LOS ANGELES—A Gen Yer wanted to relive his youth by fully restoring the 1999 Toyota Camry he drove to the prom. So, he took the car to one of the West Coast’s best restorers, Elite Auto Restoration, in Glendale, California. Three hours and $238 later, he was back on the road with a showroom car that had needed only an oil change and a mid-level auto detailing package to be like new again.
Greg Charles, 39, always knew he’d taken good care of the white sedan he bought new when he was a senior in high school. But with nearly 400,000 miles on the odometer, he was pretty sure that the car he drove to the prom (with a date who would eventually become his wife) would need more than just a couple hundred bucks worth of work to be fully restored.
Hayek Yeremian, the owner of Elite Auto, says that he’s glad there aren’t more people like Charles because he’d go out of business if all he did were vintage Camry restorations. “I can’t make a living doing oil changes and washing and waxing cars,” he explains. “I need a vehicle that needs big work to the engine, the body—hopefully both.” He says that in his experience, the only time a Camry would ever require that kind of effort would be if it were totally neglected or involved in an accident.
Since getting his car fully restored, Charles says he and his wife have begun reliving their teen years, even making out in the back seat after driving a couple hundred miles. “It still smells like it did in ’99,” he says. “My son is 7, and if I can trust him to take care of it, I might let him take it to his prom in 10 years.”
