McPherson College Auto Restoration Summer Institute 2023

[CaptainDave]

Hi, gang

Many of us are familiar with McPherson, the only fully accredited, non-profit school that offers a Bachelors Degree in classic car restoration. It's a remarkable place that trains the best mechanics/technicians, collection managers, shop owners and auctioneers of the future.

Those are vocational students of course, but each June, McPherson offers 8-12 different courses of a week each in June. I went a few years ago for sheet metal and it was terrific. (See my article in Lincoln & Continental Comments on the experience.) https://www.mcpherson.edu/autorestoration/institute/

I'm signed up again this year, for the first week, and wanted to see if any other forum members are going. I'm in the paint class. There are a few slots open in a few classes and for the others it makes sense to get on the waitlist (registration opens shortly before Thanksgiving and some courses are fully subscribed within the first couple hours).

It would be fun to see other forum members there and possibly coordinate travel.

Thanks!

[TonyC]

Wow...cool! I'm not sure how helpful that would be for me given my age and condition; but were it not for the latter, I'd want to see if I could sign up using my military education benefits...that is, if I had thought about retaining them when I retired.

But this really ought to be good for others in the Forum who can still learn stuff!

---Tony

[LithiumCobalt]

This sounds like such an awesome opportunity. I wish I lived closer. Great to see an institution training the next generation of restorers. It's definitely a dying art.

[frasern]

I read a story about this place once, great to know they exist. I have always said, there is a huge difference between restoration, and collision repair, it's nice to see the former is still being taught.

[Dan Szwarc]

It's Classic Car College!

[1Bad55Chevy]

I read a story about this place once, great to know they exist. I have always said, there is a huge difference between restoration, and collision repair, it's nice to see the former is still being taught.

The biggest difference is collision repair pays the bills..

Restoration business or building classic cars is an impossible task to make any money. You end up with cars being dropped off at your shop by people with shoe string budgets then as budget gets blown away the car gets left. Doing collision repair you are billing over $100 an hour to r&r panels which pays off standard book rates where classic cars you work for pennies since you can't properly estimate the work load without cutting it apart..