We’re often asked “how do I restore my car?”.  There are various levels of restoration, from simple fixing up to a complete overhaul.  You’ll need to determine what you want to do with the car depending on what it needs.

If you don’t already know what you have, you can decode your vehicle using this sites decoding information.  We also sell decoding information in the Literature section of our catalog.

Get the factory literature.

Obtain the factory literature/manuals, otherwise known as “the instructions”.   Year One carries much of these manuals in the Literature section of our catalogs.

For GM Vehicles this means, the Chassis Service Manual, Fisher Body Manual, and a factory assembly manual.

For Mopar Vehicles this means the Chassis Service Manual.

For Ford Vehicles we offer “assembly manuals”, which are broken into sections (body, electrical, chassis, engine, interior)

This literature is invaluable whether you plan on restoring your car, or will simply be maintaining it.

Make a plan on paper identifying the various things you’d like to do to the car.  This plan may have the order in which things need to happen, what parts need to be obtained, and any other things that need to be considered to get the car restored.

Lastly, try and stick to your plan.  One thing you want to avoid is having the project expand bigger than you had planned, or accidentally break your budget.