He's putting on a good front. I'll know if he hasn't done anything.
Also:
The last 5-6 times I checked in, the same tape and paper has been in the two same spots every ******* time.
Also:
His old partner that was there when the car arrived messaged me through Linkedin and told me I should go get my car.
Also:
He quit a few months back because Joey lies and bullshits people when he doesn't make deadlines. He had a side business out of the shop with his GF, now ex-GF, rebting enclosed trailers and she wound up breaking up with him and taking him to court over it because it was her $$$ and her name on the business.
Listen to the guy who knows and do as he says. Your car's not going to get done. It's not going to get started or finished. It's not going to get worked on any more now than it has been in the past. More parts are going to go missing. Listen to his ex-partner and go get your car
now while it's still there to go get; the guy who's been stringing you along is still there to open the door and go get the fender tag and stuff out the safe, and there's no IRS lockout on the property.
I made your same mistakes in 1999: an open-ended, vague agreement with no concrete progress/payment milestones. There was a work order form, but no details on it, just verbal discussion of what-all was to be done (giant mistake, never do this). Guy was a well-known expert in the particular kind of car. Owned 'em, built 'em, drove 'em, raced 'em for decades. I'd known him for years and considered him a friend (more mistakes there: thought he was a friend, and mixed friendship and business without putting in guardrails to protect one or both).
Parts went missing and got damaged. Car got hit by dude's drunk-driving bum of a son. Dude got in dumb quarrels and pissed off subcontractors, who in turn had negative-interest in working on any cars dude brought them, including mine (or they'd do the work grudgingly and resentfully—not conducive to good or timely work). None of those fights were dude's fault…just ask him; he was the only sane one, and everyone else was a jerk/a cheat/a liar/incompetent/etc. He had an endless stream of rilly good excuses and reasons why more stuff needed doing, more parts needed buying, more time needed giving, and more money needed sending.
I kept on throwing good money after bad—like you, I was aware in general terms of the large and growing investment I'd put into the car, and I didn't want to admit what I didn't want to admit. I still have no idea how much money I set on fire in the name of that car build, and I never will, and that's for the best; I would very probably have a massive heart attack.
Finally in 2006—seven years, for those keeping score at home—I went and repossessed the car and pile of parts. It was ugly; he demanded money (I'd deliberately left my wallet hundreds of miles away, and had only a carefully-limited stash of 'pacifier-cash' made highly unappetizing by carrying it underneath my foot inside my boot). He made credible threats, withheld parts I'd bought and paid for, etc. But I'd brought along a friend dude also knew and wasn't pissed off at (at the moment), so it was 2 against 1. That car never did get built. I sold it to the friend who'd helped me repossess it, and he might build it one day after he retires.
Go get your car back before it's too late.
(Oh yeah: dude wasn't a pencil-neck geek with a Vintage Car Restoration degree; he was a grizzled ol' US Army veteran.)
