Build my legend

Upgrades that change how the car drives, and full restoration when it calls for it. Disc conversions, coilovers, four-link setups, pro-touring suspension and EFI retrofits. Chevys, Fords, Mopars, trucks, pre-war iron, not just Oldsmobiles. 25+ years at it.

Better than the factory managed, still the same car

An upgrade is preservation too. Four-wheel discs, coilovers, a four-link rear and a modern fuel system make a fifty-year-old car safer, more usable and far more likely to still be driven in ten years, and none of it stops the car being what it is. The big jobs run here as well: burned, wrecked, or sitting on a rusted frame in somebody's barn since the nineties. Nobody will quote a restoration over the phone, because a number given sight-unseen is a guess with your money. Get the car in front of us and you get a written one.

Brakes & disc conversions
Suspension & coilovers
Steering & linkage
Frame notching
Frame bracing & support
Frame-up restoration
Pro-touring conversions
EFI & electrical retrofits
Body panels, front ends & beds
Collision & fire damage
Convertible tops
Paint & finish

Paint and finish is billed at $75 an hour: trim and accessory painting, personalized or customized to set your vehicle apart from the next one at the show. Straight answer on where it stands: the paint side of the shop is still being set up, so bring the work and we'll tell you whether it's a job we can turn around now or one worth booking ahead. We can get it done. We won't take money for a slot we can't keep.

Book the work in See how it runs

It came in on a trailer. It left under its own power.

Before: a stripped Cutlass Supreme convertible in black primer and bare white panels, doors off, interior masked with paper, strapped down on a flatbed trailer — Cutlass Supreme convertible. It arrived on a trailer with the doors off, the top gone and the quarters cut out. Paint and finish, a new Miami Corporation top, bodywork and a full mechanical refresh.

After: the same Cutlass Supreme convertible finished in light metallic green with a white top and polished five-spoke wheels, parked outside the shop — Cutlass Supreme convertible. It arrived on a trailer with the doors off, the top gone and the quarters cut out. Paint and finish, a new Miami Corporation top, bodywork and a full mechanical refresh.

A Cutlass convertible finished in deep candy green with the top down, sitting on polished twisted-spoke wheels on a residential drive — **After OldsLegend** Candy green over a grey interior, top down, sitting on 24s. Paint, trim and suspension done here.

A yellow Chevrolet Caprice convertible with a black top and gold wire wheels, photographed against a black studio background — **After OldsLegend** Caprice convertible in yellow on gold wires. Paint, finish and a rebuilt power top.

You get the number before the metal moves

Consultation & inspection

A sit-down about what you want the car to be and what that honestly costs. Haven't bought it yet? A pre-purchase inspection runs a fraction of what hidden frame rot costs you a year from now.

Not local, or not ready to bring the car in? Book a thirty-minute phone consultation for $50. You tell us the year, make, model and what you want to talk about when you book, Aaron reads it beforehand, and the half hour goes on answers. Book a phone consultation.

Scope & written estimate

Everything teardown turns up gets photographed and written down. You leave with a phased plan and a figure, and the option to do it in stages instead of all at once. If the honest answer is that the car isn't worth the money, you'll hear that too.

Build

Brakes, suspension, steering, mechanical and electrical, then bodywork, paint and finish. Progress photos land as we go, so you never have to call the shop and ask what your car looks like today.

Shakedown & handover

Road testing, alignment, adjustment, and a walkthrough of everything we touched and why. You leave knowing what was replaced, what was left alone and what to keep an eye on over the first few hundred miles.

You get the number before the metal moves.

The frame is the part nobody photographs

Two jobs done in-house, on the car, before anything bolts back on. Both are structural, both are welded, and both are the kind of work you only see once — from underneath, with the car in the air.

A frame rail notched and re-boxed in an arch over the rear axle, the new steel welded in and dressed, with the axle and a polished driveshaft flange visible underneath — **Frame notching** Cut the rail, arch it over the axle, box it back in. It is what lets a car sit where you want it without the axle hitting frame on the first bump. Welded and closed back up, not left open.

A bare car frame on the shop floor with new fabricated bracing and gusset plates welded across the rails and crossmember, finished in black — **Frame bracing and support** Added bracing and gussets where a fifty-year-old chassis flexes. It goes in with the frame stripped and accessible, which is why it belongs at the start of a build rather than after the paint.

The same braced frame photographed along its length, showing the reinforced crossmember, the sway bar and the fabricated plates running between the rails — **The same frame, along its length.** Strengthening is not one bracket. It is the rails, the crossmember and the points that carry suspension load, addressed together.

Rear suspension on a lifted car: a coilover shock, red four-piston brake caliper and vented disc, with polished exhaust running past — Coilovers, discs and a caliper that will actually stop the car.

A steering knuckle on an unrestored front suspension with a new zinc-plated steering arm bolted on, the original parts around it still weathered — New steering arm on an otherwise untouched front end.

The full underside of a car on a two-post lift, showing the exhaust, driveshaft, rear axle and red brake calipers, the shop floor visible beyond — The whole underside, on the lift, where the work actually happens.

Underside of a car showing the rear axle housing, fuel tank and polished exhaust running the length of the floor pan — Axle, tank and exhaust, cleaned up and routed properly.

Convertible tops fitted here, not shipped out

As an authorized Miami Corporation dealer, we source, fit and finish the top under this roof. Nobody hauls your car across town to somebody else's shop and hopes the second guy cares as much as the first one did. Finished work goes up as it comes off the bench, at @oldslegend on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Facebook.

Yellow Chevrolet Caprice convertible with the black top up, on gold wire wheels — Chevrolet Caprice convertible · rebuilt power top, body and paint

LS swap in a red engine bay, with Holley EFI, polished intake tubing and a cone filter — LS swap · Holley EFI, polished intake, aluminum radiator

Green Buick hardtop with a black vinyl top and gold wire wheels on a tree-lined road — Buick hardtop · green over a black vinyl top, on gold wires

Red convertible on polished wheels, shot low across the rear quarter panel — Full-size convertible · red respray over a rebuilt top