pictures.

bjpotter

They warned him over and over. Each step they found more and more rust. After dipping, ordered by the owner, the car looked like swiss cheese. The shell was gone. Even then the owner wanted to go on. Most of the original parts were going to be replaced. Every thing about this car was trashed or rusted. The owner just wouldn't face reality.

AmorgetRS

iTrader: (6)

The rear quarters are different beyond the tail lights, most evident by the "indent" where the b-pilar meets the quarter panel. Even the rear wheel openings are a slightly different shape.

FormerL69

iTrader: (2)

Just watched the episode on YouTube. okfoz is dead on. It is very hard and very expensive to do even a rudimentary restoration on any car. Especially if you plan on paying someone else to do all the work for you.

What most people cannot get past when getting in to these situations is paying more money up front for a decent car versus paying less for a car that needs work and thinking it will be cheaper to fix it up. It never works out. Saving up and spending more money for a car that is already done or that does not need as much work will always be cheaper in the end.

The show did not go in to the details, but it sure sounds like the shop lost some money on this deal given the work they had already completed. Could have been creative editing too. On the other hand, knowing what was involved and where it w's headed the shop should have covered themselves before they realized the owner could not pay.

It kind of makes me wonder though. The one shop guy seemed all miffed that the customer would dump the money in to a 91 Z. I wonder if it had been a 69 Camaro in similar condition if he would have felt the same way. Yeah, the 69 would be worth more when finished, but you would still be upside down on the investment IMHO. The insane value of the early 1st gen cars had to have started their upward trend in this way. I have to believe some people got nostalgic for their cars from the 60s and started paying people stupid money to restore them, which eventually hit critical mass. Sorry if that is a little non-third gen specific. Just thinking out loud...

okfoz

Believe it or not, the quarter panels are completely different from Camaro and Firebird.

The Camaro has an elongated wheel well, and the sail panel comes out flush and tapers back into the rear window, the fender flair has a hard edge where it meets the quarter panel, the tail lights are completely different, and obviously no separate side marker light.

The Firebird has almost perfectly round wheel wells, the fender flairs are softer and more slowly meet the quarter panel. The sail panel has a more distinct highlight line, and has an extra hole for the rear side marker lights.

Thus why every time you see a Frankenstein car that has the dog-house of one car on the other it never looks quite right. There is too much of a difference to make it look like it should.

(what person in their right mind would pay $2500 for a car to use as parts

bjpotter

For the first time I see a restoration show do a 3rd Gen and it has to be this. There are so many other better conditioned 3rd Gens deserving restoration than this one. I like Wheeler Dealers because they do cars of all types, do reasonable cost restorations, and restore them back to original specks (Sometimes with a little flair). This guy was crazy. The car was too far gone. Would it be the same car if all you used for the restoration is a frame, ash tray, and two ***** from the original car?

eseibel67

Thanks for the schooling. I never really looked that close.

scottmoyer

Just an FYI is that a restoration is defined as returning back to the way it was originally in new condition. Wheeler Dealers "repairs" cars, they don't don't restore them. They do make the cars look better and run better, but you are still looking at this car through a camera lens.

I've seen some of the cars that cross the major auction blocks and they do look good, but the camera makes the finish looks flawless and perfect and many of them aren't that flawless. The camera hides a lot.

Hylton

Can you imagine the headache when that info gets to the owner of that car? Hope the show records that exchange if the guy ever sells his house......

90 GTA Black

Maybe I'm used to rusty cars but it didn't really look that bad to me. The camera seems to be focusing on little rust spots and ignoring the panels that looked good.
The body guy doing the work looked like he just wanted to rip the car apart hoping to find more rust so that he wouldn't have to fix anything.

The shop suggesting they replace the body with a Firebird one is just idiotic. I'm sure for $2500 they could find a rust free Camaro body if they had to. Seems to me that the shop was also responsible for ruining this guy's dream. I wouldn't have made a second payment either.

WILL85IROC

wth! I don't think it would cost 40k for body work! and im sure a shop like that can find another Camaro body to use for replacement panels! u can tell the owner has no clue what hes looking at or what hes doing....

