Hello all,

First time poster, long time lurker. I need some advice. I own a 95 C2 Coupe which was involved in an accident last week. Both front and rear of the 993 got munched. The rear hit (that started everything) was on the bumperettes and they did their job well. Some rear damage with the reflector and joining bits, but looks overall okay. The hit was hard enough to knock me into the SUV in front of me. That front impact tore the fiberglass nose up, folded up and wrinkled the passenger fender and folded the hood. Bumper narrowly got missed up front so the airbag did not deploy. I am fine physically and the car was drive-able to take her home. It drove fine, so mechanically I think she's okay. The fixes seem to be mostly cosmetic, and that's pretty ugly especially with the hood folded almost in half.

My concerns include: Should I focus on a special body shop since this car is becoming a "classic" car? Or will just a well-run, reputable and vetted body shop suffice? The damage has yet to be assessed (later this week). Since it will require sourcing 25+ year old parts, are the fender(s) and hood easily obtainable? It will require a full respray, I am sure. The combination of repair and repaint make me think the costs will be ~$20k to make it right, depending on how deep this all goes. I do not want to short-shrift anything, but even so it'll now have this accident as a ding on future value should I ever sell. My wife says they will "total" the car, but I think it's value exceeds the damage. It's a reasonably worn 95 model with ~110k on her. Small dings here and there, but good paint and had no major issues...until now. I figured it was worth ~$50k, but the market has cooled somewhat so...not sure what the insurance company is inclined to do here.

Thank you for any help provided. And if there is somewhere else that might be more appropriate to ask for help, I would appreciate that guidance as well. I've never had to deal with something like this before and any beacons of light provided are helpful.

DS

 

Thought I'd update my post for future reference. Having done some calling around to the area mechanics (haven't talked to John Walker in a while!), the favorite shops appear to be:

Queen City in Redmond
Haury's in Seattle
and a mention of Paramount Centre in Fife.

These all appear to be more focused on higher-end autos which was my goal. Anyone have experiences they'd share with these shops?