Starting a Vintage Car and Motorcycle Shop - Your Opinions Please

Hello there, I'm Andy in Detroit (contrary to the screen name) and I'm launching a vintage car and motorcycle shop focusing on the repair and improvement of street and race vehicles. Think of the stuff on bringatrailer.com as our general customer base.

To get the business stuff out of the way: Yes, this is fully funded. Yes, it's approved for use in the building I own. Yes, we've already got some great mechanics but we wouldn't mind hearing from you too if you're interested at andy@detroitindie.com.

Primarily, I'm asking you all what would you need a proper repair shop to do and do well? What services are you after? Is it tire mounting and balancing? Roll cage installation? Tuning odd and difficult engines? Tracking down NOS or tough to find parts? How could a shop like ours be most useful to you? Are you simply out of time and want your great old cars and motorcycles to just work?

Also, what do you find that shops like ours are particularly lacking? We're focusing on vintage cars and motorcycles because that's our passion and there's a distinct lack of such a shop in the area. If you've got a '61 Galaxie but don't want to spend hot rod money on it, the custom shops won't talk to you and the regular shops don't know how to work on it properly. We just want to fix old things the right way the first time.

We've also got a significant amount of experience in the club racing and stage rally world and would like to offer those sorts of services. Would you find yourself going to a shop for that work or do you do the majority of it yourself?

Lastly, and I appreciate you sticking with me, what sort of events would draw you in? Do you dig Cars and Coffee? Would you meet for a particular night (British night, German night, Cafe Racer Night, whatever)? What sort of events are lacking in your car community that you'd participate in?

Thanks for the help, everyone.

Hi Andy, I I actually live just North of Detroit so this does interest me. To start with let me say congratulations on your new endeavor and good luck. I will tell you the kind of things I am interested in.............because you asked. I don't really have a need for extensive restoration or body work but I like sports cars/auto crossing etc. so a shop that can upgrade suspension would be nice. You know, new springs, struts, brakes, sway bars........that kind of thing and then balance it all out so it works well together. I like "oddball" cars like older Porsches, Subarus and Saabs. Some rotary knowledge would be awesome. I have been working on an older RX7 for years and wouldn't mind just paying someone to finish it as I just don't have the time or facilities to do it myself. I could totally get into a Cars and Coffee event as well as any British, German, Japanese etc get together. As I am sure you know, being the Motor City, most meets are primarily American iron here so it would be cool to have a little variety. Hope this helps some and make sure you post up the name and address of your business. Better yet have a Grand opening/open house so those of us who are local can come down and check you out. Good luck.

Here's what I think a "race" shop should have over a "regular" shop:

Tire mounting & balancing machines

Alignment machine

Corner scales (maybe built into the alignment machine?)

At least basic fab capabilities

Shock dyno

If there's nobody in your area catering to anyone between the average joe commuters and the millionaire gearheads then your niche is cut out for you. You can get the guys who want some of the work done on their classics and grassroots racers by professionals.

There's a shop by me just like this. Too expensive for me to use regularly but all the grassroots racers get corner balance and alignment done there...and wheel work if they don't want their lugs hilariously overtorqued. Also some of the millionaire gearheads get a lot of "mundane" work done there and have "celebrity" mechanics flown in for more high-end work.

andydenver wrote: Also, what do you find that shops like ours are particularly lacking?

Attention to detail

I would love it if someone understood that I am bringing my car to them for help because it is that important to ME.

My 1986 RX-7 was brought in for a re-spray (same color) and I ended up with an atrocity of a paint job. I had paint on my rubber trip that was later painted back black, primer on my dash board, red-mist on my new wheels that wouldn't come off, wet paint behind the gas door, and bare primer in the trunk lip. My car ended up looking like it always had brake dust caked on the rims and the black trim would be half grey half black where they painted it, versus where it was still rubber.

I had spent thousands in suspension bits, an engine rebuild, and new rims/tires. The paint job was supposed to bring everything together and make it "new" again...

but it was awful. It was also the last bit of money I had for the project.

The first thing the guy said when I got fired up was "dude, the car is 20 years old, don't you think it's time to sell it?"

I brought my Impala to a paint shop (this one was in Hungary) to fix some huge scratches and a paint blister (cancer) that was beginning to show itself.

