Bennyz Rod Shop Restoration

I hope they don’t pimp it too much. That talk about lowering it and modifying sounds like they might go down the resto-mod route.

To me nothing beats a well restored E9 kept tatesfully original with maybe just some nice wheels (like Scotte’s)
 
I will try to answer a few things here.

Firstly, note I have no dog in this fight, so to say, just doing Benny a favor and excited to see another Coupe brought back to life.

It is MY opinion, uninformed as it may be, that you don't need to be an expert in this model to restore one, although clearly it helps. Benny has done AMAZING concourse level work on many cars, including old Porsches that I have seen. Pics to come. His clients are VERY discriminating some with deep pockets and some not so much too. I know that my car could have been done by an "expert," but that I wanted mine done here locally. I'm super happy, thanks in part to your help here on this forum. Again, THANKS, big time!

I believe Benny has been in touch with @sfdon on the engine already. I don't think he intends to make a resto mod, but tastefully done, like mine, but not necessarily original in the interior materials in terms of the leather. I believe instruments will be same, but wood done to highest standards and leather done nicer than original, but using original seats, although he is open to suggestions. I think it will be the same suspension set up as mine, not lower, but it is up to Benny. I think he is going to use chrome bumpers but not with the rubber. His client has given him carte blanche to do what he wants and doesn't want to be terribly involved as I understand it. He trusts Benny to do it right. Benny is a bit of an artist.

I think in my case things went sideways a bit due to what started out as just a paint job with minor rust repaired, then went sideways. I am glad I didn't do frame-off as I couldn't afford it.

I hope this thread and mine will help others see alternatives to restore their coupe outside of what others consider the only known experts, with all due respect to them.

I will try to answer questions, from my perspective, from time to time, so long as it is constructive. I learned a TON from my experience. I think the biggest thing was looking at schematics to figure out what was needed. Benny and I are talking about my experience and how to streamline the process for people similarly situated. BTW, Benny never intended to deliver my car with the imperfections in paint shown. That was only a result of someone here calling him and interfering. No need to go into it further, just saying. Benny does great work and is proud of his work, and wants to make all his clients happy, and happens to like the videos too :)
 
Man, I could NEVER EVER be 100% hands off on a restoration/mod/whatever.

Good for Benny to have such carte blanche control over the redo.

Keep us informed on what he's doing. Very very curious what decisions he'll make.
 
scottevest said:
It is MY opinion, uninformed as it may be, that you don't need to be an expert in this model to restore one, although clearly it helps. Benny has done AMAZING concourse level work on many cars, including old Porsches that I have seen. Pics to come. His clients are VERY discriminating some with deep pockets and some not so much too. I know that my car could have been done by an "expert," but that I wanted mine done here locally. I'm super happy, thanks in part to your help here on this forum. Again, THANKS, big time!
Click to expand...

In the interest of discussion I’ll throw my two cents in on this comment. I value your opinion Scott and I’m glad that you offered it. I agree that a skilled technician/craftsman can restore a car even if they are not an expert on the mark. However they need to become an expert if the end goal is a correct representation of a period vehicle. @Gransin mentioned Barry’s restoration of a 1932 Ruxton. Barry is a mechanical genius but he also spent countless hours making calls and performing research on the vehicle. I followed the entire build from the start. Now he is a leading expert on the vehicle.

A shop that is new to the car can certainly take an e9 apart; plate, paint, powder coat, and upholster parts, then put it back together. An expert however, understands which of those parts were incorrect from the start, and which are all out missing. They can become an expert through detailed research which just isn’t going to happen with a shop that doesn’t intend to specialize in said car and is billing at an hourly rate. That info needs to come from the expert owner or crowd sourcing as they did with your car. So yes they can delegate this activity to a forum, but it could get old pretty quick on car number 3 or 4. An owner advising the shop (as you did) can fire away, but a shop asking questions without putting in a tad of research would be unfortunate IMO.

When someone claims that a shop is producing concourse level cars my first question would be which cars placed in a concours event, and where/when was said event. The term concours is thrown out as a synonym to quality, but perceived concours quality and concours winning quality can be two very very different things. Given that Benny’s seems to be an American Muscle kind of shop, I would be interested (but not that interested) to know who the subject-matter-expert was on that 911 restoration. They have no e9 subject matter expert.

