About Auto Restoration and Classics

Auto Restoration & Classics is a one-man shop located in the wilds of Northern Idaho. You are speaking to the entire crew when you talk to me (Richard Oliver) about your automobile.

I take the car in, take it apart, chase down and purchase all the parts, make all the modifications and repairs, and paint it. I do not mark up the price of parts, materials or subcontracted work (like upholstery.) You pay the original invoice price. Monthly, unless otherwise arranged, you receive a packet in the mail containing the labor hour work log for that month, all the original invoices and the ARC invoice for labor and reimbursement. Photos of the month’s work are either emailed or included in the packet. A month-end phone conversation is held with the customer regarding progress made and the plan for the next month’s work is discussed.

Transportation of vehicles can be provided or arranged.

How did Richard get into this line of work?

I was a 10 year old kid with a bicycle in need of a paint job. I wanted the latest greatest big flake metallic paint - the stuff you couldn’t get in a spray can. I had saved money from mowing lawns and rode all over town to body shops asking to get my bike painted, but no one would take me seriously. Tom McCallister, owner of a one-man body shop, told me that if I took it apart he’d paint it. I was to mow his yard twice and help him clean up his body shop a couple of times as payment. In Tom’s shop, at the time, was a fairly new Mustang 350GT, a Jaguar E-type coupe, and a Model A coupe with a massive Oldsmobile engine in it - his Sunday-go-to-the-drag-strip car.

My older brother was a gear head and had a ‘63 Split Window Corvette. My Father bought new cars with really big engines, and in those days, big engines were really big engines! I was bitten by the big cubic inch bug at a tender age and infected for life. But the minute I stepped into Tom’s shop, I fell in love for the first time - with that Jaguar. This was the start of my love of the British automobile. The British cars have little engines that perform as well as big American engines in the style of body I like.

Tom’s word of mouth reputation afforded him the option of working on select automobiles. I worked for Tom from the time I was 10 years old until after high school. He taught me welding, lead and metal finishing, frame damage diagnosis and repair, and painting. He trained 3-4 people during my apprenticeship, most were a little older to begin with - young men with a love of the automobile and needing work on their hot rods. It seems I have come full circle and am now in my own one-man shop working on select automobiles.

Over the 30+ years Richard has been in the auto repair business he has worked in many different facilities ranging from building totals for resale, street rod customization, building limosines, specialty restoration facilities, industry leading high end collision repair facilities. He set up, developed, consulted, managed, owned and sold several production body shops, as well as continuing to work from his home on various exclusive restoration and custom projects.