TMCP #637: Tom Maxwell of Velocity Restorations // Classic Cars and Trucks Made on Modern Day “Small-Mass Production Line”

The Muscle Car Place online podcast, episode number 637.

This week, we're going to dig into the production car company that is Velocity Restorations.

There's a world out there in our industry of a production-like classic car, meaning

a near new, if not completely new classic car with a usable drivetrain, new redesigned

usable interior, all the stuff that used to be only in custom cars but now in a production

car.

Velocity is the biggest of them all, producing not just one model but numerous.

Classic Broncos, Ford trucks, Chevy Blazers, Scouts, 67 to 68 Mustangs, now Foxbody Mustangs.

You can order one up on their website with a fixed price and a delivery date known in

advance.

They have 100 plus employees, a factory big enough to make aircraft in, and this is how

they're doing it.

This very, very process-driven and understanding that, hey, this doesn't have to be overly

complicated.

It is documentable, it is trainable, and it is repeatable.

Part of Velocity's brilliance, I think, is controlling the options.

Well, here we are at the final show of January, 2026.

That went fast.

Our guest is Tom Maxwell from Velocity Restorations and Classic Recreations.

Classic for you long-time listeners.

That's the company that Jason Engel started years ago making, let's just say, making

Eleanor Mustangs from the Gone In 60 Seconds movie.

I remember interviewing Jason from my Basin in 2009 or 10, my gosh, that's 16 plus years

ago, and now Classic is under the purview of Velocity Restorations.

The topic here is velocity to the whole company.

This is the how of the business.

We're not going to get as deep into the specifics of each and every model, but they are making

a production-like vehicle with a custom usable interior, like a console that's at the level

of your elbow, like in your modern car, door handles that work properly, wipers that move

water, a modern drivetrain, which isn't remarkable, but having one sorted with parts that you

can buy from a company to replace things, that is unique.

They're not cheap.

None of these guys are making a cheap car, but in the grand scheme of things, it is.

Most of these cars come in the $280,000 to $400,000 range.

That's a fortune.

I know that, and you know that.

But to build a custom car of the same quality, million bucks, it's hard to fathom.

What they are doing now seems not plausible to me, but they are doing it.

And just because it's impossible doesn't mean it can't be done.

It just means you haven't seen it yet.

Look at Indiana football.

It can be done, right?

They are making production-line quality vehicles, Broncos, Ford trucks, K5 Blazers, Mustang,

not Foxbody Mustangs.

It's remarkable.

They do have options, but they don't have every option.

They will tell you these are not custom cars.

These are orderable cars using the offerings that they make.

That means that they can control every process, every part.

They can repeat it.

They can duplicate it.

They can perfect it.

They can make it go faster.

They can measure the quality of it without losing speed.

It's there.

Many of their vehicles are on roadstop chassis.

Their Mustangs are.

They're 67, 68s are.

The new Foxbody sure is.

I've got it a bit on paper.

I don't know how it works, but it absolutely does because they are doing it successfully

and they have been now for years.

This isn't a flash in the pan company.

It's over a decade old and you're going to hear the whole story here.

I'm excited for that.

That's coming up in the interview section with Tom.

So some timely news right now.

So as you know, Muscle Car Place is usually a three show a month deal.

This show is number three for January.

We always release on a Friday with Muscle Car Place.

That's our release date.

That means that every now and then, because we don't have four shows a month and because

we release on a Friday, we just miss something super topical and timely.

And this year, that means we're going to completely miss Groundhog Day.

Groundhog Day is Monday, February 2nd.

We won't be anywhere near that for our next show.

After this is February 6th.

Well, that means it is time to queue up the most important news you need to know between

now and then.

Burn from NBC 10 in Philadelphia.

Cue the news.

We're less than two weeks away from Groundhog Day and PETA wants to replace Pugsatani Phil

with a 3D hologram.

Each year, the animal welfare organization presses the Groundhog Club to retire the animal

over cruelty concerns.

Last year, they suggested a robot instead of the rodent.

And yesterday, they sent leaders a letter about their hologram request.

Not clear if anybody from the Groundhog Club has responded yet, but in past years, they

have defended Phil's well-being.

They say he's got a pretty cushy life.

I bet he does.

