Your Project Car Anti-Guide

BY KYLE SMITH / ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JUNE 11, 2026

The path for tackling a project car successfully is varied and meandering, even in the best scenario. Navigating it either forces you to go with the flow, or else you live a frustrated life until you either sell the car or reluctantly get it to a point of enjoyable driving and hope it stays there. Many people on the internet will tell you the “right” or “proper” way to go about fixing up, repairing, restoring, working on, or whatever other term you want to use for taking apart and putting back together a vintage car.

Over the years, I’ve found that most people with the desire to tackle such projects typically don’t like being told what to do, which is pretty fair, so rather than give you rules on what you should be doing, let’s take a look at some of the cliché advice that often gets tossed out when talking about project cars and how sometimes it’s actually pretty crummy advice.

Buy the Best Car You Can Afford

So many will say “buy the best you can afford as the starting point.” Most of us echo that sentiment out of experience, and with empathy for what a newbie is going through. We want to see the car actually return to the road, rather than become something that gets disassembled, dreamed about, and then scrapped in a few years.

There is a balance, though, and at some point getting people working on something, anything, is better than gatekeeping the hobby from those unable to spend a median salary to get a numbers-matching car to restore for the show circuit. And while a disassembled car slowly rotting in a driveway is bad, that driveway is better than the crusher. If a restoration is your goal, then starting with the best and most complete example is smart, but if you just want to work on cars and learn stuff, then experience is what you need, and nearly any old cheap car will give you the opportunity to fix something. Buy something that is interesting to you, and start playing with it right away.

Get It Driving First

Cars are made to be driven, and they are best enjoyed that way. So goes the prevailing opinion. However, people are complicated and many enjoy different aspects of car ownership—beyond just the driving experience. The logic here is that an oxidizing hulk sitting in a garage rarely brings encouraging and uplifting vibes to the space.

Not everyone enjoys an ice cream cone the same way, so why do we tend to think everyone enjoys cars the same way? Personally, I vacillate between enjoying the drive and enjoying the work, so having something sitting at home in need of care is what I’m seeking out, sometimes. And sometimes all I want to do is drive, and if that means getting behind the wheel of the car that is running, rather than the one I’m trying to get running, so be it. Figure out what part of the car you enjoy and lean into that.

Overbuilt Is Just Right

This is one that has been getting under my skin lately. With the constant horsepower wars going on in social media, it often seems like any horsepower number that doesn’t include a comma isn’t impressive or worth mentioning. While building my LS-swapped Corvette, I have been shocked at the amount of advice around these swaps that calls for upgrading, changing, or just screwing with things that are otherwise totally fine for the end goal of the project. But because everyone is convinced that too much is just enough, then overbuilt is surely just right.

For instance, the engine I assembled for my Corvette should make a little north of 500 horsepower and similar torque, so when I went to select and purchase a clutch, I opted for something rated in the range of 500–650 lb-ft. Multiple people I talked to told me this was foolish, as I will upgrade the engine and have 700 horsepower before long, and it would be best to select and build many parts of the car to support the potential of such future upgrades. Except, that would have cost me enough additional money as to take from the budget elsewhere, which would keep the car off the road for longer. And it would then be less fun to drive, actually, as the whole combination would not gel as well. That sounds frustrating. Future-proofing a build is not a bad idea—ifyou are actually going to use the capability being built in. I won’t, so why spend the time and money when I could be buying gas and driving?

Doing Something Unoriginal Isn’t Worth the Effort

While working on a few of my cars over the years, I’ve encountered two sets of people, in nearly equal numbers: Those who believe anything other than a restoration is a waste of time, and those who believe modifying a car in a way that had been done before is a waste of time and money.

Being original is neat, but it’s also often more expensive and frustrating to be the one breaking ground on new weird and wonderful modifications. Building what you can, with what you have, is not something to be embarrassed about. I was not the first, last, or most interesting person to LS-swap a fourth-generation Corvette, but after finally getting to the point in the project that I could do a strong second- and third-gear pull, I can tell you I don’t care how unoriginal this is. It’s exactly what I wanted and was worth it.

The anti-guide comes as an answer to the rote advice that has proliferated our lovely old car hobby. Yes, often these sentiments come from someone’s personal experience based on where they started and ended up, an attempt to boil down what is often years of experience into a dozen words. Life just doesn’t work that way, and things are often far more nuanced. Take in all the advice you can get, but do not for a second be afraid to ignore some of it and find out for yourself. You might end up having a good time in an old car.

This article has been reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder, Hagerty. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Click here for more automotive tips and stories, or here for more information on the next Pomona Swap Meet & Classic Car Show.