Guy at my old shop was telling me how hard it was to find labor that can work on old cars now. Said all the new ase guys all they could do was just read the code and do what the book said. He said old cars are like sick kids before they can talk - you gotta figure out what’s wrong yourself. He also said a big part of his business was redoing whatever some dumbass had done through the years on these cars before someone realized they were valuable. Said young guys really struggled with that. He moved into an air conditioned shop just for the recurrent advantages. He did a lot of Barrett Jackson cars His shop rate was up to like like $135/hr I think when I sold my Firebird.
Had the chance to meet Gary Meadors, founder of Good Guys, a few times a while back. He was telling us the worst thing that ever happened for car restoration costs was that Lexus commercial where the rolled the ball bearing down the gap between the hood and fender. Now everyone wanted their 69 cuda to fit like that. And they absolutely were not built or engineered to anything resembling that kind of tolerance.