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I recently took over ownership of my dad’s 1937 138CD limo. He originally bought the car when he was 19 in November of 1960. It was the only car my parents had when they got married. Hs stopped driving it around 1965, but kept it in his garage ever since. Overall, it’s in great condition to start a restoration. My intent is for it to be a good driver with everything working and looking decent.. I’m not going for a show car at all.

I’m just getting started locating a few missing parts and will provide updates as I go. Fortunately, the missing parts are very few.

I don’t have the knowledge, equipment, or space to do much work myself, so I’m already talking to some restoration shops.

Does anyone know of good restoration shops in the Kansas City area?

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Don may just be me, but your car is quite lovely as it sits, something about a survivor that stands above one that is restored.

Nice looking car, what I would do is clean and condition the front door panels (to me it looks like they are leather) and see how new you can get them looking. May as well try the seat too.

Aside from mechanicals I wouldn't replace anything in the interior aside from the front seat covering. Rest of the interior looks very nice, I wouldn't change it. Just clean it if anything.
And polish the dash and metal.

Exterior looks like it will need paint though if you only take it out when it's dry you could probably keep that. Has a nice patina on it.

Just my

Welcome to the forum

I observe at shows that unrestored cars generally have a ring of admirers around them and restored cars have only a few unless they are over the moon perfect or a rare model or body style.

Decide carefully how nice you wish it to be.

Thanks for the thoughts. Definitely something to consider. The front door panels are leather. The photos are from about 15 years ago and the interior isn’t in quite as good of shape now. In the back, the headliner is gone. I’ll likely end up reupholstering, but that’s down the road a ways. The first step is going to be getting everything working.

Thought I’d add another picture to go with the personal history…This is August 4th, 1963. My mom and dad’s wedding.

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Thanks to the Flackmaster, I’m a little closer to having many of the parts I need. I now have the automatic choke coil, horn brackets, side mount plates and locks and a last minute window crank. This community aspect of getting started with this restoration is something I hadn’t planned on. It’s making it a lot of fun. I have really enjoyed the conversations with a number of people as I have been hunting for parts. I also really appreciate the opportunity to learn from those with much more experience.

Something to consider with reuphostery of the seats is that not only can it be extremely expensive (I've heard of people spending $10k+) but a lot of reupholstery jobs I've seen the fabric just isn't quite as tight around the seats as the original so it looks a bit saggy even when new. Only if there's major damage to the seats covering would I get them redone.

On the other hand, a headliner and carpet (if needed) shouldn't be that hard to match and install satisfactorily (as things go).

I'll see if I can find a comparison picture on the reupholstery.

The upholstery issue is best approached by looking at cars that have a good job and finding out who did the work. The top guys will be more expensive in most cases, and money poorly spent doesn't work.

Okay here's an example of what I meant.

Top two photos are from my Clipper which I bought for next to nothing but is all original on the inside.

Bottom two photos are from a recently faithfully restored car with the exact same interior (and exterior), currently for sale (why?) at $24,000.

Obviously the fabric is much newer and overall nicer in the restored car, but it's not stretched tight around the seat the same way as the original, in the way that it should be. I've seen this at least a couple times. Great advice from Tim on just asking around, or at least seeing previous work an upholsterer has done on a similar era car and seat style (i.e. uncontoured bench seats, not bucket or sport seats).

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