FAQs – Classic Car and Classic Luxury Limo Restoration

If you’re thinking of restoring a classic car or classic luxury limo, the following FAQs might prove useful.

What is a classic car or limo?

There is no universally accepted definition.

Some people trying to sell a 10 year old car in poor condition might describe it as “classic”. That’ll be more from trying to ramp up the sale price than anything else.

Very broadly speaking, most people would consider “classic” to mean:

• a limited, highly acclaimed and rarer vehicle of age, even those that are only 5-10 years old;
• any vehicle over 25-30 years old;
• any vehicle over 25-30 years old but later than 1920. Most vehicles before 1920 are called “antiques”.

Be careful that you don’t get suckered into paying more than something’s worth because the vendor has unilaterally decided that it’s “classic” or “vintage”.

Is any car restorable?

In theory, you could take say a single screw from a Ford Model ‘T’ and build a car around it. Voila! You have restored a model ‘T’!

The real question should be – “can you restore any car economically and sensibly”? The answer is, no, you can’t.

There are three aspects to this;

• do not think you have any chance of restoring a car and making a profit on its re-sale. About 99.9{450b18fb4e8f5b95db3807a9753b1e0519d3e4d461dd68e5594bed7fc3eeb7ae} of people that try to do so end up losing LOTS of money in the attempt;
• if your vehicle’s chassis and sub-frames have gone, then it can still be restored but you may as well build a repro from scratch in cost terms. The restoration costs are likely to be astronomical;
• remember that if most of the vehicle has gone, your labour of love’s finished product is likely to be heavily criticised or even rubbished by connoisseurs as “not authentic”, a “composite” or a “sad marriage of disparate pieces”.

Bottom line – be sensible about what you take on.

What is the value of a restored vehicle?

Sadly, many people make the mistake of trying to assess this based upon a review of what others are asking for restored examples on EBAY or similar forums.

That method is often entirely useless.

Many online sites are full of restored vehicles that are, quite simply, unsaleable. That’s because their owners paid far too much for them to begin with, have spent a small fortune in restoration and have then added 50{450b18fb4e8f5b95db3807a9753b1e0519d3e4d461dd68e5594bed7fc3eeb7ae} on top as their profit margin. They’re then shocked when the car doesn’t sell.

If you use that as your guideline, you’ll suffer.

The only way to check the market value of a vehicle is to try and find examples of restored models that have actually sold and for how much – and not to get hypnotized by looking at what other people are unrealistically asking for theirs.

Can you find classic luxury limos for sale?

Yes, they do exist. Some providers of luxury limousines, Sydney and elsewhere, do sell of their old vehicles – if they own them.

There are other specialist sites that might also help.