I Build Modernized Classic Cars for a Living. Here’s Why Proper Restorations Cost So Much

Audio By Carbonatix

I build restomods and restoration projects for a living. Here’s the real reason classic car restorations cost so much.

As the founder of Miouri Automotive Group, I build modernized classic vehicles and full restorations, and that work gives you a very different perspective than what most people see online.

Most people only see the highlights. YouTube builds, and TikToks can make a rusty car turn into a showpiece in a few minutes of edited footage. It makes projects look fast and straightforward, and it’s easy to assume restoring a classic is mostly a matter of time and a few parts. In reality, once a car comes apart, the true scope of the work becomes clear. Everything takes longer, requires more skill, and involves more labor than most people expect. That’s what really drives the cost of a proper restoration.

People often ask why restoring a car is so expensive. The answer comes down to what’s hiding underneath the surface and what it actually takes to do the job correctly.

A restoration doesn’t begin with tools. It begins with patience. The teardown is slow, deliberate, almost surgical. Every bolt fights back. Every panel hides a secret. What looks like a simple car becomes a thousand-piece archaeological dig. A modern repair might take a few dozen hours. A real restoration? One to two thousand hours, sometimes more.

At typical restoration shop rates of $85 to $300 per hour, labor alone can land anywhere from $90,000 to over $200,000 before a single part or drop of paint is even considered. That’s months of human hands touching every inch of the vehicle.

No robots. No conveyor belts. No shortcuts. It’s the kind of work where a technician spends an entire day aligning a single door, not because they want to, but because the car demands it. This is why restorations cost so much. You’re not paying for parts. You’re paying for enormous, unforgiving amounts of human time.

Every restoration has a moment of truth. The panels come off, the undercoating is scraped away, and suddenly the car reveals what decades tried to hide. Rust blooms like a disease. Old collision damage shows itself in twisted metal.

Someone’s “repair” from 1978, a patch panel held on with pop rivets and hope, falls apart in your hands. Rust repair alone can swallow hundreds of hours. It’s dirty, thankless work. It rarely adds visible value, but without it, the car has no future. No one brags about the inner rockers they paid to have rebuilt, but without them, the car collapses.

Then there are the missing parts. The brackets were tossed during a repaint in the 80s. The trim pieces were lost in a move. The wiring harness was hacked apart by someone chasing a short with a pair of pliers. Every missing or butchered part adds hours, not just in labor, but in detective work. Restorations aren’t just mechanical. They’re forensic.

People assume parts are easy to find. They aren’t. Some parts haven’t been made in 40 years. Others are reproduced in small batches with inconsistent quality. Even when a part exists, it rarely fits perfectly. A fender that costs a few hundred dollars might take a full day of trimming and reshaping to sit correctly.

Then there’s the waiting.

Many suppliers won’t produce a part until enough orders justify a production run. A shop may place an order and wait weeks, sometimes months, before the part even ships. Projects slow down, timelines stretch, and progress depends on when that one missing piece finally arrives. Restoration also requires logistics, patience, and a constant battle against delays that no one can control.

Walk through a restoration shop, and you’ll see a level of skill that’s hard to find in most areas of automotive work. A technician shaping a patch panel by hand. A painter laying down a finish that has to be perfectly smooth and consistent.

A fabricator building a bracket that hasn’t been available for decades. These are skills that take years to learn and even longer to master. And the reality is that fewer people are learning them today. Modern vehicles are built differently. Engines are sealed, components are replaced instead of rebuilt, and many repairs rely more on diagnostics than fabrication.

As a result, fewer technicians are entering the trades on which restoration depends, and even fewer reach the level required for high-quality work. That shrinking talent pool is part of what drives restoration costs. A shop is billing for experience, craftsmanship, and skills that have become increasingly rare.

A proper restoration doesn’t use bargain materials. It uses high-solids primers, premium coatings, modern wiring systems, high-quality interior materials, and carefully selected driveline components. These materials aren’t cheap, and they aren’t optional. A gallon of high-end paint can cost more than a used car. A wiring harness can cost more than a modern engine.

Upholstery materials, adhesives, sealers, and hardware add up quickly. Unlike production shops, restoration facilities often purchase materials on a project-by-project basis, frequently at retail prices. Every material is chosen for longevity, safety, and authenticity, not for cost savings.

No two restorations are the same. Even two cars of the same year and model will have lived very different lives. One may have spent decades in a barn. Another may have passed through multiple owners, survived accidents, or been repaired more than once. There is no standardized timeline, no predictable parts list, and no mass-production efficiency.

Every restoration is a custom project, planned and executed by hand. Each stage brings new challenges, unexpected problems, and details that have to be worked through one at a time. That level of customization is expensive because it requires constant adaptation, problem-solving, and craftsmanship.

Ask any restoration technician, and they’ll tell you: finishing a car is the hardest part. Aligning panel gaps. Perfecting paint. Adjusting doors so they close with the right sound. Tuning the engine so it runs as it should.

Cleaning up wiring so it looks factory fresh. Ensuring every switch, gauge, and light works exactly as intended. This is where a build transitions from “good enough” to “world class.” And it’s where the hours pile up. Customers often think the car is nearly done when it’s painted. In reality, the hardest work is still ahead.

A restoration doesn’t just consume labor hours—it occupies shop space, equipment, and technicians for months, sometimes years. While a car sits in a bay, the shop still has to cover rent, utilities, insurance, and payroll, even when progress slows due to parts delays or unforeseen issues.

That long timeline is one of the hidden costs of restoration. Shops aren’t just pricing the work itself; they’re pricing the time and resources tied up in a project that can stretch far beyond a normal repair.

The cost of restoration reflects the reality of the work: complex, time-intensive, highly skilled, and deeply specialized. When done correctly, a restoration becomes the careful rebuilding of a machine that might otherwise have been lost.

For those who understand the craft, the price isn’t surprising. It reflects the expertise, labor, and patience required to bring a classic vehicle back to life.