I was told by someone I know who sells quite a few classic/muscle cars every month that the money is in buying nice clean cars, adding wheels and lowering springs along with engine bay and trunk detailing etc. Once you start making the sort of changes wanted by members of this forum it gets a lot tougher to make money.

Don

Making money on cars is all made on the BUY side....


I agree with Don... you can't make money on cars building them to be real cars. There's just nothing left in 'em.

I have just seen a lot of nice deals lately that are begging to make some money on. I understand the cheaper it is the wider the market in some respects, but also narrows the market as some guys want nicer stuff. M6 business is just focused around selling hours which means you want to get paid for all the hours you flag, ideally. But also finding guys to build cheaper well built bolt together kinda cars is a lot simpler then guys who can do high end fab. So just looking at options to grow the business.

And just think about a side of the business I have not really looked at before.

X3 on the buy side.

I haven't been to Bakersfield in awhile and don't know anything about the PT scene. You being a hot rod shop could very easily get into the 50's and 60's cruiser scene. More of a following I would think, plenty of people out there that want an old car but may not have the ability to make it happen.

Last car I flipped (besides the sweet mustang II) was a 66 galaxie. Cleaned it up, rebuilt the carb., fixed a few minor things, lowered with black steel wheels and skinny whites. The kid that bought it thought it was the coolest and just wanted to be bombing around in something old. After everything, I made $1500 and got a real nice S&W 915, not a ton of money but it paid for me to play with an old car and I have a new firearm now.

You've got the shop, the talent and a frickin car hauler.....just do it! What's the worst that can happen?

Because I really don't know. What was your shop like before you got into the magazines and had the semi? Has it always been full build high end stuff?

For the most part we have just gotten better with everyday. But the biggest difference is to know how to spot customers that do not understand how much effort it might take to accomplish what they want. I try to talk every new customer into buying a car before even thinking about building one. The build cost adds up so fast I can't even believe it. So learning how to educate new customers and just working with our repeat customers is our main focus. A business has to make money or it's just a tax shelter for some rich guy. Well it's just me trying to support my family and pay my guys as much as I can so they can do the same. After almost 15 years in business a guy better learn some things to improve on.

I have gotten a lot smarter in the past few years. If it does not make money, create business or make my customers happy I sold it.

I'm asking this question to research another possible revenue stream possibility.

I think there's a market for a quality car that's safe, sorted out, and fun to drive that isn't $100K+. The biggest problem is duplicating that price point when all the donor cars will have completely different needs to get them to that point.

Rust and parts availability will be the biggest hurdles.

Exactly. I was thinking of this years ago, but couldn't figure out how to deal with the pricing, when the starting point can (and will) be so different.

When I used to be on the Corvette forum regularly I noticed that there were guys building and selling high dollar C1 and C2 restomod cars. New frames, LS engines, nice leather interiors and they could sell for quite good money. There seems to be a decent sized pool of buyers for these cars. Might be something worth researching.

Don