Thank you, NBC 10 for that cutting, breaking news.

Phil, if you can hear me, stand your ground.

Don't give up.

Bill Murray needs you.

We all need you.

Do not get replaced by a hologram.

Now, ironically, in real life here, the storm that's hit in the country today, January 23rd,

if you get the day they release, it's a whopper.

This storm is huge.

Here in the Midwest, I don't think we're getting anything like those of you in the South and

the East and the Northeast you're about to get.

It's a lot.

There are numerous forecast models, and they all agree that from Kansas City to Little

Rock, Oklahoma City to Boston, it's just going to be precipitation, whether it's ice or

measurable snow or both.

In the Midwest, it's just freezing.

Our high today, the 23rd, will be zero.

Wind chills will be in the minus 30s, I think.

Usually, the wind chills here are the killer more than anything, but as I look at the map

of the country, Florida isn't touched.

Every other state seems to be impacted.

I can't see Washington, Oregon, and California, but every other state is impacted by this

storm.

Be safe out there.

This is a big deal.

So, with that, I now have to get to the Dallas Kibbe Legends car racing update due to the

storm.

Burn, cue the update.

The Raryons lose cars fast, loses fast and on the edge of out of control.

Dallas is not going to race this weekend.

He was going to get to race on the Robel in Charlotte.

When I saw this storm coming, I kind of prepared mentally that it wasn't going to happen, and

by Tuesday, it was canceled by everybody in the know, and by Wednesday, it was canceled

officially.

I hadn't even booked a hotel room, mostly so I wouldn't have to eat the fee.

And it is a bummer.

The reason it's a bummer is because he needs laps, and it's the Charlotte Robel.

It's a big deal.

It's the first time legends cars have ever run there.

It was last weekend and this weekend.

Last weekend, they're supposed to run three races.

They got the first one in before they got rained out.

This weekend was supposed to be a makeup of last weekend, and that didn't happen.

And the three races that we're going to race this weekend, I think, have been permanently

canceled.

Somewhere in March, they're going to try to do another three, hopefully we can go, but

maybe we can't.

Don't know right now.

So what that means for him is it's time to just prepare for his first national event,

and that's going to be in Florida.

I think it's Winter Haven.

Auburn Dale Speedway is the name of the track, but I think it's in Winter Haven, and it is

Super Bowl Sunday through Valentine's Day, February 8th through the 13th.

And we will fly home on Valentine's Day.

So that's the plan there.

He did practice that roval, though, in his sim, and it is helpful.

It's a challenging track.

These are first world problems, and I know that, but it's hard.

I don't know if we'll get to do the next one or not.

Maybe not.

Probably not.

Hard to say.

So one race at a time right now, he's still playing basketball.

Our homeschool basketball league is about wrapped up.

That's what I'm doing to enjoy some of his childhood before it's over.

So if he's got to miss a couple more races to play basketball, maybe that's okay.

Who knows?

Anyway, that concludes the Dallas-Kivvy Legends car racing update.

Burn, cue the outro.

All right, let's talk a little bit about the January auctions.

So the Meekum Kissimmee auction has already happened, and Barrett Jackson, 2026 here in

Phoenix, is going right now as they record this.

So for Meekum, I want to go through both these auctions with Rich Schmidt next month.

But the big news was that the Ford GT lightweight went for $12.375 million.

That's a million with an M. I think the 69-Copo Camaro prototype went for $1.8 million.

The 62 Ferrari 250 GTO, the white one.

Is it a GTO?

It's a 250.

I know that.

I don't know if Ferrari is very well.

That went for $38 million.

So between the Ford GT and the Ferrari, we decided to review Ford versus Ferrari the

Movie on the Kibbe and Friends show this week just to have a nice tie-in.

But I'll dig into the results with Rick about the muscle cars that are kind of more in our

lane.

Once cars get into the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, it's kind of

hard to relate.

It does tell me that there's a world out there where this is how people do invest.

It's not a world diamond, but it's definitely interesting.

On Saturday, January 17th, Meekum did $259 million in sales.

Not for the whole auction, just for Saturday.

That's crazy.

They had some celebrities there.

Cleese McFarland flew in.

This was the only clip I could find, but Rutledge Woods is the host here.

Check it out.

