How to Evaluate the Bodywork of a Classic Car

"I do a complete walk around on the car doing the same thing and I’m looking down the sides, a lot of the photographs that are included in the appraisal they’ll be shot from an angle like this because you can see better whether there’s ripples. If a car has been fixed and not done very well there will be lots of in and out just kind of waviness in the metal that shows that there’s been bodywork done on a car and hasn’t been done very well. You’re looking at the roof, you’re looking at the rain gutters this is another area where you can spot a lot of potential trouble, car might look good but you look down in the rain gutter and it’s all cracked along here, a lot of rust poking through you don’t want that. Rust is really bad if you see a little bit of rust in one area that means there’s a lot of rust that you don’t see, you’ll see a lot of times there will be ads for cars and it says very little rust, if it says anything about rust and then hats off for the seller admitting there’s rust but that means there’s some real potential problems there and you don’t want to spend 5, 10, 15, 20 thousand dollars for maybe an entry level collector car and right away you’ve got to drop 15, 20 thousand dollars into body repairs on it because panels and everything need to be replaced because of the rust damage."