At first glance they did a great job. I drove off very happy. The next time I went to wax the car I found that they had used the paint gun to primer the car and didn't clean it out well enough. Very low to the bottom of the car just before the passenger back wheel is a constellation of grey dots. It kills me every time I go to wax the car. No matter how clean my car is, those dots will always be there.

Now I'm needing my Alfa painted (1985). I'm dreading having to pay what I'm going to have to pay for the body work I need. I would do awful things that would keep me up at night for the whole rest of my life if I could just find someone who is willing to give my car just the slightest amount of attention to detail. That way when I spend the time on my busy weekends to wash and wax it I get that feeling of "aaahhhhh. Now that is one nice car.".

andydenver wrote: We're focusing on vintage cars and motorcycles because that's our passion and there's a distinct lack of such a shop in the area. If you've got a '61 Galaxie but don't want to spend hot rod money on it, the custom shops won't talk to you and the regular shops don't know how to work on it properly. We just want to fix old things the right way the first time.

Agreed. There is a gap that needs to be bridged and you're saying everything I want to hear here.

Like I said, the problem is finding someone who isn't a custom shop that realizes you actually CARE about the car you brought them (regardless of make/model/year).

andydenver wrote: Lastly, and I appreciate you sticking with me, what sort of events would draw you in? Do you dig Cars and Coffee? Would you meet for a particular night (British night, German night, Cafe Racer Night, whatever)? What sort of events are lacking in your car community that you'd participate in? Thanks for the help, everyone.

I dig "cars and coffee" but the wanna-be's kind of kill it sometimes (same with auto-crosses). You get folk that wont come join the crowd for whatever reason and instead choose to do burnouts in the neighboring parking lot.

I like "theme nights" but I almost prefer the variety of "open nights" where anyone can bring anything and still feel welcome. Having a place that does both would have my attention.

A local auto-body shop does "caffeine and gasoline". I haven't been able to attend one yet, but I'm told they do "themes". The problem is I'm having a tough time finding what "theme" is coming up this next month on their website so I keep putting it off "till next month...". Having a well thought out website would go a long way.

Good luck with your shop. I'm beginning to wish you were closer to Washington state!

-Bill

ooh. Corner scales, alignment machine, and a shock dyno would have me there every day!

Aren't these questions that you would have answered before opening the shop? No dick intent, but I'm thinking about a small business venture and am analysis-paralyzed.

Hungary Bill wrote:

andydenver wrote: Also, what do you find that shops like ours are particularly lacking?

Attention to detail

Huge +1, like you took the thoughts right out of my head. I say this all the time.

Now your Facebook post today make sense...

To be honest, I agree 110% on attention to detail. While I do most repairs myself, there are some instances in which my work schedule doesn't allow me to get certain things done. Having a shop where I could, let's say, drop off the car a week before an Auto-X or road trip for a good once-over would be great. It's small thing like that which take up a lot of wrenching time (fluid changes, re-torquing bolts, etc.)

I've worked in the Auto Parts business for quite a few years, both retail and commercial. During my time, I've come to realize that most shops do not employ mechanics, but "parts changers." Granted, not all places are this way. In the same vein, a lot of shops do not want to deal with anything that's modified like you'd see here on GRM.

Taking the car to a specialist shop is prohibitively expensive. In a lot of cases, most specialist shops charge high labor rates and don't have any knowledge outside of something with carburetors.

On the meets, if you can strike a medium between the gold-chain wearing members of the various vintage car clubs in the area who own a 65 Shelby but only take their 2004 V6 Mustang to meets, and the Woodward set, I think it would be a great thing. The meets at AutoZone seem to be more my speed. Maybe it's a bit pretentious, but a meet where I can hang out, maybe sip on some good beer, and BS with like-minded people about things would be cool. Could even do some sort of movie night during the winter if space allows.

Can you divulge where in the area this will be?

Andy,

I'm exhausted right now so my post won't go into a whole lot of detail, but my shop is along those lines. We're a small traditional speed shop catering to vintage domestics. I specialize in Mopars, but just finished up a '57 Chevy wagon for a customer. It's not a hot rod, it's a cool cruiser. We did some upgrades (power brake conversion w/disks up front, Borgeson power steering conversion, alternator conversion, etc.) and a bunch of restoration type work.

Most of our customers are the guys with street cruisers. We sponsor some local car clubs. We do have some drag racers and some autocrossers coming in, and one guy that races boats. And we advertise in GRM. Their business classified ads are a real good deal.