With all that said, I am confident that they will produce an extremely gorgeous e9. I am also confident that it will not be one of the best in the country, and while the paint and bright work may be a real show winner, the complete car will not be concours quality. Ask a real Concours judge to pick apart the engine bay of the top 10 restored original cars on this forum, and they will likely have a field day. It is what it is, and it doesn’t diminish the beauty and craftsmanship of the vehicle and a job well done. It just means that you shouldn’t throw the term Concours around loosely.

Good luck to Benny and the shop. I will absolutely follow along closely and chime in with any knowledge that might be useful! Thanks for documenting!!!
 
Markos said:

In the interest of discussion I’ll throw my two cents in on this comment. I value your opinion Scott and I’m glad that you offered it. I agree that a skilled technician/craftsman can restore a car even if they are not an expert on the mark. However they need to become an expert if the end goal is a correct representation of a period vehicle. @Gransin mentioned Barry’s restoration of a 1932 Ruxton. Barry is a mechanical genius but he also spent countless hours making calls and performing research on the vehicle. I followed the entire build from the start. Now he is a leading expert on the vehicle.

A shop that is new to the car can certainly take an e9 apart; plate, paint, powder coat, and upholster parts, then put it back together. An expert however, understands which of those parts were incorrect from the start, and which are all out missing. They can become an expert through detailed research which just isn’t going to happen with a shop that doesn’t intend to specialize in said car and is billing at an hourly rate. That info needs to come from the expert owner or crowd sourcing as they did with your car. So yes they can delegate this activity to a forum, but it could get old pretty quick on car number 3 or 4. An owner advising the shop (as you did) can fire away, but a shop asking questions without putting in a tad of research would be unfortunate IMO.

When someone claims that a shop is producing concourse level cars my first question would be which cars placed in a concours event, and where/when was said event. The term concours is thrown out as a synonym to quality, but perceived concours quality and concours winning quality can be two very very different things. Given that Benny’s seems to be an American Muscle kind of shop, I would be interested (but not that interested) to know who the subject-matter-expert was on that 911 restoration. They have no e9 subject matter expert.

With all that said, I am confident that they will produce an extremely gorgeous e9. I am also confident that it will not be one of the best in the country, and while the paint and bright work may be a real show winner, the complete car will not be concours quality. Ask a real Concours judge to pick apart the engine bay of the top 10 restored original cars on this forum, and they will likely have a field day. It is what it is, and it doesn’t diminish the beauty and craftsmanship of the vehicle and a job well done. It just means that you shouldn’t throw the term Concours around loosely.

Good luck to Benny and the shop. I will absolutely follow along closely and chime in with any knowledge that might be useful! Thanks for documenting!!!
Click to expand...

As if you took my thoughts and put it in writing.

Scott,
I'm also sure it will be a VERY nice and good looking coupe when it's finished, but talking about "it will be one of the best" just makes me bend and twist a little.
It doesn't hurt to be a little bit humble, if it actually turns out to become one of the best, everyone will know it, even if it isn't spoken or said by anyone involved in the restoration.

Anyway, I'll gladly follow the project, and thanks for taking the time to upload the videos here:)
 
Gransin said:
As if you took my thoughts and put it in writing.

Scott,
I'm also sure it will be a VERY nice and good looking coupe when it's finished, but talking about "it will be one of the best" just makes me bend and twist a little.
It doesn't hurt to be a little bit humble, if it actually turns out to become one of the best, everyone will know it, even if it isn't spoken or said by anyone involved in the restoration.

Anyway, I'll gladly follow the project, and thanks for taking the time to upload the videos here:)
Click to expand...
A little hyperbole never hurt anyone. Don’t take me too seriously guys :) Didn’t we learn anything from the last thread :)
I will provide more information on the Porsche shortly. I think you will be duly impressed.
Edited: I just called the Porsche 356 owner. It is NOT Concourse level. It is a driver, BUT the Paint/body is concourse level, which is what Benny did. I am collecting images now. Note, Benny is NOT attempting to make this CONCOURSE original level, just AWESOME, which is in the eye of the beholder, not necessarily all of you experts. :)
 
Last edited:
Here is an album of hi-res images of the 1964 Blue Porsche 356 I was talking about that Benny did, along with a bunch of other cool cars in this collectors collection, along with some pictures of my Coupe. I have not edited or culled these images, so forgive the quantity. In person, the paint on the 356 is amazing, and THE reason I selected Benny to do my Coupe. https://flic.kr/s/aHsmukYyJn
 
restart said:
I should clarify for some, that was meant to mean...

