It can be hard to trust your classic car to a restoration shop; I can suggest a few things that might help.
I own a classic car restoration shop; so I know a few things about locating the shop to restore your classic car.
I won't write this articles in a biased way because I own a shop; that won't serve any purpose. The first thing that you should ask is; how long have you been in business? This is one of the most important things of all; a restoration shop that doesn't do good work isn't going to last to long.
I will tell you up front that they cannot do an estimate on the cost of the work. There is no reliable way of doing this; if a shop tries to estimate your car, it usually means that they really don't know what's going on. There are way to many factors that weigh in to the process.
A shop has no way of knowing what they will find as they tare your car apart. Now that you know that, you may ask for an estimate; if they give you one then you should have a good idea that they are pulling something. Their intentions may be good, but the outcome will not.
When you do a classic car restoration; you should always ask the owner of the shop for references. These are past customers that the shop has done work for. You should always check with the BBB, and the local chamber of commerce.
Ask the owner if their shop has ever restored a car like yours; make sure that you have the owner explain the restoration process to you also. Have the owner take you on a tour of the shop, in general the shop should give you a good feeling.
Look at the cleanliness of the shop, and how orderly they keep it. Professionalism is not hard to recognize; remember that only dumb question, is the one that you don't ask. The owner should be proud to show you around his shop; if the owner isn't in when you stop by, you should come back later.
Make sure to talk to some of the people that work for the shop also. They are the ones that will be working on your car. They should try to make you feel good about the shop, and even be proud of the work that the shop they for is doing.
This work is very expensive; so you should spend some time around the shop before you take your car there. Get to know the guys; but never make them feel as if they are the only shop around. They should want to to the work on your car, and should be excited to get it.
If there is one thing that I can say it's that there are a lot of shops to choose from. But truly there are only a handful of top notch high end shops; there are a lot of fly by night shops out there. They should not be hard to weed out though.
If they don't have at least twenty years in business; or the owner seems shifty when you ask how long they have been in business, you should choose another shop. If you don't want to choose another shop, you should at the least talk to a lot of their previous customers about their satisfaction.
If your wondering just how shifty the shop is; ask the employees how often they replace people at the shop. A well established will keep the people that they spend all the time training. A high quality shop should not have a high employee turnover rate.
Like I said earlier; there are not a lot of really high quality shops out there. It should not be hard to figure out which shops are those ones, and which one are the fly by night shops. A high end shop should always look high end; it should be well maintained, and in good shape.
You should also look in to the show history of the shop as much as you possibly can. Cars that aren't done right don't take prizes in shows; or for that matter get in the magazines. These achievements take top quality work; neither a car show, or a magazine will risk their reputation by letting low quality pass.
I almost forgot; one of the most important parts is the quality check process. You should ask the shop how their quality check process works. Our shop checks every phase of the work twice. It goes through two different people, and both of them have to give the work their passing grade.
This is about it; a classic car restoration is a big step in the evolution of your car, and it needs to be just right. You should get everything that you want when it's done. It is up to you to keep track of the work being done on your car, and if you seen interested in the process; the shop will perform it's best work.
