Classic Car Restoration Motivation
1.Introduction
2.Bought Not Built
3.Don’t Care
4.Little by Little
5.The Long Haul
6.Project Despair
7.Rolling Restoration
8.Summary
Impatience is close to boredom but always results from one cause:
an underestimation of the amount of time the job will take.
You never really know what will come up and very few jobs get done
as quickly as planned.
Overall goals must be scaled down in importance
and immediate goals must be scaled up.
1.Introduction
The link between motivation and time when starting a classic car restoration, ownership or working on a classic car is a roller coaster journey of ups and downs. If you have ever worked on or owned a classic car you find your emotions and motivation go from the highest summit peaks of success right down to the pits of despair!
I have always been interested in this emotional journey and wanted to better understand in more depth and analysis to help with understanding my feelings and how to recognize where I am.
Quote from Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance
“Impatience is close to boredom but always results from one cause: an underestimation of the amount of time the job will take. You never really know what will come up and very few jobs get done as quickly as planned. Impatience is the first reaction against a setback and can soon turn to anger if you're not careful.”
“Impatience is best handled by allowing an indefinite time for the job, particularly new jobs that require unfamiliar techniques; by doubling the allotted time when circumstances force time planning; and by scaling down the scope of what you want to do.”
“Overall goals must be scaled down in importance and immediate goals must be scaled up. This requires value flexibility, and the value shift is usually accompanied by some loss of gumption, but it's a sacrifice that must be made. It's nothing like the loss of gumption that will occur if a Big Mistake caused by impatience occurs.”
I was interested in how others might attack restoration and why some projects run for many many years with their classics off the road. I have watched others start a project with the naive belief that it will be just off the road for a few months work, only for it to be off the road 6 years and a divorce later!
The examples used I have created a graph (sorry I am an Engineer who loves graphs) of the motivation over time for the following restoration projects.
I have split each restoration into the following projects / types:
- Bought Not Built
- Don’t Care
- Little by Little
- The Long Haul
- Project Despair
- Rolling Restoration
Your restoration project will hopefully fall into one or more of these project types. Your project may start as one and turn into another or take different parts from all of them.
2.Bought Not Built
This motivation is an owner who has bought a classic car which has already undergone a full restoration before purchase.
The owner has spent a lot of money for the finished car and is initially fully motivated and happy with the car.
However the motivation does not last and starts to decay rapidly. They have no emotional connection with the car. Lacking hands on attachment means it's just a matter of time the motivation reduces.
The owner is more interested in the classic car as a status symbol and just a form of investment
The owner might eventually move onto another car.
3.Don’t Care
The owner of this classic car does not care about the condition of owning a classic car. They are more involved in the enjoyment of driving and don’t have time for maintenance or restoration.
The joy of purchase is followed by a period of bliss. This bliss zone continues as the car is driven around for a long length of time.
During the bliss zone the car is not maintained, serviced or worked on. The owner does not check the engine oil, bodywork condition or service intervals.
Suddenly a breakdown or MOT failure reaches the point of failure, it shatters the bliss and the motivation falls off a cliff into the pit of despair. The owner finally gives up as the frustration that their lack of maintenance and care is the cause of this despair.
This scenario is typical of owners who are interested in skin deep on purchase and more interested in what the classic car can do for them and not what they can do for the car.
4.Little by Little
The little by little restoration project is common among classic car owners.
The owner purchases a restoration project. The motivation is high after purchase.
The owner then starts to investigate the car and during this phase they reach the pit of despair as they expose more and more work that the car requires.
The owner then has a first win after some further work. Motivation increases but then they move onto the next area of work. They reach another pit of despair before climbing back out to a second win.
Motivation after the second win is always less than the first and motivation decreases every successive win. Many phases and cycles of work and of pit of despair continue until they give up as it is too work.
The thought of doing work little by little and in bite size chunks is a sound one but the little by little restoration project involves stronger commitment than the owner relised or the amount of little jobs there is to do in a restoration project.
5.The Long Haul
The long haul project typical restoration project for the majority of classic car owners. Undertaking a restoration involves a lot of time and once started the long haul involves taking the whole car apart, discovering more work.
During the discovering phase the motivation starts to fall as more investigation takes place. The work becomes overwhelming.
Once motivation is at a low flat line level the owner is stuck in the doldrums. This period of low motivation can last a long time.
Eventually the owner will find themselves in the pit of despair. This is a make or break moment, the hardworking owner will start the rebuild and motivation will start to rise.
The next phase is the hard slog of restoration. Motivation will increase with time up to the summit of success.
Once at the summit of success the owner has reached a level of satisfaction which will make the emotional journey worthwhile. They have an emotional attachment which could last a lifetime. They are however scared by their journey and the depths they have fallen to and the amount of work.
6.Project Despair
The project of despair is quite typically amongst classic car owners taking a restoration project.
The initial phases of the project look similar to the Long Haul project expect the owner never can complete the restoration
The purchase's high motivation starts to fall during the starting despair phase. This then ends up in the Pit of Despair which lasts many months. They cannot find the motivation to complete the work and end up selling their project unfinished.
They come to regret the decision to sell but have taken too much on and not found the hard effort to complete the restoration.
7.Rolling Restoration
The rolling restoration is similar to the little by little but at each phase the classic car owner gets to drive his project.
The initial motivation is high at purchase. The owner might even get to drive his car after purchase giving them a chance to drive and become emotionally connected to his new car.
Even if the car is not drivable the thought of getting it on the road and having a drive as quickly as they can motivates them. This quick working on and driving cycle keeps the motivation higher.
The emotional attachment to having experienced driving their classic car keeps the project and therefore motivation at a higher average baseline.
8.Summary
As shown in all the classic car restoration projects the owners will go on a journey of highs and lows in motivation.
Studying motivation versus time gives a good idea of how a project is progressing. The swing from high heights to low depths give an idea of how successful a restoration project is going to go.
When looking at the different journeys the “best” project type seems to be the rolling restoration. I use the word “best” as there is no perfect project but when taking the average of these journeys its swing is less and the motivation does not drop to low levels for any length of time.
The rolling restoration gives the owner restoring a project car the chance of being able to experience and reconnect to the emotional attachment by being able to drive the car between work. This combined with each work phase having a short phased approach to restoration.
There will always be long hard amounts of effort and work to gain back motivation.
Some will fail and abandon their projects and others will be stuck in the pit of despair or the doldrums for many years.
However you tackle your project I hope that this guide will help you better understand where you are with your project and how to keep the motivation up…...
