How to Verify Work Done on a Classic Car when Appraising the Car

Video Transcript

"Documentation on these cars, if you’re having a car appraised you need to bring everything you can to the appraiser. If you say it’s had the engine rebuilt and a new rear end and you spent $12,000 on the interior and $6,000 on the paint or whatever, the appraiser’s probably going to take your word but if you have receipts and if you’re a car guy you have receipts, you keep everything, I have three ring notebooks of all the cars I’ve owned and I put every piece of paper that has to do with that car in there. Show that to the appraiser it not only helps the appraiser to do their job but it also adds value to the car maybe not a whole lot but if somebody’s thinking about buying your car and you have this nice binder that shows what this car looked like when it was being rebuilt, you can document all the various things that were done to it, you have all the receipts for all the parts. Let’s say you want $25,000 for your car it shows the potential buyer that your car is maybe worth that because look how much you put into it you have proof to verify all you have done to this car, all that you’re telling them. So you have the running gear which includes the transmission, I want to establish what kind of condition that transmission is in and of course what is it, is it a 4 speed, 3 speed, 5, 6 speed, automatic, factory original or aftermarket, all of that has to do with the value on the car, also the rear end on the car, is it original, is it aftermarket, what is there? Accessories, has this car does it have air condition, if you have a corvette that has factory air conditioning in it or various cars that air conditioning or tape duct systems or whatever can add real value to the car. Every car has a VIN number and that VIN number will tell a potential buyer when the car was made, where it was made, what it was originally equipped with, it’ll say on a lot of cars that VIN number identifies whether it was originally a 6 cylinder motor, a 8 cylinder motor or a 4 cylinder motor. There’s also the body plate number, that tells you that the factory originally painted, what interior was originally, what are the colors of the interior, what was the original motor cause I’ve seen cars that VIN plates missing, this has an enormous negative impact on a car when the VIN plates is missing or it’s been altered."