Alan Lewenthal, director of operations at Marquis Auto Restorations in Philadelphia, also has seen his share of accidental damage to antique, classic and custom vehicles. Recently, the owner of a 1957 Thunderbird, which was restored about 10 years ago, was backing it out of the garage, but neglected to close the driver's side door. The door was peeled off the car and the front left fender was torn.
"The damage was extensive," Lewenthal says. "It was like a can opener."All of these collector cars had been admired by many at shows and elsewhere, but in a blink became damaged goods. Such is the case for some of the more than six million registered antique, classic and custom vehicles in the United States.
Marquis Auto Restorations and CARS specialize in doing restorations, but both businesses also see a number of those cars in need of body repairs after they've been restored. Typically, the vehicles that arrive to be repaired haven't been in a collision. More often, the damage is the result of happenstance such as the folding chair shifting in the trunk or neglecting to close the driver's door when backing out of the garage.
"We see them basically every couple of months," Barber says. "It does happen from time to time."
While fixing these vehicles might seem to be as simple as repairing late-model automobiles, they often bring a host of unique problems that need to be solved. The fact is that it can be complicated and time consuming. For some, it might even be a drain on the company's finances and some might lose patience because it can take two months to one year to complete the repairs.Despite that, many can do the repairs if they have the know-how, patience and are ready to deliver a higher level of customer service. Even with those in place, it's not always an easy avenue to drive down.
Taking some cues from restoration experts yields some hints and guidelines that can help a business get in the fast lane to making repairs on these high-end and coveted automobiles.
The market
As the baby boomer generation ages and becomes more nostalgic, the popularity of antique, classic and custom cars continues to grow. While registration information is available for 26 states only, it shows that more than six million antique, classic and custom vehicles are registered in the United States, according to the 2006 Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Hot Rod Industry Report. The vast majority of those are from model years ranging from 1962 to 1972. In that segment, there are more than 5 million vehicles registered. In the 1949 to 1961 model year range, there are 930,177 vehicles registered. More than 386,000 vehicles made before 1949 are registered.
Not surprisingly, California leads the way in registrations with more than 2.7 million registered vehicles, which represents nearly 6 percent of all cars registered in the state. With slightly more than 1 million registered vehicles, North Carolina is second. Virginia places third with more than 483,000 registrations. Following that is Ohio (more than 320,000) and Alabama (more than 242,000).Of all collector vehicles, the most popular are muscle cars, hot/street rods and restorations, according to the 2006 SEMA Hot Rod Industry Report.
In the parts segment, restoration parts sales at the manufacturer level have increased from $253 million in 1994 to $449 million in 2005. Consumer retail sales have more than doubled from just under $600 million to more than $1.3 billion.
A different mindset
When it comes to repairing antique, classic and custom vehicles, Barber takes a different viewpoint compared with the traditional collision repair process. Typically, he looks at those repairs like he looks at doing full restoration work."Restoration is a whole different mental outlook," Barber says. "You need to have the mentality of what the customer wants and not what the insurance company wants. We're not trying to beat the clock."
Most of Barber's technicians are I-CAR trained or ASE certified and specialize in restorations and custom work. Few of his technicians made the transition from the collision repair industry."If we draw somebody out of the collision industry, they generally don't fit," he says. That's because of the way the collision industry is set up with shops having to repair cars in a certain time period, Barber says. In the restoration and custom car segment, there aren't specific time guidelines to make repairs.
Chuck Rumschlag, owner of Color Works, a restoration shop, and Precision Collision, a late-model collision repair shop, in Los Lunas, N.M., has been restoring cars for more than 30 years. He runs his businesses separately with one crew dedicated to collision repair and another that works only on restorations. That, he says, provides con-sistent work.
"If you've got a guy that you've got dialed in to be a great crash business technician, just let him do that," Rumschlag says. "He'll make you money there. Just don't ask him to do the old stuff."
Frank Girimonte, co-owner of Frank's Auto Care in Hamden, Conn., who does late model and classic car collision repair, performs the restoration and repair work himself. It's something he enjoys and learned how to do when he was just starting out.Due to the high costs and values of these vehicles and the emotional attachment, customers have high expectations. Shops are advised to increase their level of customer service in order to cater to this high-level client.
"They scrutinize a lot more than a person with a brand-new car because they have an emotional attachment to that car," Girimonte says. "They love that car. Everything that happens they take personal. It's like working on one of their kids."
To make sure expectations are met, CARS is meticulous about its work, Barber says. Technicians spend extra time wet sanding and buffing and often will duplicate the original factory spot welds. "On antique and classic cars, people expect their cars to be [repaired] better than their memory," Barber says. "We actually go back in with the correct spot-welding equipment and measure and locate the spot welds in exactly the same place as the factory did."
Barber's shop also will pick up the vehicle and deliver it back to customers. But the shop doesn't use the standard rollback. To help prevent further damage, the shop transports the vehicles in an enclosed trailer.
When writing estimates, there aren't many reference materials to find out how long and how much it is to make repairs. Those who specialize in restorations often have to rely on their own or their staff's knowledge and give a ballpark figure. When Rumschlag writes an estimate, he relies on his years of experience.
"The times to take things apart, in most instances, there aren't any books," he says. "There's no flat-rate guide, so you just use good, common sense. You just write down how you're going to do the repair and what you're going to have to do."