Scott, we've been telling people a week long that it is a star-studded event here at Meekum

Kissimmee.

And you know when we have to get special clearance from the FAA to bring a helicopter

in, the one and only Consuella made her appearance today at Meekum for the first time with our

friend Cleese McFarland.

I mean, Cleese, it's your first time here at Meekum Kissimmee.

We're so glad you could join us.

Bring you Consuella, too.

I mean, what's it been like so far?

Man, I've seen a lot of cool stuff.

I've never been over here, which is crazy, but you know, it's not that far from my house.

It's crazy.

There's so many cars.

I'm really glad you not have a better badge because there's a lot of things I want to

just buy.

There's a Mint El Camino out there, like an 86.

I saw a Bugatti.

I mean, I'm not going to buy that, but that was really cool.

There is an incredible amount of high-quality cars here.

I held an auction with some junkers a week ago, and I thought it was cool.

This is unbelievable.

And I know there's not as many Crown Vixas where it used to be in a round, have a little

fun with.

One here, though.

There is one in the Marauder.

There's a brand new Marauder over there.

This guy alone has changed the value of the market of the Marauders, but let's also talk

about, I saw a glimpse that you got a Crown Vic on one of the high banks of Daytona yesterday,

but also you're getting ready.

You're going to run ARCA there again.

This is incredible.

I mean, what a big year for you.

Okay.

I wish that hadn't cut off.

I didn't cut that off.

That's where the clip cut off.

I'd love to hear the rest.

I don't know how you can't love Cletus McFarland.

I wanted to hear about the Crown Vix on the high banks of Daytona and what he's planning

to do for ARCA and all that.

But anyway, that was Meekum.

We'll review more cars from Meekum and probably Barrett Jackson with Rick Schmidt.

Speaking of Barrett Jackson, Rick Schmidt next month on February 6th.

Speaking of Barrett Jackson, something really nice there has happened.

Here's a clip.

Steve Miniana is back.

I'm Mike Joy and 20 plus years here never gets old.

It's always fun.

Always a lot of great anticipation as I'm joined by Rick DeBroule, Tyler Hoover and April Rose

and ES.

He is back, fully restored, fully repainted with his knowledge base, ready to share with

you.

Let's put the glasses on and welcome back our buddy Steve Minyante.

I'm thankful for all the positive thoughts and the medical professionals who kept my

lights on.

So I'm glad to be back and let's get to it.

And since Steve is our style guru, we've got to wear glasses in his honor.

And you know, over the last couple of years, the most common question I get on a regular

basis is not how much a car is worth, but when is Steve coming back?

So to have Steve back on the block with us quite frankly, makes everything right in the

world.

Absolutely.

We're excited about it.

So I'm a restal modding this leg, so I'm going to send a lot of time in the anchor seat.

We're going to send Rick, Steve and Tyler to the block.

April's going to go out and find some cool cars to preview.

And let's all watch Barrett Jackson sell some cars.

Now that is awesome.

Now, if you've been following Steve Minyante's personal health, I think we're lucky he's

here.

Not only is he here here, but he's back.

He's okay.

He is healthy.

Everybody there was like wearing Steve's buddy Holly glasses, so it's kind of cute.

Mike Joy there.

He was the main broadcaster running the show there.

Mike is just my favorite automotive broadcaster period.

I just love him racing or otherwise.

Mike must be getting a new knee.

He had a pretty big leg contraption on himself, but that auction is going now on Wednesday,

January 21st.

Jeff Lutz and Clay Millikin's charity car did cross.

And that was that red 57 Chevy they built with a Gen 3 Hemi.

That's what I said, a Hemi, not an LS, a Hemi, powered by Hydrogen.

And that was something that they put together with Mike Copeland at Errington Performance.

And here are the results.

$100,000 y'all that we just raised for the TechForce Foundation, there's Jennifer Wintek

Force, that 157.

It did the deal, baby.

That was awesome.

And you know where it's going?

Atlanta.

It's going to Atlanta, y'all.

Yeah.

Right near Commerce Dragway, a young man who bought it is awesome.

He was great.

He didn't even see the car.

He bought it for the cause.

And he said that, you know, he heard the money was going for young people to work with their

hands.

And he said the Lord touched him and he bought it.

