This 1953 TD has been with the customer’s family for many years and been driven across country on several occasions. It has tons of sentimental value and brings lots of great memories along with it. Projects like this that have sentimental family value are always great to get our hands on; these are the jobs that remind us how rewarding restoration work can be. It’s not just a car; it’s a mechanical member of the family.

As you can see, it’s been off the road for many years and has seen better days. The car started its life as an east coast car, so it did have some rust and wood rot. We stripped everything down to the chassis and it was off to the body shop for repairs. Luckily, with Moss Motors right around the corner from us, we were quickly and easily able to source all the body repair panels and wood framing we needed for the restoration. For this work, we turned to our friends over at Acme Autobody here in San Luis Obispo. Rod, the owner, is a great guy and did a fantastic job repairing and restoring the body on this TD for us.

The next step for us was to get it built back up. The body was not coming off the frame on this restoration, but we did rebuild all of the suspension and brake parts all the way around. We also completely rewired the car, going over every component making sure that everything was functioning and working correctly. Once it was up running and driving just the way we wanted, we got started on the upholstery.

The car came out beautiful, restored back to just how the family remembers it. We had lots of challenges along the way as the car was in rough shape. As you can see by the finished product, it was all worth the effort and we can’t wait to get the car back to the family so they can get many more years of enjoyment out of it. When projects have the added dimension of sentimental value like this, it makes our work all the more rewarding.

We have to give a big thank you to all of our friends that have helped us achieve such a fantastic finished product. Hank’s Welding, Acme Autobody, Coastal Interiors, and of course, Moss Motors.