[J Witt]

I'm not sure about "restoration" as such. I have done a couple of Ts, one Model A, a Jeep and now I have this older restoration '36. The Ts and Jeep were body off, every single part worked on, restorations. They particularly had better paint jobs than the originals.

I always have liked to have my cars be as good looking as possible, but also have driving them as a primary object. To that end they all got "improvements" to make them safer and easier to drive. Mostly that seems to have paid off when it came to selling, probably because I have never sold to a person who is a collector.

I'm not really a car show person so that aspect of the hobby doesn't matter much to me and most of the people who look at our cars have no idea what they seeing anyway. However I can certainly understand the desire to have one's restoration be viewed by peers and approved.

The truth is, in many cases, I think the price paid at auction or at personal level is so widely variable that there's not much real data there, although Hagerty, for instance, makes it their business to know so they can avoid over-insuring cars. I suspect they get their info from ads and auctions.

I've always made a little money when selling a collector car, but nothing for my labor. I've done better in recent years by far than putting money in a bank and I just don't do stocks, having always lost in the market. That is all I mean by using the term "investment". BTW there was a gorgeous over-restored 1936 Cabriolet that sold recently at the Amelia Island auction for $125K, which is close to double any other one I've seen. Bet it doesn't get driven much.

Interesting thoughts from everyone. We seem mostly to be a pragmatic group.