40 Awesome Car Restorations That Went From Zero To Wow Right Quick

There was a time when the reality TV show, Pimp My Ride was all the rage. Maybe because there wasn’t anything better to watch, or maybe because we enjoyed watching old and hacked cars being revamped.

If you do enjoy makeovers and restorations, especially of vehicles, we have the perfect collection for you. Scroll to check out these seriously satisfying before and after pictures of iconic car restorations found online, from which we’ve shared only the best in the gallery below.

#1 Before & After

#2 I Can’t Draw But I Consider This My Art. Restored A Classic Stingray In My Garage

#3 I Found A Rusty Morgunovka (SeAZ S-3A From 1960) In My Neighbor’s Garage, Installed A CVT And Made A “Candy” Out Of It ⁠

#4 Arkady Babich’s Homemade Convertible “Leningrad” Has Been Restored ⁠

#5 1958 MGA Before And After

#6 A Friend’s Aunt Gifted Me Her Deceased Father’s Car. “If You Think You Can Get It Running, You Can Have It”

#7 A Little Before And After. Paid $1000 For A ’72 Ghia That Had Been Sitting In Yard 5 Years Under A Tree. High-Speed Wool Pad And Polishing/Cutting Compound

#8 My First DIY Post, But I Restored A 1969 Mustang In High School And I’m Very Proud Of How She Turned Out

#9 1969 Karmann Ghia Before And After – Restored And Converted To Electric

#10 Sometimes It’s Easy To Forget How Much Work You’ve Done

#11 Completed Restoration Of My Dream Car

#12 Before And After From A Few Years Ago. I Work In My Family’s Glass, Interior, Sunroof, And Convertible Workshop

We also rent a building across the street that houses a body shop and an auto repair shop. Our customer bought the car like this because he thought he could fix it for cheap. It fell off a car carrier. After we finished it over a year later. My brother had to make the back seat from scratch out of pipe foam. He went off a picture of the seat and went from there. One of our trimmers made the covers. Pretty much a VW seat.

#13 1967 RS/SS Camaro Home-Built Restoration

#14 280Z Before And After. It Was A Lot Of Hard Work, But She’s Beautiful

#15 Before, During, And After The 6-Year Restoration And Customization Of My 1967 Beetle

#16 Restored My Dad’s Old ’70 Camaro

#17 Challenger Restored

#18 Before & After

#19 1968 Ford Mustang Restoration, My First Car

#20 Got This Out Of A Hay Field. It’s Been Sitting For A Long Time

#21 Here’s My Father And His Before And After Pics Of His ‘65 Bus Restoration Project. He’s Very Proud Of It And He Spent 4x Of My College Degree To Make It What It Is Today

#22 1971 Dodge Charger Before And After

#23 Rare 1967 Mustang GT500 Got A Second Chance At Life. And Women Say We Don’t Cry Enough

#24 Restoration Camaro Z28 ’73

#25 The Red Wheels With The White Walls Make The Look Of This Truck, Awesome

#26 The Before And After Of Mine And My Wife’s Project Car. 2015-2018

#27 The Original Car My Grandpa Purchased At 16 Years Old: A ’31 Chevy 5-Window Coupe That Was Restored By Him And My Dad

#28 My ’64 Falcon Build Before And After

#29 Before And After Of A Project I’m Very Proud To Officially Consider Completed

One year ago I found a 1969 auto squareback in the weeds and bought it for $800. This afternoon I finished the final tweaks and it’s officially road-ready. Cheers!

#30 Before And After. I Spent 2 Years And Too Much Money On Her

#31 A Before And After Of My Father’s ’79 Vette That We Restored/Modified During One Indiana Winter

#32 Before And After. My First Car I Bought 3 Years Ago For $700

#33 This 1970 Chevelle Went Through A Full Restoration Process To Get Its Glory Back

#34 Nysa 522, Photos Shows The Restoration Of A Polish Car ⁠

#35 Just Over Two Years Ago I Started My First Major Project, A Non-Running 1967 Triumph TR4A. Here’s A Before And After

#36 Before And After Of My Dad’s 2-Year Smokey And The Bandit Inspired Trans Am Project

#37 1963 VW Dune Buggy Restoration Before And After

#38 Before And After

The original color is Crocus yellow. It’s on the back seat panel, which you can see through the rear window. The car was built for the GM show car account and is the first Impala convertible built in 1965. SS package 327 with powerglide, power windows, tilt, and rear seat speakers.

#39 My Brother Finished His Bird After A Few Years. Pretty Awesome

#40 It’s Art And Requires Just Enough Passion

Shanilou Perera

Shanilou has always loved reading and learning about the world we live in. While she enjoys fictional books and stories just as much, since childhood she was especially fascinated by encyclopaedias and strangely enough, self-help books. As a kid, she spent most of her time consuming as much knowledge as she could get her hands on and could always be found at the library. Now, she still enjoys finding out about all the amazing things that surround us in our day-to-day lives and is blessed to be able to write about them to share with the whole world as a profession.