Do what you love

Nick

Nick

Nancy "AssPump"
Well.. I've been trying to figure out how to start pulling in some cash and I'm tossing around the idea of restoring cars. I've always loved muscle cars (DUH) and If there's a feasible way to do so and make a living, I'm all for it. The reason why I decided to make this a thread is because I want to know what everyone thinks my odds are of making more money than I am currently (not much at all).
 
i would guess if youre really good you could make a decent living restoring cars....
 
If you can do what you love for a living, you have the best job in the world!
I have to finish making out my pornstar application right now...
 
I think the most important thing is the business side of things...
Screw up the estimates/quoting/statement of work on the front end and you'll have no end of problems with customers on the back end or some very expensive lessons learned.

If you have that well in hand and you can get the work done, you've got the hard parts covered.

You need to build up a reputation as well. It seems that most of the high flyers that we see today started out building a few of their own cars (or a friend's or whatever) to build their rep and create a buzz... That gets people wanting you to do their cars...

The challenge there is it's all your cash up front - or investors or a business loan....
be careful though - some tax laws don't count restoration as a business expense.. Canada won't allow it, for example.
 
If you love it (which you say you do) you can't go wrong.

I was gonna be a male model, but then I discovered I'm not very good looking so that didn't work out. :doh:

Then I decided to be a porn star cause they can be ugly, but that didn't work out.... nuff said there. :shifty:

Then I decided to become a graphic designer so I could photochop Moparnuts photos all day... [smilie=i:

Life is good. :toot:

Carry on.
 
If you're gonna do it, learn this first. When a customer says "All I want is a driver", it had better be freakin' perfect, and for no money whatsoever. What they really want is to go win Gold at the Nats. It's a fact, and you'll hear it every week. Being a one man shop is also extremely difficult. Sure, you can control every aspect of the quality control, but it limits the amount of cars you can be working on at once. That may not seem important, but when you're waiting on parts for one, you can be working on another, making it very easy to get spread too thin on too many projects, at which point no one's happy. Small shops are also much more affected by a downturn in the economy than are the high dollar shops. Ask me how I know. I'm not trying to be negative, just point out a few (of many) obstacles you're going to face. Good luck!:bravo:
 
I asked my husband why he doesn't work on cars for a living, because he's very good at what he does. His response was that he didn't want to get burnt out and not have the desire to work on his own.

Rather than jumping into starting your own business, start small. Restore a friends car, build up on your reputation like DCF had mentioned. Then you'll have an idea if this is what you really want to do in life. Good luck and keep us posted on how things are going for you! :)
 
if you seriously want to do it..your probably best off building them for yourself and then selling them at auction untill youve done say 10 or so cars and turned a profit on ALL of them..at that point you will be ready to do them for customers
 
Hello Nick

I've been a business owner for most of my adult life. I currently own & opperate a heavy duty truck trailer repair facility. If you want to make a living at working on muscle cars the first thing I would suggest is to get you mechanics license. This is an absolute must. (i'll explain later). then a business license with all the appropriote tax numbers, garage license & whatever other permits are required in your state or province to opperate a business. These are law required details.

Now to start. A mechanics license will 1st show your customers that you are certified to work on there rides. 2nd alot of muscle cars not will not be licensed for the road. It would not make sence to me as a consumer that after you restored it i had to bring it somewhere else to get a safety inspection performed so i could get it licensed for the road. That would not be right. you want to deliver a finished product.

Your mechanics license would also alow you to work in the industry making great money (25.00 per hour plus) while gainig experience. This would be huge in estimating repair costs. There's a fine line between making money & not.

I could ramble on for hours but thats my 2 cents to start.

good luck

greg73cuda
 
68isgr8 said:
I asked my husband why he doesn't work on cars for a living, because he's very good at what he does. His response was that he didn't want to get burnt out and not have the desire to work on his own.
Click to expand...
Exactly why my job has nothing to do with cars, I repair commercial kitchen equipment, and on the weekend I look forward to working on the cars as opposed to doing it 40 hours a week then trying to enjoy doing it on the weekends. If you do what you love for a living, soon it will become the one thing in life you hate most. Just my .02
 
DCF, JC and Greg hit it all on the head.
Take it from someone who tries to make a living rebuilding and repairing old cars:
If you're a one man band, you'll never get rich doing it. You will only have to work half-days tho'. It'll be up to you to decide which 12 hours you want to work.
If you're a large operation, be prepared to spend most, if not all, of your time making sure the business end of things are running smoothly. You won't have time to work on cars.
Restoring old cars sounds like a good gig, but the skill and knowledge requirements are astounding. You've got to know a whole lot about a whole lot, and that's just the cars. The office workload and dealing with customers can quickly take all the fun out of it. Employees (especially bad ones) can send you spinning.
It takes years to build a good reputation (if you're any good at it to begin with) and just one pissed off customer to tear it down.
I've been in business for six and a half years and I really have yet to see much of a return on my time and labour investment. We've got a very good rep, we're always busy, but I made more money working for someone else.
I could go on and on (and usually do :)), but suffice it to say; there is a reason there are not many shops rebuilding or restoring old cars - most times the headaches outweigh the rewards.

If you've got your heart set on this tho', PM me with any questions you have. I'll give honest answers.
 
I love what I'm doing. too


haveing a beer:quaff:and more beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer:fallendowndrunk::bwuhaha:
 
Spawn said:
i would guess if youre really good you could make a decent living restoring cars....
Click to expand...

If you only had to deal with cars, working on them would be freakin awesome!!! The owners make the job suck!!! Read Resto's sig line :)

68isgr8 said:
I asked my husband why he doesn't work on cars for a living, because he's very good at what he does. His response was that he didn't want to get burnt out and not have the desire to work on his own.
Click to expand...

That's the main reason I'm avoiding going back to work anywhere there are cars or anything else to do with them!!!!
 
i too have to agree with rapid burnout...to much of what you enjoy kills the fun and the enjoyment...as much as i love a-body cuda's the "problem child" that i had the displeasure of rebuilding..i no longer enjoy them as much as i did

owners KILL the fun for sure...especialy if they cant make up there damnd mind
 
Don't over look the fact that just restoring assemblies like wiper motor, steering columns and stuff like that can provide a pretty good income with the benefit of starting smaller.
 
I've done nothing but think about everything you all have said since yesterday and I'm thinking that I don't want to jump the gun and fuck myself.

if it were just me, and i didn't have a wife and daughter, i think i would jump right in and try to make some money.. if not, then just some cool ass cars. I can't afford to NOT MAKE MONEY. You're all right, i think i'll come up with some other gig. save the car time for the weekends and investments to directly benefit me. I already work in the car business and, trust me, it's not pretty. I don't know what i want to do with myself yet...

anyone want to just give me a bunch of money? :huh:
 
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