That's so awesome.

$100,000.

CRC, Edelbrock, everybody, stainless works.

We did it.

We sold the car at Barrett Jackson.

We're happy and excited.

It's amazing.

Appreciate you guys following along.

Everything on that field will be back.

That's right.

Next one.

Get ready.

Congrats, guys.

$100,000.

And that's all the right reasons right there.

All right.

Going back to my joy.

I listened to my joy comment on like a 94 Cadillac Brom for two or three minutes.

I was shared here.

It's just a Cadillac Brom, but it had like 4,000 miles on it.

I just loved the commentary.

I have no desire to own a Cadillac Brom, 4,000 miles or otherwise, but it was fun.

Again, I'll have more on the auction results from Meekam and Barrett with Rick Schmidt on

February 6th.

Okay.

Well, I think it's time to go ahead and get rolling to the interview.

Don't forget, once per month, we do have Mr. Rick Schmidt from National Parts Depot on

to talk all of things National Parts Depot, and you can ask him anything you like.

Send any questions to me, Robert at themusclecarplace.com.

Of course, visit nationalpartsdepot.com to proves for all your muscle car parts needs.

They find the source, they expect the best.

There is a difference, and they've got the goods, and you do have time to get your questions

in for February.

I think this must be a five-week month, so we actually have an extra week longer than

we normally do.

Rick and I usually record those things quite in advance.

This time, we're cutting it close, doing it the last week of January.

Up next is our feature interview, Mr. Tom Maxwell from Velocity Resturations.

This is the company that, in a way, is mass producing classic cars and mustangs.

Not classic car, classic trucks and mustangs.

I still can't believe they're doing it, but they're doing it, so enjoy.

Today, our guest is Tom Maxwell.

He is the chief revenue officer for Velocity Resturations, and now classic recreations,

too, which I'm a fan of.

Let's focus on Velocity, though.

There is a world out there forming where there are several companies effectively producing

near-brand new production line classics.

Classic recreations was one of the first out there that I remember, but out of all the

companies doing this, the one everybody has told me about is Velocity, because Velocity

is at scale.

Frankly, it's hard to believe.

They have 100-plus employees.

They have a facility that looks like airplanes are made in it.

They don't just build one thing, either.

It's Broncos and classic mustangs, Fox bodies, F-series trucks, Chevy K5, I think, too.

Maybe Tom Scout.

Now, it is hard to believe, and it's been several years since we've had them on the

show, so now we're going to get a full update for 2026.

Nice to meet you, Tom.

Welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, Robert.

Yeah, excited to be here and talk to you about what we've got going on.

All right.

So, Tom, skip the chief revenue part in Velocity.

Tell me who you are.

Who are you?

Where are you from?

Well, obviously, I'm English.

So, most people think I'm either Australian or English when I'm here, but I'm English.

I'm from the north of England, a place called Yorkshire.

And originally, I'd never had interesting cars, really, at all.

So, I went to university and at one point, wanted to be an actor and wanted to write screenplays.

And so, I have a degree in creative writing, so that's what I wanted to do.

And anyway, very, very long story short, after having my own little business paying for beer

money, like we would say in the UK, realised I'm probably going to have to get a real job

after I get out of university.

And I knew a little bit about marketing and told some stuff before, so got a little job

with a place in the south of England doing restoration, not restome, but restoration

on Land Rover Defenders.

And thought it was going to be a six-month gig and work out what the hell I was going

to do after that.

And then, 11, 12 years of being in this industry later, I'm still here and just love it, love

it every day.

So...

You were like, while I figured life out job became your real job.

That's right.

I mean, I mean, seriously, I hated mud.

I had no interesting cars whatsoever.

I didn't really go out off-roading or four-by-four.

I don't want to do any of that stuff.

I really didn't have an interest in it at all.

But the first place I worked, it was a real small shop, the first place I worked.

And there was like 15, 16 people there when I first walked in.

But it was the product and seeing these guys work on, it was Land Rover Defenders.

And just fell in love with it immediately.

It was the craftsmanship behind it and what the customers had to say about it.

And I just never left.

I'm curious.

So we do have listeners all over the world.

Obviously, most of them are here in the United States.

But we've befriended several people from the UK.

How old were you when you started driving?

