A full restoration costs €25,000–40,000, often more. The average French classic is worth €21,300.
Do the arithmetic: for the great majority of cars, a nut-and-bolt rebuild makes no economic sense. What does make sense is dealing with what is actually threatening the car. Structural rust. Sills, floors, chassis rails. A panel nobody makes any more. Tired paint on a sound shell.
We start by telling you what your car genuinely needs — including when the answer is “less than you thought”.
You send photographs. We come back with an assessment, free. No need to move the car.
The car comes in — we collect it if that helps. We strip what needs stripping, probe, and measure. You get a photographic report of what we actually found, bad news included. This stage is a fixed price, agreed before we start, and it comes off the quote if you go ahead.
We break the project into blocks you can decide on. You choose what happens now and what waits. Budget 20% headroom: an old shell always has something hidden in it. Where the scope is clear, each block is a fixed price. Where it genuinely isn’t, we work to a ceiling you set: an agreed hourly rate, a monthly limit on hours, and a conversation as soon as we get near your number.
Photographs at every stage, sent regularly. You shouldn’t have to phone to find out where your car is.
Inspection, road test, and a complete photographic record. That file is yours. It documents what was done, and it matters on the day you sell.
Original paint, honest patina, panels nobody has ever touched — those are the only things that can’t be manufactured back. A car restored three times is often worth less than a tired original, and the market understands that better every year.
Conservation isn’t doing less. It’s deciding, panel by panel, what has to be repaired and what should be left alone.
We deal with corrosion where it threatens the structure. We stabilise what can be stabilised. We repair from the inside where that is possible, so the visible face stays untouched. And we tell you exactly what we replaced.
We won’t respray a car that doesn’t need respraying, even if you ask, without talking about it first.