FirebirdUSX

thats the episode.

Now 40,000$ for some welding ...WTF is wrong with these people?I dont think it would cost more than 2000 for labor ....maybe they want to pay Bill Gates to weld that thing.I call that BS.

Also why get a firebird body and no a camaro?Are camaros extinct?Also the back panels are not the same around the tail lights.

Im not a mechanic and live in europe and know more about these cars than a american car shop....thats really F'ed up.

bjpotter

Their Canadian.

RockinGTA89

you would think they would know about something about Fbodies, since the history of the player's challenge series raced there and of course the 4th gen quebec plant....
but maybe that's irrelevent...

bjpotter

My biggest questions are:
1. Are 3rd Gen Camaros so rare in Canada that a Camaro donor car can't be found?
2. Is the import cost so high they couldn't get one in the US near the border and ship it?

FirebirdUSX

Looking at how smart they are the answer is yes the costs are to high.They would simply get the car from california ...ship it to Tokyo then from there to Canada so the final cost would be to high.

90 GTA Black

$2500 seems to be the going rate for a rust free body from these type of shops in Canada. They are usually sourced from Arizona.
Generally there are no rust free bodies in Canada that have not been imported.

I'm going to be repairing an 83 Camaro for someone that makes the body they just wrecked look like a dream.

nosajwols

iTrader: (1)

As others noted they typically restore not repair cars, this appears to be what the guy wanted. The expectation is a totally rust free as new car, these guys do concorse restorations. Having said that using a firebird shell to fix a camaro is pretty hack. For the cost the guy could have bought a 10 to 15K rust free all original car--but it would not be his car. Neither is the firebird hack IMO.

What I do find interesting is in most of the recent episodes there is a blue IROC on one of the lifts in the background. I wonder if this is the same franken car? Keep an eye out for it.

92GTA

iTrader: (11)

$40,000 JUST for the metal work?!?! Do they think it's magnesium like the Bugatti?!

Right that second I would have pulled it from that shop with all my parts and gone somewhere else. If he's in Canada, I would have taken it to www.legendarymotorcar.com I've seen the work those guy have done on muscle cars and their attention to factory original detail is right up my alley.

Don't even get me started on trying to use Firebird parts! That gives the impression they half *** all of their work and that's totally unacceptable.

okfoz

Maybe they misspoke, and it was $4000, not $40,000?

One thing I have to say is regardless how much I enjoy any of my cars, and I will have a hard time letting go, they all can be replaced. I think some people need to grow up and realize that it is a thing, not a person, the car has no personality.

These same people go through life wondering why they have no money.

bjpotter

We are so lucky the cars we love are available at a cost lower than most new cars. That there are so many parts still available, new and used, that we can keep them running.
If we were talking about a car that only a few dozen to hundred were ever made, parts would be impossible to find and a fortune to acquire. The cars themselves would be expensive just because of the parts on them. Even the most rare of the 3rd gens have so many common parts with all the other ones, that it is still possible to rebuild almost any of them at a price the average person can afford. So when we see a show like this, we can complain about how bad a deal it is. Sentiment aside, we have options to replace our cars or rebuild them. To me, its what makes these cars so great to own. How many classic cars worth over 100K are daily drivers, not many.
A good example, when I bought my first car at 18 in 1979, a 25 to 30 year old car was a 1949 to 1954 auto. At that time, most parts for those cars were unavailable except at a bone yard. We can go to the local parts store and buy most mechanical parts, or buy new other parts from specialty auto parts company.

jazzdadss

May be they told him 40k to discourage him into using the Donor?

GCrites80s

Oh, I thought they were going to get the car done during the one episode rather than serializing it. I don't have time for serialized TV; just get it over with in 30 minutes like an old episode of Punky Brewster.

WILL85IROC

they charged one guy on another episode over 100k for metal work on an old caddy, ridiculous! im no mechanic but seems they are triple charging because ppl don't question or know whats involved and they throw money into dream cars.