I'm just fascinated by this stuff.

When I started driving, I was 17.

If I remember correctly, I think you could start doing lessons at 16.

You get your provisional at 16 and then 17.

Yeah, I actually had my full licence.

But I'll give you a little, that's funny you asked about that, one little story.

When I first started driving, I lived in a very, very flat area in the north of England, Yorkshire.

If you're any of you listeners know, it's quite flat.

There's no real hills until you get out further out.

So I never learned to do a hill start.

When I got my first car, which when I was at university,

I was in a place called Bath, which is in the south of England, very hilly.

I'm talking like 45 degree crazy hills.

So the first time I picked this car up, I just couldn't drive it.

I literally, because I couldn't do the clutch and the handbrake at the same time,

I literally kept stalling every time I stopped on these hills.

So there was about three weeks where I got my first car,

where I went out at like two o'clock in the morning as a uni student,

just to practice on these hills.

Well, nobody was around.

I don't want to look like an idiot here or something.

And then getting into this game and then learning to drive stick on what I would say,

you guys are the wrong side.

That was a whole different ball game again.

Yeah.

I've not traveled internationally very much.

But the first time I went to the UK, I needed a rental car.

I could not believe it.

Not only did they just say, here's your car.

It was a stick shift and they didn't ask if I knew how to drive in the UK at all.

Like, here you go.

Yeah.

They just gave it to you.

It is terrifying.

It's a completely different world.

Yeah.

And when you come over here as an Englishman, I think like the roads here are so big.

And for the most part, I know in some areas they're not as well kept,

but for the most part, the highways are really good.

But you've got like a three or four lane highway that's still only 55 miles an hour,

like near where we live in Florida.

Whereas like UK country roads, they can be literally one lane

and it can be 60 miles an hour down the back road.

So the first company I worked for, the company at the time,

it was called Land Rover's UK, but it became a company called Arkonic,

who are now pretty well known in this space for doing defectors.

They're in the middle of nowhere in Somerset.

And so there was one time we had American customer come in

and he was like five hours late to this meeting that we were having on site

and we thought he completely got lost.

We'd called a couple of times, couldn't get hold of him.

Four or five hours later, we called him and said,

hey, where are you?

Is anything going on?

We're still going to see you today.

He said, I can't get to the facility.

Why not?

He said, every road that goes to your facility when I follow the GPS is one way.

Every road.

I just, every time I've done that.

And what was happening was, because he was trying to go down these country lanes,

he just thought they were so narrow.

The moment another car came towards him,

he had to turn around.

He was going up the wrong road.

Of course he wasn't.

He was on an English country lane where you're going to get a Jimmy past each other.

Really funny.

Was that your last job?

And like, why are you here in the States?

It wasn't my last job.

That was the first company I was with.

So they started as Land Rovers UK and became, yeah,

this company called Arkonic and did restorations

and then later restore modding on Land Rovers.

So I did that for a number of years.

I got out of that company.

We always sold to Americans.

So pretty early in my time there,

we realized that really the passion for this product was in the American market.

Because of course the defender,

other than North American spec vehicles,

there just wasn't ever that many made and homologated beer.

So they really seen as a rare beast.

So we started getting a lot of requests from America

and what ended up being, hey, can you change the interior?

Ended up being, can you repaint and do the electrics?

So we ended up doing all of it.

Over the four years or so I was there,

we ended up, you know, the prices kept coming up.

We were doing better and better work and I left there

and kind of wanted to do my own thing for a little bit.

I met a guy in the north of England where I'm from

who also had a reputation for working on these cars.

A guy called Charles Forza who owns a company called Twisted,

who had a kind of big deal in Europe, not so big here,

but tried to bring the brand over here.

And so I did that for a few years and it was tough.

We had things with COVID, of course, supply chain issues

and things like that, manufacturing issues,

getting parts out of the UK was tricky.

And that's how I met Stuart at Velocity.

So we had a mutual friend and started connecting and talking

and long story, but one thing led to another

and he flew me over here and said, hey, come and see what I'm,

what I'm up to with these classic American cars

if you have a fancier change and then walked in the facility

and said, oh my goodness me, it's just on another level.

And yeah, here we are.

He was like, yep.

