Some of the best craftsmanship often times comes from the shops and builders that aren’t bragging at every cruise-in, swap meet, car show, and local bar. They are too busy cranking out quality pieces of automotive art and let their work speak for itself. This is exactly the way things seem at Pollock Auto Restoration, they are situated in an old part of town in Pottstown, PA (just miles from Eastwood headquarters) in a building that could easily be missed if you were just passing by. There aren’t signs miles away, rows of cars out on the street, or any other things you see at other shops that attract customers. The cliental and cars that come into Pollock Auto are there because they know the shop reputation and its long history of building and restoring extremely rare and unique vehicles.
The business and the building itself have a long history in the antique and classic car world and although the exterior hasn’t changed much over the years, the inside of the building has. This location was originally a coal yard until the early 1900’s. The building was constructed in the early 1920’s as a silk mill until Levitz Furniture took over. Mr. Bill Pollock took over the second level of the building in the early 1950’s and it became the home for his “showcase” of rare cars, a museum of sorts. Mr. Pollock had a ramp and industrial winch system built into the building (you can see it in the picture above) that allowed him to pull his cars to the second floor and easily rearrange cars in the building. To this day they still use the original winch and ramp system he had built!
Ralph DeStefano started working for the Showcase in 1981 and Mr. DeStefano began operating “Pollock Auto Restoration” in 1995. Ralph and crew were master metal workers and quickly the business gained a reputation for their high quality of work. Fast forward about 13 years and the shop was taken over by Michel Engard who has been running his other shop “Ragtops & Roadsters” successfully since 1990. Michel and crew have managed to keep a lot of the vintage tools that came with the building and you can still almost imagine how things looked inside many years ago. The shop is extremely clean, every corner you turn and door you open, you’ll see another line of extremely rare cars waiting their turn.
We were lucky enough to get to learn about how they functioned smoothly in such a huge space. We even got to see some of their vintage, industrial-sized metal working tools in action like the PullMax and English Wheel. Amongst these tools we spotted an old Eastwood Shrinker Stretcher that they use regularly to this day! They also were happy to show off some of the retired tools that were left behind in the building. Sadly the bits from the foundry the previous owner built have since been donated to surrounding auto museums, but it was still neat to see some of the one-off antiquated tools around the building.
We were delighted to get a tour around the shop and see how they truly were a “one-stop” restoration business. Nothing needed to be shipped off to other shops, they could do it all from mechanical to body/paint and even interior. Each department had a seasoned expert in that field that focused on that part of the build. This approach really lets everyone perfect their part of the process on each car and make sure it leaves as good or better than it would have from new! Check out the picture gallery below for a virtual tour of the facility and make sure you visit their site and like them on Facebook!
Man, what a setup! I saw that one of the bodies where sitting on a small pneumatic lift. Was that a modified motorcycle lift? Great photos……almost makes me wanna start another project. Almost 🙂