kdf9511

Hi, I hope someone here can help me. My wife recently inherated her fathers 1962 convertable. He was the only owner of this car. We are moving to Houston Texas from St. Louis Missouri and are going to start restoring it. It has set in the garage since 1984 and has not been touched. The paint and body work is in fairly good shape and the leather is not bad either. What I am looking for is a good restoration shop in the Houston area that we can take this to for a complete frame off restoration back to show room condition. We don't plan on driving it much and want to get it up to NCRS or Bloomington quality. Any help would be greatly appreacated.
Thanks

Chopper Larry

I have not been there in quite a long time, but a place on the North Loop (i-610) called Carney's Corvettes used to very good work and all you ever saw there were C3's and older. Joe Carney has passed, but they're still there (wife owns it I think). Give em a visit....not the "prettiest" shop in town, but check them out.

Tom/99

Welcome to Houston, and the Corvette Forum. :cheers:

XKR100

Welcome to the CF and Houston!! :cheers:
Talk to Paul at Corvettes of Houston.281.821.1222
jerry

dropTopTx

After talking with a fair amount of experienced Vette people in this area I think the de facto restoration experts are the Nabors Brother. (I want to say Ken and Gary but not sure) I think they only do turnkey type work so its all or nothing. They wouldnt even consider painting my car because I was doing the mechanical work and they want to do it all.

I have spoken to them on the phone but can locate the number at the moment. Im sure you could talk to somebody into the NCRS thing from Sam Houston Corvette Club and they would have it handy.

There is also a "Corvettes by Ray" that I have heard good things about.

I have also heard good things about Carneys (mentioned above) but was scared off when I visited their shop and talked to a few of their customers. Im sure they have many happy customers so I dont want this to be taken as a slam but they have what I consider extremely long turnaround times on things. There is a guy on the forum that has had his car there over 4 yrs. While I was there for about 20 minutes I met a guy visiting his car that had been there over a year already and had a long way to go. If that works for you, great, just not good for my timelines.

Do your homework and dont rush into anything. Go with somebody that specializes in restoration work and wont be contracting out the whole thing. Its a long road just to get a solid driver out of 40+ yr old car. The road to Bloomington is likely much longer (and much more expensive!)

And I'd love to see your car when you get to Houston, before the restoration starts... :thumbs:

kdf9511

Thanks for all the info. I am just starting to do my reaserch on what we need to do to bring the old girl back to life. It brings me to tears every time I open my mother in-laws garage and see her setting there.

Perryth, sounds like you got one the same way we got one "From Dad". I hope to get some pics of it now that it will be out of the garage. When I do I will post them here.

red-y

This is good advice..Talking to Paul that is.. Also welcome to Houston :seeya

Snowman

Yes to the Nabors Brothers. I wouldn't try to have a car restored at COH. Their shop is mainly there to service the cars to get them ready to sell. If you want NCRS quality, NB is the way to go.

It will take 5 times longer than you expect but only cost twice as much as you think it should. :D Good luck. Bring yourselves (and the car if you can) to my Barbeque on Saturday 6/21. Come even if you don't have the car there yet.

Doug