If you want, shoot me an e-mail through my shop at the website in my signature. The e-mail account tied to my GRM account is one I only have access to from home, and don't get to do that at "normal" hours.

-Rob

A shop qualified and willing to do annual tech inspections for racers would be useful. It's a fairly simple process but helps the racer who doesn't want to sit in line every year at his first event, hoping he hasn't missed a bolt on his battery hold-down.

I want a shop that will communicate with me. My biggest complaint with any shop is the "we just assumed" part of conversations. I don't want them to assume. I want them to do it properly, or if they end up coming up against something weird, call me. Non standard wiring? Call me before you "fix" it. There might be a reason I did it that way. Corner weighting the car? Ask me what I weigh in race gear and write it on the order so the guy doesn't just stack 200lbs on there assuming that's about what I weigh. Talk to me about what I do with the car and then try to upsell me. Autocross? Say you can check the alignment and make suggestions about what would work better. Even better, take the time to show me up on the rack how I can add a bit of tow out at the track and return it to street settings before I drive home.
I want you to be more knowledgeable than me but not arrogant about it.

You need a really sweet vintage shop "truck" for advertising. Doesn't have to be a truck... panel wagon, van, whatever.

If you know who you want as your clientele- make one of their vehicles, and show it off.

Race- make a car that you can take to either Waterford Hills or any SCCA or DCSCC event, and advertise.

Good real restoration- find a good car or bike, restore it, take it to a show and try to sell it. There are a ton of marque specific clubs around here.

Good restomod- see above, take to the right show.

The other thing- what model do you use? Make your own cars to sell or do work for others? Knowing how PITA people are, I would go with the former- find a good base car, work on it, and sell it for a big profit. The good thing about that is it forces you to find the right car for the best profit. Say- find a Alfa Giulietta Spider project for $30k, work on it, sell it for $100k. Or a good base Mustang, for $10k, good restomod hot rod, and sell for $50k.

Wow. the more I think about it, the more I like that model (which is shown a lot on TV- build a car, and someone will buy it). Seems a lot more reasonable to NOT work for a customer directly on a project, vs. finding one when you are done. Need more upfront money to get going, but perhaps stage some projects like Wheeler Dealer.

A few things I would recommend:

1. realize that in your business space, people will be bringing work to you because they want it done better than they could do themselves. like the paint job story above, I can do it myself, but am bringing this to a shop because I want it done really well.

2. I know things will get busy and there will be conflicts of customer interests, but it seems to me that employing at least one person who is really good at customer interaction and advocacy might be a huge boon. I have left many shops feeling that I did not get exactly what I wanted, and that really sucks.

3. Don't stand for crappy vendors. i.e. if the local re-chroming shop you use turns out bad parts, don't put those parts on your work - their bad work becomes your bad work (like the s2000 debacle in another thread). just find a better re-chroming shop.

4. remember that when you do a good job (which I assume is your goal) each customer brings more customers exactly like themselves. Be picky and choose the customers you want - its hard at the beginning when you might not have a lot of work yet, but much harder to change your customers once you get rolling.

Folks, this is a HUGE wealth of knowledge. Seriously.

I'm in data collection and utilization mode and we're laying out the shop right now. It'll be in Ferndale for Vintage Car and Motorcycle with a large space in Hamtramck for Heavy Truck and Bus.

It'll take me some time to go through all of these responses and figure a course of action. In the meantime, if anybody has anything else to contribute I'm happy to hear you out. Thank you so much.

I'm one of Rob's customers because he was knowledgeable on here and an all around good guy to talk to. It was a laid back no BS situation for me. Obviously, I couldn't send my engine to Pennsylvania to be rebuilt when I'm in Texas but I know if I was in the Philly area I would be using him for stuff when I could. I found him through here and he gave me a lot of information to look into.

I'm going through a process of building a 66 barracuda with a swapped 340 in it. Finding vendors/mechanics that care about classics and are reasonably priced are few and far between. The pure resto shops only want the complete projects and the modern guys don't like/don't know the classics. I use who I do because they are just good people and I know at the end of the day the job will be done right. May not be the quickest but it will be done just like I want it and they take the time to listen to me and know what I'm looking for our of their services.

My uncle does the large truck/bus business in the cleveland area. I have one word for you if you are doing that...Contracts. Get to be the maintenance provider for smaller government departments and smaller trucking companies. It's served him well over the years and he has made himself a good life through that.

when you're up and running, i'm just going to come hang out.