Fun Projects from Youngstedt's Collision Center

In any business, success goes beyond simply providing a product or service. Obviously, we provide collision damage repair and vehicle painting service at Youngstedt's Collision Centers, but there's more to it than that. It's this "extra" element, the feeling that you're a part of something bigger, that helps all of us out of bed in the morning and head into work for another day.

We recently painted this Firebird for John (16) and his father Rob. All we did was provide a simple paint job on a car that was prepped very well, but it felt like we were a part of something more. Here's a little background (from Rob)

"John is 16 and has been "saving his pennies and dimes" for years to buy his own car. He settled on the third-generation Firebird as a cool but relatively inexpensive model and started researching them online, looking at ads and websites. He wanted to find a car that had a V8 and manual transmission, and cost under $2000. We went to look at several Firebirds and found that they varied widely in condition, but that in his price range they tended to be pretty rusty or abused. However, he found a blue one in June with a 5-liter and 5-speed that looked straight and complete, and he negotiated with the seller to get it for $1,300.

The car had some surface rust on the body, a couple of holes in the rear quarter panels and a lot of small dents and chips all over. John spent some time cleaning the car, fixing the brakes and generally getting familiar with it before launching into a restoration project. He deciding it was going to be orange from the very beginning, even though changing the color involved more work.

We took that car all apart (moldings, lights, window felts) and cleaned, fixed or replaced all of the pieces as we went. We put in (5) metal patches to fix the holes, filled in and sanded all of the dents and then primed the car for paint. Primer is pretty forgiving so we did that on the driveway with good results. Thinking we would paint the car right there as well, he picked out the color (a 2011 Audi orange) and we attempted to paint a few pieces of the car, starting with the underside of the hood. We soon found out that every fly and gnat in the neighborhood was attracted to the wet orange paint and they all decided to land in it and die there (but not without walking around for a while first). We were pretty disappointed with the attempt and ended up with an orange driveway and a call in to Youngstedt's.

At that point we got serious about sanding and went over the car again, wet sanding everything down to 500 grit. We washed the whole thing with soap and water, let it dry overnight and taped off as much as we could before bring it in to Youngstedt's on a Thursday. The Chanhassen store had it prepped and painted by the next day, which gave us the Labor Day weekend to put the whole thing back together, which was a challenge in itself. However, it came out great and John was able to drive it to the first day of school the following week. This project was a great opportunity for John to realize his vision on a small budget, and going through this process from beginning to end was a great "Father and Son" learning experience. I expect that he will be learning a lot about maintaining a vehicle from this point forward, since he has all of his money and about 3 weeks of sweat equity in the car."

Well... Thanks Rob and John for sharing your story with us, and for allowing us the joy of being a part of your project! We're quite certain John will have a car at school like NO other!

If you are working on a project, and can use our help along the way, please feel free to include us! We only played a small part in this project, as a majority of a great paint job is in great prep work. If you need help with paint on your project, or if you need help getting the project ready for paint, our trained technicians and painter are ready for you. We'll put together a package that fits your budget while meeting your expectations. Stop by anytime for a free estimate!

Youngstedt's Collision Center - 40 Lake Drive East - Chanhassen, MN 55318

952.934.6068