Well, before we talk a lot, did you ever do any acting then?

I'd like to know how it ends.

No, I never did any acting though.

I don't know if I have the place for it.

Honestly, the chop spirit, I think like I realized

pretty early on that I kind of liked it a bit steady.

And I think if anybody has ever done anything in that world,

the truth is it's so hard.

You know, you have to be one in a million people

to have success.

Even if you're really talented,

you just have to be super lucky as well.

I tapped out of that pretty early.

You know, Ashton Kutcher, the actor,

he went to my high school.

That's as close to fame as we got.

But like my worship pastor's little brother,

I think made it on a Hallmark movie once.

And that's it.

He went further than me because I've never done anything like that

other than we do YouTube stuff online for the company.

But yeah, I've never done anything formal like that though.

Right.

Okay, well, let's talk about velocity.

So velocity existed prior to your presence there.

That's right.

I don't know the founding story of velocity.

I don't even know when it was.

Can you walk me through the history?

Yeah, absolutely.

So really interesting story.

The gentleman who founded the company is still the CEO

and owner today, Chuck called Stuart Wilson.

He founded it with his friend Brandon.

So there's originally two owners and just really like classic

kind of American story of enterprise,

entrepreneurship, whatever you want to say,

but he was in the Navy and had a kind of a business

kind of buying and selling houses on the side

and was actually doing some real estate construction

and things like that.

And the crash happened as he was getting out

and there was some stuff in his personal life that changed.

And so he didn't actually have that much left other than a Bronco.

Him and his wife at the time basically rebuilt this one Bronco

and sold it and made a few bucks and thought,

actually, even though we have this real challenging time

in our lives, this was A, fun.

And B, the truck was some emotional importance to them,

you know, they take their daughter out on trips

and things like that and realized through the sale

of this vehicle that he can make connections with other people

and people value this sort of a product, you know,

and people want their classic cars.

And this was 15, 16 years ago.

Then the trajectory just real great.

Again, classic kind of American business story.

Decided to try and make a thing of it

and slowly started employing people and got a small first facility

was literally in like a single car garage

and painting cars and a tent.

And then over time got into a bigger facility,

five, 6,000 square foot and then again

into like a 20,000 square foot facility

and start taking on employees.

The biggest change was through COVID.

So just before I met Stuart,

about four or five years ago,

they moved into the facility that we're in now.

So we're in a 155,000 square foot facility.

And it's funny that it looks like aircraft

should be manufactured here because we're in Pensacola,

so massive Navy connection here, you know, with the base

and this building that we're in actually used to be

like a metalwork facility for military aircraft

and helicopters.

Oh, really?

Yeah, there's a rail line that ran directly into this building.

So it's huge facility.

And when Stuart decided to take it on,

the plan was to sub most of the space, you know,

because he didn't need 150,000 square foot.

Yeah.

But then COVID happened.

And the brilliance of Stuart,

one of the things I always struggled with

when I was solely responsible for building cars

as well as, you know, selling them and marketing them

was just getting parts and doing things on time.

And if anybody's ever built their own car,

which I'm sure a lot of your listeners have

or they mess around with stuff,

you can make progress and then you get to a point

where you need a part, you need a bit or a widget

and you just stop, right?

And then you get distracted and life gets in the way

or, you know, if you're a business,

you have to keep moving things around.

And that's what, you know, I'd always struggled with.

And so Stuart's brilliance, I think,

part of it is the assembly line, which we could talk about

and how we actually construct the cars.

It was also about the availability of parts.

So COVID happened and of course nobody could travel

and people had a bit more discretionary income,

especially people like our customers

that are ultra high net worth individuals

and just have the ability to continue to build

because you already have all the parts on the shelves

and nothing slowed down.

And so it was through that period

that the company really grew.

So when I got here, there was one production line

with just Broncos,

the Velocity's bread and butter is the first generation Bronco.

They'd already started the prototype,

but launched the F-250.

JLNO did a video on that.

It was on his channel and stuff

and that obviously like really took off.

So we saw a lot of those single cab F-250s now,

the bump sides.

Since that, we've added numerous new models

and we went from building 80 cars a year

to 90 to 100 to 126,

something like that this year and keep getting stuck.

Let's talk about the production line right now.

