I finally stopped chasing perfect paint and started driving my 327 Nova, thanks to a guy at a Cars and Coffee in Fort Worth

Sean Hunt · 2026-10-17T02:10:04.036785+00:00

For 4 years I treated my 65 Nova like a museum piece, wet sanding the same door panel over and over until the clear looked like glass but I never turned the key. Then a guy at a Cars and Coffee in Fort Worth pulled up next to me in a beat up 57 Bel Air with door dings and rock chips all over the quarters and told me he had put 60,000 miles on it since his rebuild. He said "a car that sits in a garage ain't being restored, it's being stored." That hit me hard because I had dropped around $9,800 into bodywork and still had not put 200 miles on the odometer. So the next weekend I pulled the Nova out, ran it down I-35 to Hillsboro and back, and let me tell you the rear main leaked a little and a lug nut worked loose and I loved every second of it. Now I am planning to fix the little stuff as it pops up instead of waiting for the perfect moment. Anybody else go through a phase where you were scared to actually enjoy the car you built?

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I finally stopped chasing perfect paint and started driving my 327 Nova, thanks to a guy at a Cars and Coffee in Fort Worth | Classic Car Restoration - Thought Shares