National Geographic: Treasures from the Past Page #3

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Growing up around classic cars,

he restores them today

for wealthy collectors.

One of the best descriptive terms

I've ever heard,

and it's not mine

I get it from Gordon Buehrig's book.

And the title of his book is

Rolling Sculptures.

Morning, Ron. Have they brought the

Murphy convertible in yet?

Yes.

And I think that it so neatly defines

the work on these cars,

whether it be the Duesenberg

or the Cord.

They were such unique cars,

and they are truly works of art.

I know for years I was always hoping

for the opportunity to

get to do a Duesenberg.

Now we have three in our shop.

And so...

Now we have arrived.

Today, let's get started on

dismantling this car.

Once owned by movie actor

Tyrone Power, Model J Number 391

has just been purchased for $610,000.

Spruced up for the cheap coat of paint

by its most recent owner

No.391 will now be restored to

original condition of the grown up.

We will probably spend around

two years on the car.

Maybe not quite that long,

but it will be close.

And there is a lot of things

uh... restoration.

but unsuggested can be hurried

duro on that car

Several missing parts

and it don't go in logo-parts orderly.

go to find them and there be several

lighten on the difficulty come up with.

and we can find them have to be fabricative.

and it all take times.

To do a total restoration,

we're talking about

dismantling the car completely.

Then the rear end,

or differential-rear-axle assembly,

will be totally gone through.

The engine and transmission will

be totally rebuilt.

The exhaust manifolds will

be reporcelained.

The Duesenberg engine has an

excessive amount of aluminum on it,

which has to be highly polished.

There's a lot of hours of just

polishing and cleaning.

The chroming itself is a

major process.

It's a triple plating.

You first cover it with copper and

then it's buffed,

then it's nickled, then it's buffed,

Then it's chromed,

and then it's chrome-buffed.

A lot of times

we like to have a car sit

for four to six weeks just in primer.

Then it's blocked.

Then we put on maybe four to five

coast of lacquer

and let it set for another

four to six weeks.

Once it's totally cured,

then we'll sand off maybe

three of four of those coats of paint

and blocking it out.

And then we'll put on another

four to five coats,

let it set for another

four to six weeks,

and we'll probably end up sanding

off two or three of those coats.

And that's how we get the

high luster-high depth finish.

It takes obviously a fair amount of

money to fund a project like this,

and a lot of people are not in a

financial position to do this

until they're on in years.

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