Photo essay Restoring the rides of our history

For the past 22 years, Lou Mandich of the Last Chance Garage in Unionville has been bringing vintage automobiles back to life. It’s a mission that goes far beyond just the mechanics of fixing and replacing Restoring the rides of our history

Text by Richard L. Gaw

It is a Friday afternoon in the middle of October, and there are two 1918 Buicks, a 1924 Willys Knight, a 1926 Model T, a 1931 Ford, a 1938 Packard and a 1954 Ford in various stages of restoration at the nine-bay stations at the Last Chance Garage in Unionville.

Through a thicket of hollowed-out carcasses of broken-down remnants of the past and those whose repairs are nearly complete, owner Lou Mandich leads the visitor past the faded but still beautiful glory of what has been the history of the automobile over the past century.

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Photos by Jie Deng

Unlike the name of the road on which the business has stood since it opened in 1999 – Cemetery Lane – or the slightly ominous presence of a nearby graveyard, the Last Chance Garage is not a place where vintage cars go to their final resting place. On the contrary, the work here is all about rebirth, revival and the quiet and painstaking restoration that comes with knowledge and a commitment to bring new life in an old thing.

From bulb replacements to complete restorations, Mandich and his team of experienced technicians restore as many as 100 classic vehicles a year that arrive at the shop from private owners in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. At any given time, the Last Chance Garage is filled with domestic, British and European models, as well as sedans from the 1930s, woodie station wagons from the 1940s and muscle cars from the 1960s – as well as a wide array of tools, diagnostic devices

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and a well-thumbed catalog of repair manuals and service part catalogs.

“Some folks who seek our services want to spend an insane amount of money to fix Dad’s old Pontiac, and some times they are in such bad shape that I tell them that so many parts have to be replaced that this will not be the gear shift that their father used or the seat he sat in, and the cost of restoration will be prohibitive.

“In those cases, I advise them to get another car just like Dad’s, and allow us to take a few parts from the original car and place them in the new car.

“It’s a cost-effective way for a vintage car owner to continue to honor the memory of a loved one’s favorite vehicle. On the other hand, when we are truly able to revive a vintage car from years of disuse, those are the times when we’re proud to restore a piece of automotive history.”

To learn more about the Last Chance Garage, visit www.lastchancegarage.net.