Good evening to all,
I live here in Georgia and if there's anyone on this forum that's from here, would you happen to know what and where would be a good shop that could do a frame off of a 1956 Cadillac Eldorado. I haven't bought the car yet or even found it, but I'd like to have at least one or two shops to check out. Just trying to do my homework before hand. Thanks for any recommendations.
Dan,
I realize you're trying to find a pretty hard to find car but if you were able to find a car already restored you would end-up paying substantially less in my experience. The old rule was you could expect to get half of what you spend on improvements. I think it's probably closer to a third at best if you plan to take a car to a professional shop and have them do all of the work on a full frame off restoration.
Either way at least you know what car you're focused on.
Scott
^^^^ What he said ^^^^
I knew I came to the right place for this! I'd really rather find one that's been given "the works" by another owner rather than have to find a shop and have them do it all. I realize that that would cost a ton of money and the bad thing is, I don't have all the tools needed to do everything myself so that's why I'd need a reputable shop to do it all. Anyways, the search continues! I hope to find my '56 one day.
Dan, what Scott said is true and getting more ture everyday. You should find the best example you can afford and enjoy the car. Restoration costs have gone up and up and the supply of talented shops has declined.
Here is an example of a restoration with a few modifications that cost most likely seven figures.
https://www.dakotadigital.com/index.cfm/page/ptype=product/product_id=1046/category_id=643/mode=prod/prd1046.htm
That's what I'm looking for....the best example I can afford, but at the same time isn't looking like it's about to fall apart. I'll know I have the right one when I find it.
This thread wasn't started specifically about the '56 but they discuss numbers /estimates of total cars and cars remaining. I thought you might be interested in it if you hadn't caught it already:
https://forums.cadillaclasalleclub.org/index.php?topic=171279.0;topicseen
This is the specific post I was referring to from Clay/Lexi:
"When I discussed Lou Commisso's 1956 Eldorada Biartiz survival registry, he had a list of 191 cars out of 2150 produced. A known survival rate of 8.8% if I did the math right. Lou told me that there might be another "100 hiding out in the world" remaining. His registry tally of 191 cars in any shape, was reportedly less than the 1953 and 1959 Eldo survival rate, he advised."
Scott