Similar to the collision repair industry, if additional work has to be completed, a supplement will be written and the customer and, if applicable, the insurance company, will be notified.
Depending on how detailed the work is, repairs could take months. The 1961 Corvette Barber's shop repaired was there for four months. Because of downtime in between paint coats and while waiting for parts to be delivered or fabricated, they aren't worked on as often or as quickly as late-model vehicles. During those downtimes, the cars need to be stored somewhere, taking up valuable space where other repairs can be done. Then the age and condition of the vehicles have to be taken into consideration.
"The unfortunate thing is that people have cars that are restored and they sit for quite a while. If it gets in some type of accident, it's difficult to match what was done because it could be 10 years old," Marquis' Lewenthal says. "If it's a newer restoration, it's pretty simple. But if it's an older restoration, then it goes into where do you stop painting or refinishing?"
When that happens, Lewenthal says customers need to decide whether to accept what the insurance company is going to cover or pay for the difference.
Parts and paint
Depending on the vehicle make, model, year and extent of work, parts might be available. The growth of collectible cars has also led the way for an increase in companies specializing in parts for those vehicles.
For Barber, he says that because his shop specializes in restorations, finding and getting parts isn't a problem. The biggest difficulty, he says, is when parts need to be sent out for repairs, specifically to get re-chromed.
"You're looking at six to eight weeks waiting on the chromers to get the components back," he says. Rumschlag says finding parts for vehicles from the 1950s and older is getting more difficult. It's even more difficult finding parts for convertibles. Often he'll have to modify parts to fit those vehicles.
"If you're doing a convertible, you can't find convertible back quarters or back pieces so you end up having to take sedan parts and modifying them to work in that application," he says. "We have a guy that's doing a quarter on a '63 Ford convertible and we can't find those parts, so we're going to take a quarter out of a real nice '60s hardtop and we'll have to modify that."
Similarly, Marquis Auto Restorations recently was repairing a late 1950s Oldsmobile convertible with front-end damage. The grille is not available so they had to make it, Lewenthal says.
Because Rumschlag has been restoring vehicles for 30 years he says he has a good network to call on. He calls on three salvage yards that have "somewhat of a good selection."
Rumschlag and Girimonte say they also will try such places as Hemmings, Sherman & Associates and Goodmark Industries. Other places to find parts include swap meets, car shows and car clubs.
When it comes to paint, matching colors and blending, shops can have a difficult time. For some vehicles, paint might not be readily available. In the case of the 1961 Corvette CARS repaired, it had lacquer paint, which isn't manufactured anymore, and that posed a new challenge.
"We had a real struggle in getting the paint and materials for that car and then getting it to blend and match correctly," Barber says. "There was no way we were going to base coat and clear coat half of the car. It would actually diminish the value."
Barber says they take sanding and buffing to a higher level as well. "We're wet sanding to 2,000 and 3,000 [grit] and buffing them to a 4,000 or 5,000 scratch grit. A mirror, by definition, is 11,000 scratch grit."
Insurance coverage and rates
Similar to the collision repair industry, many shops involved with repairing antique, classic and custom vehicles deal with insurance companies. Like late-model vehicle collision repair, the claims process for collector cars is similar. While the values of collector cars often are substantially more than late-model vehicles, the Hagerty Insurance Company, which specializes in collector car insurance, sees average repair costs around $4,000. When it comes to the cost of repairs and coverage, insurance companies usually will cover the costs.
"We will pay the amount necessary to repair or replace the property, whichever is less, provided you actually repair or replace the property with kind and quality without regard to depreciation or betterment," said Hagerty Insurance Company CEO McKeel Hagerty.
Hagerty insures about 500,000 collector cars. About 6,000 body damage claims were filed in 2006. When parts aren't readily available, Hagerty says it will pay for fabrication of the parts.
"In the event parts are not available and repair is not an option, we would pay for fabricated parts and we would pay the cost to replace that part with one of like, kind and quality," he says. "To use an obscure example, let's say a windshield out of a one-of-a-kind rare Ferrari from 1959 had to be replaced. It might cost $20,000. Then that is what we would pay."
On the other hand, State Farm says it insures about 300,000 of those vehicles. Like other insurers, its antique and classic car program assumes extremely limited use of the vehicles. However, the company doesn't define limited use but looks at it as "primarily driving the vehicle to parades, in parades and to and from antique and classic car shows," says State Farm Spokesman Dick Luedke.
"Coverage would not normally be denied because the vehicle was being used another way when it was in an accident," he says. "The claims costs for those specialty cars are about one-fifth the claims costs of all of the other cars that we insure."
Despite the increase of total losses in the collision repair industry, because of the high values of collector vehicles, few are totaled. That is, unless they weren't insured for the right amount. But, according to Hagerty, that normally isn't the case.
"The vast majority of our vehicles are considered repairable," Hagerty says. "If you think about it, the higher value a vehicle has the more likely it is to be repaired. They are unlikely to be totaled unless they were dramatically underinsured."
When Barber submits an estimate, it indicates his $75 hourly labor rate that he says insurance companies pay. "Collision shops ask me how I get that. We just tell them straight up this is how we work," he says. He's upfront with insurance companies and explains to them that his shop is not a flat-rate shop and that he pays his employees by the hour.
"I'm not based on flat rate, so therefore the customer has the right to have their car repaired anyway they want," Barber says. "If they bring it back here for repair, the insurance companies pay our rates."