by John C. Carpenter

Created on: August 07, 2011

You should know the car restoration business inside and out before you try to open a restoration shop. This business is nothing like owning a collision repair shop; in auto restoration there is no way to do an estimate, and is you try, you will lose.

There is no way to bid all of the work that you will be doing to restore a classic car. To put this in to perspective, let's just look at one area of a restoration project; sounds good HUH? OK guys and girls it's like this, almost every car restoration project comes with rust.

You don't know where, how much, or if the rust is complete body cancer, or just on the surface. This is why most shops do their work strictly by the shop labor hour. Things like this are also the reason that the price of a restoration can climb so fast.

To get your dream shop off the ground you sill probably need investors, or a single investor who can take on the entire project. Banks are not making business start up loans these days, they just can't afford to take the risk with their cash flow.

But investors will help you for a piece of the business, or to make money on the interest just like the bank does. Usually an investor will want you to back up the loan by purchasing the property that the business will work from.

In history real estate has always been a good bet for a bank, or investors. Traditionally the price of real estate doesn't go down and stay that way, usually it's a safe bet;if your shop were to go out of business that the investor, or bank could get their money back off of it by selling the real estate.

Getting a car restoration shop off of the ground is not an easy task. It's a highly competitive industry, and you need to be able to offer that same quality as the other top shops do. If you do your home work that can be a tall order to fill.

If you have any reservations at all; this may not be the business for you. You need to know that you can make the business make money on a regular basis, and that is not as easy as it sounds. There is nothing that will convince the bank, or an investor that they should make you a loan, more then your knowledge of the business,and the industry in general.

In the end it truly is all up to you to get it right. The business plan can be written either by you, or by a professional business plan writer. If you have them do it, you had better be ready to answer all of their questions, or you will spend a lot of money on nothing.

Take my word for it; a well prepared business plan that shows

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