Old Timer Garage

 

If you haven't read the tenth part of this restoration you can find it by clicking on this link: 1960 Cadillac Coupe de Ville - part 13

12. End of the project

 

A few days later, my brother went back to get the car and drive it across the border and back into the US. It had to be driven by my brother again because he was the official owner of the car.

I couldn’t be there on that day but once again I made sure that I followed him the whole way on my phone in the same way I had done when he took the car into Mexico almost a year earlier.

The car was not a perfect restoration but I got to the conclusion that the Mexicans weren’t capable of doing a better job than what they had already done so it was a waste of time to try and get them to fix something they couldn’t even see was wrong. But the car was running and driving and was reliable.

My brother got quickly stopped at the border crossing but this time to be complimented on the car. He just got asked whether he had had some work done on the car but it seemed to be more out of curiosity for the car than anything else and a few seconds later my brother and my car were back on US soil.

 

Just a few days later, I drove down to Nogales with Bo and his trailer to pick up the Cadillac and bring it back to Phoenix where it was going to be put up for sale.

Exactly one year to the day after taking it down to Nogales to get restored. The project was initially supposed to take three months but it took well over a year in total…

Anyway, just a three hour drive later, we picked up the car on the trailer and headed back to Phoenix. A few things needed to be fixed on the car before it could be put up for sale like finding replacement hubcaps for those that were missing, polishing the paintjob etc…

 

 

 

In conclusion, I can’t say that this project was a success but I can’t say it was a complete failure either. No I didn’t make as much money as I expected to make but the car was in a better shape at the end of the project than when it started and in the meantime I had learned quite a lot about this car in particular, American cars in general, how to manage such a big project from the other side of the planet, the legal requirements to cross the border with a car in order to get it restored, the Mexican culture etc…

In the end the car got sold to someone in New Zealand so it was worth taking it out of the field it was sitting in with no hope of being back on the road ever again.

I will most probably never undertake another project like this one so it was a good experience and I am glad I did it.

I hope that you enjoyed this restoration project. Check the other pages of this website to see the more recent restorations I have undertaken and feel free to contact me if you have any question.