That is one of the many things

that is setting Velocity just in a different lane.

There's a kind of industry here

of people building almost production like brand new classics.

As far as I know, none are doing it like Velocity,

where it's a full production line with numerous models.

That is a rarity.

So where did the experience from a production line

doing classics even come from?

The truth is they didn't exist.

And I can say this is somebody that I'm an employee

of the company, right?

And I want to be an advocate for Velocity,

but honestly, I had lived it before working for this company

and I'd looked at people's businesses

and I'm a big passionate person for this industry

and it just didn't happen.

So when I walked through the building here,

it was just unlike anything I'd seen.

And I think it had come from Stuart Sir,

a nuclear engineer.

That's what he did.

He was a submarine in the Navy.

So he had a real kind of,

obviously that stuff is hypercritical.

Like process.

Right.

You're that far under the water,

things can't go wrong, right?

Otherwise, you're in a sticky spot.

So just very, very process driven

and understanding that, hey,

this doesn't have to be overly complicated.

It is documentable.

It is trainable and it is repeatable.

Part of Velocity's brilliance,

I think, is controlling the options.

I struggled with this before when I was building Fenders.

The list of things that people could have or would want

is endless.

And when you're selling a vehicle at this price,

you want to say, yes, you can do this

and yeah, we'll customize the headrests

and we'll make all of these things brilliant.

And you can do it,

but the problem is it becomes, you know, non-repeatable, right?

And if you can't repeat something,

you can't get more efficient at it and better at it.

So with Stuart and with Velocity,

we still have this really wide array of options

that you can choose from,

but they're not so expansive

that it kills the efficiency within the company

and the repeatable processes.

So we work on a 14 stage assembly line.

What are all the stages?

I mean, I think most people can assume the big E's,

but like, what are all the stages?

So we start stage zero as powder coat, self-explanatory.

We do all of our own powder coating in-house.

We've got two weeks or two stages in metal work.

So fabrication, we don't just paint the bodies

as soon as we get them here.

Obviously some of them we restore,

we reuse some of the panels,

some of them we get brand new metal,

but things like a Bronco,

even though they're Ford licensed metal bodies,

replacement bodies,

they're just not built to the way that you would expect

the gapping and the door shuts to be

on a vehicle at this price point.

So you have to basically build the whole vehicle,

do all of your alignment,

then take it all apart against painters.

That happens in weeks one and two.

We make the roll cage at that point.

If we're doing chassis work and things we do then,

three and four are going to be in the paint shop.

So body prep and actual spraying, actual paint.

And then five through seven is that actual assembly line process.

So putting the wiring loom in, dropping the body on the chassis,

fuel tank, fuel lines, all that good stuff,

getting the engine running under its own power.

That's week six, station six.

Station seven is then getting all the interior inside the vehicle,

hanging the doors.

And so on a Bronco, by week seven,

every single thing that should be on the vehicle

is on the vehicle.

So technically the vehicle runs and it's fully assembled.

It could drive home.

But then we have another number of weeks after that

for quality control, test and tune, media, things like that.

So it doesn't just go straight home.

We put 500 miles on every vehicle, for example.

That's week eight.

So it goes into test and tune and we have techs here.

Best job in the world.

But that whole job is just driving trucks all day, every day,

to pad them in and get the first kind of test miles done on them.

Yeah.

This is another unique part of Velocity.

You can just go on your website and order one.

Yeah.

It's that simple.

I mean, it's like you're ordering a pair of shoes.

I mean, you just click, click, click this color, this interior,

this transmission.

And the list of options is nice.

It is not endless.

You know, people listening to this show,

most of them do their own cars.

You can go have a custom car built and it will be bitchin'.

But you know, it's what it is.

It's a one-off.

It will take an unknown amount of time and money to make it happen.

You never know till it's over.

That's not how Velocity is doing it.

Here's the price.

Here's the timeline.

Here are your options.

When it comes to the actual vehicles, though,

and I don't know if this is the case for just Broncos or all of them,

do you need a donor at all?

There's a lot of new metal out there.

I mean, you can build a brand new 67 Mustang without a Mustang.

You don't even need it.

How do you guys do it?

We still acquire donors for every single vehicle that we build.

You know, you have to be a little bit careful around,

obviously, how you're procuring your vehicles and then what you're doing.

