Yahoo News We Enroll at McPherson College to Study the Fine Art of Car Restoration
From the September/October 2024 issue of Car and Driver.
We are in a crisis of creation. Not just an ebbing of knowledge and practical skills but a cultural dismissal of why learning how to make something is important. "Let AI do it" is the rallying cry of folks who think the arrival is the only part of a journey that matters and that a pastiche of better work is tantamount to originality. What they don't realize is that the decisions made along the way add to the beauty and strength of the final product. The difficulties of learning the craft are the craft. At least, that's what I told myself as I ripped out the stitches on a French seam so crooked that to name it such would incite a riot in Paris.
It's hard work to learn something new. There are so many ways to mess up, and on the first day of classes at the McPherson College Automotive Restoration Summer Institute, the student body explored a wide variety of them. On my own, in Upholstery & Trim, I managed "too fast," "wrong stitch tension," "no thread," and "wildly off-line." One bay over, in the Small Parts Reproduction class, they were coming to grips with "moved dent from this end of trim to that end," and in Drivetrain, they were learning "wow, that's a lot of gears we didn't label." I don't know what was happening over in Electrical, but at dinner, professor Sam Babb had a faraway look in his eyes, like a man who had seen horrors.
Since 2003, McPherson, a small liberal-arts school in McPherson, Kansas, has offered the only four-year degree program in automotive restoration in the United States. In 2007, the college started a summer program to give those of us not pursuing a degree a chance to take condensed versions of its normally months-long courses. The cost is $1075 per class, plus $275 for a dorm room and $200 for a meal plan. The summer program sells out in minutes, and for 2024, a total of 204 students would study 17 car-related subjects over a period of three weeks. Many participants enroll in multiple courses, devoting almost an entire June to polishing their skills—and, depending on which classes they take, perhaps to polishing in general. This year students came from 37 states, Canada, India, and the Czech Republic, and their ages ranged from 17 to 80, with a heavy lean toward the higher number. The majority of students in the summer program are retirees brushing up on skills they set aside for careers and families or finally diving into a hobby they never had time to try when they were younger.
One likes to imagine that going back to school decades after graduation would be done with all the charisma and confidence developed in the interim. At least, I imagined that. The reality was that one night's sleep on a dorm-room cot was all it took for me to revert to a jittery freshman, sure I'd get lost on campus and that none of the other students would like me. Thankfully, my roommate, Jen Poyer, had arrived early the day before and already knew her way around. Poyer, whose day job involves managing herds of bison and herds of tourists for the Catalina Island Conservancy, was at McPherson to pick up some restoration skills she could use on her grandfather's 108-year-old Republic pickup. Everyone at the institute had something at home they were either already restoring or about to work on. Almost more important than students' names were the cars they had. Over breakfast the first morning, I met two '37 Packards (who knew of each other and told me there was a third at another table), an S2000, a Chevelle, two Panteras (owned by the same guy), several Miatas, and a Fiat.
Getting to know fellow car people is always fun, but we were there to learn, so by 8 a.m., we migrated across the quad to a red-brick hall that houses all the shop spaces, including the tidy, brightly lit sewing lab where I'd be learning not to sew my fingers to my tuck and roll. Before we got to treadle, though, we had classroom time.
Associate professor of technology Michael Dudley talked us through the evolution of automotive interiors, from the natural leathers and hair stuffing used in wagons and horse-drawn coaches to the rise of synthetics after World War II and the accompanying changes in design and construction. In other classes, they discussed paint chemistry, fastener pitch, and electron flow.
McPherson offers plenty of hands-on time, but part of its mission is to send students into the world with an understanding of how the automobile fits into and reflects the history of its time. Ideally, a McPherson grad will know that a 1920 automotive interior is more likely to be pleated rather than button tufted like a car from 1912, and they'll also know that's because World War I caused a labor shortage, and pleated or plain seats require less time and fewer craftspeople than tufted ones.
The job market for people who studied rubberized hog hair is surprisingly active. McPherson graduates have found roles with auction houses and restoration specialty shops, as well as with high-end customizers and even OEMs, where fabrication skills are in demand for one-off builds such as concept and show cars. It turns out there's quite a need for people who can both understand the cultural significance of automobiles and solve practical problems.
