It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Fresh out of Temple University with a degree in marketing, Ed Sweeney hit the streets in search of his dream job with a carmaker. Any carmaker. He wanted to work in advertising, make legendary commercials, do the fun stuff. Subaru passed. So did Jaguar. In fact, so did everyone else. So he went back to what he did to help pay his bills in college – wrenching on British sports cars.
It was supposed to be a short-term arrangement, but that was eighteen years ago. Today he’s the proud co-owner – along with his wife and fellow Temple grad Melissa, who manages the marketing, office, parts department, and the intangibles that keep a small business running smoothly – of Proper Noise, the classic car restoration and maintenance business they’ve built near his hometown of Reading, Pennsylvania.
Ed took the leap into self-employment in 2017 after stints at a couple of other local restoration facilities. He spent his first seven years after college at British sports car specialist Motorcar Garage honing his craft. He then moved to Leydon Restorations, a shop known for its exquisite machining abilities on rare pre-and post-war European classics from Talbot-Lago, Ferrari, and Mercedes-Benz, among others.
The move to Reading came about when the owner of a local sports car shop decided it was time to retire. Ed set up Proper Noise in that business’s 1,200 square-foot shop, taking over its existing operations. The main mechanic Allen remained on to smooth the transition, and he has continued to be an essential part of the business as it has grown.
Just before the Covid-19 crisis exploded, Ed moved the business to its current location, the much larger 9,000 square-foot, two-story brick garage that once sold and serviced Chandler automobiles. Here, Ed’s staff of four technicians split time between servicing classic sports cars for a mostly local clientele and performing mechanically focused restorations on higher-end classics.
He’s quick to point out that while they do occasionally perform some coachwork fabrication and repairs (Ed’s father Ned, who inspired and now works with and for him, was fettling with the bare metal nose of an MGA when we visited), they don’t do the usual paint and bodywork that most people think of as restoration.
“A lot of ‘restoration’ work is stuff that body shops do. We specialize in the rest of it,” Ed says. “I tell people to do the cosmetic restoration themselves and I’ll handle the mechanical stuff they can’t do or don’t want to do. Save your money for the special steering wheel or fog lights you’ve always wanted.”
Having said that, the shop does feature an in-house upholsterer and dedicated space for retrimming classics. “It’s a rare luxury these days to have a trimmer on staff. They’re hard to come by, especially someone who can pattern and sew from scratch,” Ed adds.
But owing to his previous experience at Leydon, Proper Noise is best known for its solid mechanical restorations and sympathetic preservation work. This is evident in the AC Ace chassis in process during our visit, and the clean, well-kept machine shop handling several projects at once. A seasoned judge at concours events including Greenwich, Audrain’s, and Radnor Hunt, he has a keen eye for the smallest details.
The best example of Ed’s focus is perhaps his most recent accolade. At the 2023 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, America’s most prestigious classic car gathering, a Proper Noise client was awarded second place in the Prewar Preservation class with his 1924 Rolls-Royce Ghost Barker Tourer. Ed’s team was tasked with faithfully retrimming the nearly 100-year-old car, replacing its leather with period-correct hides in the original colors. They also prepared the car mechanically, as it participated in the on-road driving tour prior to concours day.
“This is a car that we needed to leave as original as possible, but still make reliable enough to run on public roads. [Upholsterer] Rob did a great job preserving the interior while replacing the worn leather, and also crafted a top boot from new material that looks near identical to the original,” Ed says as he points out the details on the car, back in his shop just days after being awarded in California.
It’s not all trophies and ribbons, however. “It’s a difficult business to operate,” says Ed. “Parts for a lot what we work on just aren’t available, and the ones we manage to get often need ‘improvement’ before we can bolt them up. Finding staff is even harder. The guys who know how to work on these cars aren’t around anymore.
“We have to constantly manage the in-flow of work. Nine-thousand square feet sounds like a lot until you have a bunch of cars waiting for parts,” he says. “We’re booked out months in advance for service work, and probably a year and a half to start a restoration.”
You may not see Ed’s work on a TV commercial, but if you find yourself hanging out with classic car enthusiasts anywhere between Philadelphia and, say, Pebble Beach, you may just get up close and personal with it instead.
