Graveyard Carz New Letter #1
there are no "right or wrong" answers when it comes to cars and car lovers. everyone has their own taste in the kind of car they want to build or drive. when i restored my 68 barracuda formula s, i painted it with 40 year old lacquer paint because i wanted it to look more like the way cars looked 40 years ago - and the way the 68 barracuda i had in high school looked in 1969. i didn't want a "show car" paint job. now when i park my car beside lots of cars at the car shows i go to, it is no where as nice looking or as shinny as the "base coat, clear coat" paint jobs that are most common today. but to me, my car looks more like an original "survivor" rather than a restored car. it's almost as though my car and i have "aged together." now i understand why some customers want their cars done by Graveyard Carz like the car was just driven off a car carrier in 1970. i would assume that these customers wanted their particular car "new" when they first saw it sitting in the Chrysler Dealership showroom in 1970, but they couldn't afford that dream car way back then. now they have the money to "own" their high school dream car. some of GYC customers have family stories surrounding their car - it was their fathers' or their grandfathers' or a brother who didn't come back from Vietnam. i can understand why these folks would want a "new" 40 year old car. i personally would not want a "perfect" GYC restoration because i would be afraid to drive it after sinking probably $60k into it with GYC. AND, the way people drive these days, i would be a nerveous wreck passing some teenager who was busy texting as i cruised by. and imagine driving one of worman's "masterpieces" to a Texas Roadhouse for a steak dinner and coming out to find a parking lot dent somewhere on the car! no as nice as it might be to own a "factory fresh" old mopar muscle car, i just don't think i could drive and enjoy it. as to the guys who like to build "retro-mod" mopars using new "current technology" parts - that's fine with me. it's not my cup of tea but i can see how new parts would make old mopars a hell of a lot more fun to drive. so there's room for everyone in the collector car market. even if i see a car and do not like the way it was built, i'll still be interested in hearing the owner's story about why he built it the way he did.