The market

As the baby boomer generation ages and becomes more nostalgic, the popularity of antique, classic and custom cars continues to grow. While registration information is available for 26 states only, it shows that more than six million antique, classic and custom vehicles are registered in the United States, according to the 2006 Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Hot Rod Industry Report. The vast majority of those are from model years ranging from 1962 to 1972. In that segment, there are more than 5 million vehicles registered. In the 1949 to 1961 model year range, there are 930,177 vehicles registered. More than 386,000 vehicles made before 1949 are registered.

In the parts segment, restoration parts sales at the manufacturer level have increased from $253 million in 1994 to $449 million in 2005. Consumer retail sales have more than doubled from just under $600 million to more than $1.3 billion.

A different mindset

"Restoration is a whole different mental outlook," Barber says. "You need to have the mentality of what the customer wants and not what the insurance company wants. We're not trying to beat the clock."

"If we draw somebody out of the collision industry, they generally don't fit," he says. That's because of the way the collision industry is set up with shops having to repair cars in a certain time period, Barber says. In the restoration and custom car segment, there aren't specific time guidelines to make repairs.

Chuck Rumschlag, owner of Color Works, a restoration shop, and Precision Collision, a late-model collision repair shop, in Los Lunas, N.M., has been restoring cars for more than 30 years. He runs his businesses separately with one crew dedicated to collision repair and another that works only on restorations. That, he says, provides con-sistent work.

"If you've got a guy that you've got dialed in to be a great crash business technician, just let him do that," Rumschlag says. "He'll make you money there. Just don't ask him to do the old stuff."