There's a problem hiding underneath the collector car world, and most owners haven't bumped into it yet. The cars are fine. They run, they win their classes, they get driven on the weekend. The trouble is who's going to keep them running once the current generation of restorers hangs it up.
That's the gap Piston Foundation exists to close. The pitch is simple. Restoration shops are aging out, the people who can do the work are retiring, and not enough new hands are coming up behind them to take over. Piston funds scholarships for students heading into automotive restoration and technology, with the goal of getting people into the trade who otherwise couldn't afford the door.
Chris Gleason, an advisor to the foundation who came up around Porsches and lived through a long restoration of his own, has spent a lot of time making this case to collectors who don't see the cliff coming.
Chris Gleason (left) and Jeffrey Mason, Co-Founder & President of Piston Foundation (right)
"Today you can get that car worked on, but it's getting more and more expensive, you have to wait longer and longer, and the parts are becoming more and more rare and difficult to find," he says. "This is the time now to invest in trying to fill that funnel."
He's not wrong about the math. Look at how few students graduate into this kind of career against the number of shops closing every year, and the curve gets uncomfortable fast. Gleason knows three restoration shops personally where the owners are heading toward retirement without anyone trained to step in. These are car lovers, not businesspeople, and a lot of them would rather close the doors than risk their name on someone else's work. Understandable. Also, this is a slow-motion disaster for everyone who owns an older car.
It was never just greasy hands
The other thing Piston is fighting is a misconception, and it shows up constantly at cars and coffee. A kid is clearly hooked on cars, the parents come over, and the first thing they picture is their child spending forty years on his back under a chassis.
That's not the industry. Restoration feeds the big private collections, the auction houses, the manufacturers who need someone to look after their own history. It feeds research, journalism, the legal side where misrepresented cars are a real and growing problem, detailing businesses, dealerships.
You can get a four-year degree in it. McPherson College, the best known program, graduates students into a hiring rate that's effectively total, most of them already placed through an internship before they walk.
Gleason compares it to going into music. "Do you want to be a guitarist, a pianist, a composer, a songwriter, a producer? There are so many different career paths." The interest is the starting point. Where it goes from there is wide open.
A foundation that keeps it simple
What's easy to like about Piston is how little fat there is on it. No lifestyle wrapper, no donor experiences built around whiskey tastings and a drive into the countryside. The money that comes in goes out as scholarships, mentoring, and job support.
And the support doesn't have to be big to matter. Not everyone can write a $5,000 check, and Piston isn't asking you to. Give what you can, tell other people, bring them in.
"How good does it feel to know that you could make a contribution and that could mean the difference between somebody going to college or not?" Gleason says. For a lot of collectors, that figure is a rounding error. For a first-generation college student, it's the whole thing.
Chris Gleason volunteering time for Piston Foundation at a local event.
Money isn't the only currency, either. Piston brings volunteers into the tent at the various events, like the Greenwich Concours, to help carry the message. People pitch in with graphic work, with raffles, with industry contacts. There's room for whatever you've actually got.
The part Gleason keeps coming back to is the students who would never have made it into this world without the help. The first in their family to go to college. The kid who simply wouldn't have gone. Clear those barriers, and you've changed where someone's life points.
So if you love these cars the way you say you do, the ask is straightforward. Do something. Don't just talk about it. The cars are going to need someone long after the rest of us have parked them for good, and right now is when that someone gets made.
Learn more or contribute at the Piston Foundation.
