This story of a classic Camaro was unlike most others of its age. It is a one-owner car with only 50,000 original miles – that’s about 1200 miles a year.

This car was in very good shape for its age. It didn’t need a full frame-off auto restoration. However, the owner John bought the car when it was new and took excellent care of it. 

Originally from Illinois, John moved here to Fort Myers, Florida. And one sunny day while driving the Camaro, an accident happened. 

It was not that bad, for the car suffered no frame damage. After assessing the damage, the car just needed some sheet metal front fender and radiator support replacement, along with a new chrome bumper and grille parts.

Here are some pictures below:

Once we brought the car in to estimate and make a complete parts list, we start 1973 Camaro’s classic car restoration. We contacted State Farm Insurance Company to come to our shop and write their estimate. 

Keep in mind that the car is now over 40 years old, and you can’t call General Motors to order these parts from inventory! After some hunting around, we decided that Classic Industries was an excellent choice for the parts needed.

Here are a few more pictures of the shop.

We take-off all chrome and moldings from the car. At the same time, we were prepping and removing any small dents in the panels from the 40 years of history the car has. We should keep in mind this was a rust free car.

We met with the insurance company for the initial damage estimate. We spoke about how we needed and used a new front bumper fender and lights for the repair. After getting into the restoration process and looking at it, we found that there was a little more damage than we initially thought.

Once we disassembled the car and submitted a supplement along with a re-inspection for State Farm insurance company. We showed them that it needed new radiator support and a few more parts with additional paint times required.

Once we figured out what State Farm Insurance was willing to pay, we agreed that if we painted half of the car, it would never look like the original classic car that it is. Back in the 1970s, the autos were refinished with single-stage lacquer paints without clear coatings. 

Today’s paints are far superior – made up of a urethane base and high-solids urethane clear coats.

Here are some pictures of the restoration in progress of what we did after deciding what was best for the car:

We opted to restore the entire car for a classic finish.

We were able to use Classic industries, as they specialized in Auto restoration parts for the muscle cars of GM, Ford, and MOPAR. They are from California, so it was about 10 days for the parts to come in.  We had the complete order in house with no mistakes.

The door rubbers were like new. The nuts and bolts came off easily – it was like working on a king’s tomb untouched. Once we finished all the bodywork, this auto restoration proceeded into the paint refinish stages: Four coats of brown metallic color applied over the entire body and finally many coats of high solids urethane clear coat. The final coats of clear were flat sanded with 2000/3000 grit wet sandpaper and buffed to a high gloss shine.

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https://palmbeachcustoms.com/classy-high-quality-auto-paint-workshop-in-swfl-for-restoration-projects

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