Class Act
The McPherson Summer Institute classes are bite-size versions of the courses in the degree program. For $1075, students can get their hands dirty in:
Advanced Paint
Advanced Sheetmetal
Applied Trim & Upholstery
Babbiting
Brakes
Drivetrain
Electrical
Engine Rebuilding
Machining
Paint
Sheetmetal
Small Parts and Reproduction
3-D Design
Tune-Up
Understanding Early Automobiles
Upholstery & Trim
Woodworking
Each day in Upholstery & Trim had a similar schedule: a morning lecture on some element of automotive interiors, then a demonstration in the sewing lab, followed by time for practice exercises on our own. Some students had previous sewing experience, but others, like me, had never even touched a stitch stapler, let alone run an industrial machine. Brian Martin, senior director of auto restoration, told me that for the degree program or the summer school, there's no prerequisite to have worked on a car or in a shop before. "In the application process, we ask for a portfolio of projects [applicants] have completed. But it doesn't have to be a car. It could be Lego or building birdhouses. It's really about attention to detail and interest. We're just looking for some sort of mechanical aptitude, some sense that they can see a multistep undertaking to completion."
In the evenings, we had history lectures and field trips to local car collections. Jerry Toews's demos of early-1900s hit-and-miss gas engines alone were worth the trip to Kansas. Afterward, as the late-setting prairie sun finally dipped below the horizon, small groups sat around outside the dorms, comparing notes from classes and talking more about cars. I'm not sure I had a conversation on another subject the whole week I was there, and I'm not complaining. When a beer run needed to happen, it took place in a Model T, and judging by the nonchalance of the liquor-store clerk, that was a common occurrence. "I have a goal of owning three Model Ts," someone told me that night at the picnic table. "I'm doing really well. I'm down to five." Hey-o!
Many students have a soft spot for the early Fords. The automotive program was originally started in 1976 with a grant from local entrepreneur Gaines "Smokey" Billue as a two-year associate degree focused on antique-car maintenance, and there are still a lot of Model Ts in the area. "For an educational purpose, they're perfect," said Martin (who owns at least two and may have been the one who made the wisecrack). "The paint gun doesn't care what it's painting. The welder doesn't care what kind of fender you're repairing. They are just bread-and-butter skills-building cars."
In the late 1990s, the college administration questioned the importance of a whole program devoted to teaching a few kids how to work on ancient automobiles. There were plans to shut it down, but help came from Hollywood. Jay Leno expressed interest and encouraged McPherson not to shutter but rather to expand the restoration program. "When I was a kid, you either went to shop class or you went to regular college. If you told your parents you wanted to be a mechanic, they cried," Leno told me when I asked about his interest in McPherson. "Intelligent people can want to work with their hands. To me, the best combination is when you can do both."
More recently, the restoration program's future—and the college's—was assured thanks to a $1 billion gift from an anonymous donor. McPherson set out to raise the program's profile by getting a student-built car to the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, an achievement realized in 2023, when it won second place in class. "We were laughed at when we told people we were going to take a car to Pebble Beach that was restored by students," said Amanda Gutierrez, McPherson's vice president for auto restoration. "It was almost like, 'Good luck even getting in. There's no way.' Now we've achieved it, and we're looking toward what's next. That's a pretty exciting place to be, creating these opportunities for students that are really unlike any they can get anywhere else."
Back in the summer program, or "car camp," as many of the students referred to it, we were far from concours-ready, but we were starting to get the hang of things. In the Upholstery & Trim class, we cheered on one another's pleats and piping and offered assistance gluing foam and dividing fractions. Around the third day, I realized that I didn't really know how to read an imperial ruler, so my classmate Wendy Wheeler explained it to me. If nothing else, I've come home with the math skills of a second grader.
Toward the end of the week, we heard a small-block Chevy fire up from the other side of the building. Everyone cheered. Even Babb admitted that his students might not immediately electrocute themselves when released into the wild at the end of the course. There wasn't a person among us who didn't feel a little more talented and powerful than the week before. The world may be full of people looking for shortcuts, but at McPherson, they're enjoying the journey.
Group Project: Extra Credit
In 2023, McPherson College's 1953 Mercedes-Benz 300S Cabriolet scored second in class at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. Restoring the convertible took seven years, and more than 200 students had a hand in its revival. From metalwork and trim to paint and interior, the finished car is a rolling showcase of the restoration program.
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