Restoration vs Restomod.

Hey guys, welcome back to Charlie's Garage. I'm proud to announce that this is the first video in the AAI series. So I'm here at Arizona Automotive Institute with the 55 Dodge pickup that we have selected to be our student and staff project for the year. And what I wanted to discuss in this video is restomods versus restorations because a lot of people have been asking, what are the plans for the Dodge? Are we going to restore it back into original condition or are we going to do a restomod on it? We are going to do a restomod on this truck, but I wanted to discuss how we came to that decision and if maybe you're looking at getting a classic vehicle, how you might come to that decision. So the first thing that we take into account when we're trying to decide what to do on a classic project is what is your personal feelings about it? Because remember, it's your project, right? So if you bought the vehicle because you love the way it reminds you of your childhood or there's something that you just love about that classic vehicle, the way it was, the way it came, then maybe a restoration is the correct method for you, right? If your feeling is that you just thought that this looks really cool and you got all kinds of ideas pop into your head about things you could do to it, then probably a restomod, right? Me personally, I do not think there's anything wrong with either one of them. It is totally a personal opinion based on who owns the vehicle. So personal preference, number one priority when making the decision. Number two priority, how much money do you have? All right, so this being a project for the school, I was fortunate enough to get the school to approve the project and to pitch in the funds to buy the truck itself, but there's not going to be a huge budget for this truck from the school. Everything that's going to be done to this labor-wise is going to be for free from staff and students. Anything we need to cost money for this is probably going to have to come from sponsors, donations, and maybe the school will foot the bill for some of the minor things for it. So that is one of the reasons why we're going restomod on this is because we don't have a huge budget. Restorations are expensive and time-consuming, so budget is probably another consideration to make when you're deciding which one to do. The third thing is the original condition of the vehicle that you're trying to decide to do the restomod on or the restoration. If we look at the Dodge pickup over here, we can see this guy came without a truck bed on it, right? So that means that if I wanted to do a full-on restoration, I would be hitting salvage yards, getting online, spending a lot of time to find the appropriate truck bed that came with this year truck, and it would probably not be cheap. So that would be another kind of thing that led me toward the restomod decision on this truck because now since AAI has a welding program, they can get more than just the auto and the diesel students involved in the project. I can get some of the welding guys involved in it as well, and they can get creative, right? So since this isn't a full-on original restoration, they can use their creativity to come up with something really cool on the back end of this truck, and I think that's going to be awesome in the long run, right? So another thing that we decided to do with this is maybe upgrade the sound system. It's going to be used at car shows, it's going to be used at recruiting events, having a nice sound system in it, get some tunes playing at those events from the truck is just an added bonus. So that would be the third thing, right? The original condition of the vehicle. If this thing was in perfectly, much better shape with the powertrain that came original in it that maybe just needed to be rebuilt and already had the existing bed on it, I probably would have leaned more toward restoration on this because they are really cool trucks just the way they rolled off the showroom floor. But this project is going to be really awesome because it's going to get to show off the creativity and the abilities of our students, it's going to help us recruit more students, and it's going to be something that everybody that worked on this project after they graduate and they see it on Facebook or they see it at the local car show, they're going to be able to tell their kids and their families, hey, I worked on that. It's going to be really cool, it's going to be a legacy, right? And this is a kind of a thing I want to continue through the years here at AAI and give every class that rolls through here a chance to be part of that legacy. So is everybody going to agree with my reasons? Probably not, right? Some of you are going to be, man, it's a sin to take an old classic like this and do strange stuff to it and make it not original anymore. And then other people are going to be like, man, you should never go back original. Why would you want old brakes and steering and suspension and modern highways? So yeah, everybody's got their own opinion. That's what makes this kind of stuff cool, it makes it fun to talk about. So please leave a comment, let me know what you think, what would you do different than what I described? And share this video, let everybody far and wide know about this project, let everybody know we're still looking for partners to help support it. Again, thank you to Arizona Automotive Institute for allowing me to share this stuff on my channel. Please go to their pages, like and subscribe, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Thank you very much, have a great day.