I totally agree with the local business support concept.

I was assuming everyone was as hip as me and understood.:)
Click to expand...
Evidently I am not that hip - I had no idea what that post meant. :D Thank you for the clarification.
 
“you don't need to be an expert in this model to restore one, although clearly it helps”

I conditionally disagree with this statement. If a car comes in complete and correct but needs everything redone due to age, a really good generic restoration shop should be able to get the job done. A good custom shop may not be able to do the work because restoration work often involves bringing an old broken down part back to new in function and appearance. This is NOT the same thing as shops which toss the old thing and make a new part. Sometimes the former is harder that the latter. And a mediocre restoration shop will screw up many details .

As mentioned before, a really good resto shop is one that is skilled in doing research to determine and document what is correct as far as material, finishes, dimensions, etc. this is a distinctly separate skill than the hands on mechanical stuff.

What I saw from the SV thread is a shop with pretty good body and paint skills, but lacking in research capability. The long and drawn out confusion re the backdating of the bumper system and the high level of effort Scott had to put into finding answers for Benny are clear evidence of that the shop couldn’t be bothered to look at the E9 parts books and confer with more E9 experienced shops by themselves.

Frankly, the incident with the passenger side rear quarter panel swage line suggests they didn’t even bother to check the other side Scott’s car to explore was and was not correct.

Based on final pics from Scott, it appears they can do very good sheet metal and paint, and perhaps interior work (but then why didn’t THEY redo Scott’s wood?). They may be more of a customizing shop than a restoration shop.

Without the huge investment of time by Scott, I don’t think the job would’ve turned out nearly as good. And perhaps that is the strongest evidence that Benny isn’t quite the top quality restoration place Scott thinks it is.

John
 
Last edited:
Research costs money. I bet Scott saved himself $10k by doing a lot of legwork on his own.

VSR and CK has that knowledge already, but that's built into the higher price I'm sure.

But ya, if money was no object, I'd definitely would have those two do the resto (unless they're years from getting to it)
 
Please remember that my job started out being a simple $8500 paint job but thanks to everyone in this community we were able to get a lot more done that required a lot more research that I could not have done without you. Thank you again. I do believe strongly that now that Benny has the resources and has done one he is fully capable of producing an excellent example. Whether or not it will be one of the finest will be left for others to judge upon completion.
 
autokunst said:
Evidently I am not that hip - I had no idea what that post meant. :D Thank you for the clarification.
Click to expand...

So many chances of miscommunication and misinterpretation when communicating on forums. :mad:Especially for the human contingent of “members on line”.
I am not sure how the large number of “robots” and “visitors”visiting the site feel.
Pretty sure I am difficult to understand tho.
:confused:
It always surprises me... the very thoughtful responses to threads that most people here effortlessly here make...myself, I find even the simplest remark I make is misunderstood and leads to way to me spending too much time clarifying a stupid off the cuff remark that was made even more ridiculous by spell check.

So, hats off!:)
 
I’d say in the end it was win - win
Even at 25,000
If it took 6 months at say a crazy low estimate of 25 man hours a week....
That’s a 100 hours a month.
That would work out to 41 dollars an hour. I don’t know many shops that work at that rate.

I’d say the real hourly rate Benny got was closer to 10$. But it’s not all about money. Experience is priceless.
Cheers.
 
FWIW, I'm sure many of my perceptions of what happened at Benny's shop are off base. It's easy to make incorrect assumptions when viewing a complex situation like Scott's via the narrow lens of the internet. I think Scott got a very good deal on the work, and of course I hope this new E9 project exceeds the expectations of it's owner as well.

I want to be sure to acknowledge Scott for the level of effort he put into what turned out to be a pretty complex undertaking.

John

FWIW: I think there's a pretty long waiting list at VSR1. All I know is when I'm there I'm always amazed at the kind of stuff they can do and how much more they know about these old cars than me.
 
In my humble, ill-informed opinion, it is in the best interest of coupe to ensure that there are multiple options to get old coupes looking great and by helping to educate shops like Bennyz and others to do the best they can will ultimately put more good looking coupes on the road and increase the value of all our coupes. Just my perspective. Having only a few shops that can do this work is not optimal imho. Just saying.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top