You don't want the vehicles to be seen as like kick cars

or non-existent cars or anything like that.

So that's absolutely fundamental.

101 is we buy all of our donors.

So we always buy about 12 months in advance.

So if you came to our facility, you can come do tours here, by the way.

So if anybody ever wants to come and see what I'm talking about,

you can actually book a tour and come and walk our factory.

But at the back of the shop, we have a massive boneyard

and that's where we keep all of our donors.

All of them are documented.

They're all laid out very, very efficiently.

Obviously, we strip stuff down when we need to

and we're about a year in advance.

So that process of documentation stripping,

knowing what the lineage, the history of that vehicle is,

is critical to then the process after that

of making sure that it stays on the original titles.

That's what we do.

It's not just a new car or anything.

It is from an original donor.

So there's no kick car license.

They're not using a new VIN under the low volume thing.

Nothing like that.

They're titled as whatever year they are originally.

That's correct.

Yeah, technically, so we do actually have the ability

to do low volume manufacturing if we wanted to.

But the problem with that is you're basically then creating a new car.

And so our customers, my clients,

they want to know that that car is original dimension.

It has an original title.

Even though it's going to drive like new

and for a lot of purposes, it is all new.

They still want to make sure that it has that history.

There are other companies out there that make a new Bronco,

for example, look old, take a 2025 Bronco

and kind of do spotty work on it to make it look old.

That's not what we do and it's not what our customers want

because they want the genuine article quotation marks.

Sure. Let's walk through a Bronco.

So we've got a Bronco.

We order one.

The drivetrain is typically going to be what?

What are the options?

There is only one option.

Coyote?

It's a coyote.

It was the Gen three up until recently

and we moved to the Gen four X product.

So we were lucky enough to have one of the very first

create available four X's to test and put in our trucks.

That was a number of months ago.

But yeah, we're Gen four X now and it's all you can do.

You can not on a Bronco, but some of the other models,

we can do a blow on it.

We can do a supercharger if people want.

We don't do it on Bronco

because you just don't need that much power in a Bronco.

But you can do some things like that.

But yeah, the core power plan is going to be a coyote.

You pick your transmission or are they all automatics?

Yeah, most people can do an automatic,

which would be the 10R, but you can do a Tremac.

You can do a six-speed if you want.

And that's becoming more and more popular, honestly,

on the Broncos.

We've got some really cool clients that actually really want

to drive stick trucks still.

Same with the F series trucks we do.

We've got a few that are like that.

And not to dismiss the Broncos,

but what are all the F series trucks?

I remember right there's F one.

I saw one that seemed a couple of years ago.

That meant F 250 maybe?

Yeah, it was probably the F 250.

Yeah.

We originally launched the Bumpside F 250, the single cab.

And it's a little bit confusing for purists.

We understand why, because sometimes we'll build an F 250

in the way that we call an F 250,

but it might come from an F 100 donor

and some technical aspects of it might be from different years,

like the look or grill decision or things like that.

But in short, we offer Bumpside F 100,

which is our two-wheel drive street truck,

Bumpside F 250.

And then we also offer a Bumpside,

even though it never really existed, F 150,

which is just a short bed,

lifted four-wheel drive truck for us.

And then we offer the same thing in Denside,

which of course, there was a true F 150 there.

And then about six months ago, seven months ago,

we launched what we call our F 350,

but it's basically a crew cab Denside truck.

And those have been very popular.

I mean, people have been asking us to do those for a long time,

and they're incredibly cool.

I'm really excited about those.

So just to bluntly ask,

a lot of people in this business don't do multiple models.

It's hard to be a jack of all trades and do them all.

How are you doing them all?

Right.

Yeah, it's a super fair question.

And I think there's definitely a space where people are going to say

exactly what you just said,

like you can't be an expert in something

if it's not the only thing that you do.

The thing that I would say is there's actually a shared

kind of makeup across all of these vehicles,

and that's the key.

So it's less about the product itself.

It's more about the processes behind it.

So in the case of a Ford, a Bronco and an F-Series truck,

yes, they're different vehicles,

but they're still from us.

And again, it comes back to that standardization.

They're still going to use a coyote.

They still use similar door handles and similar items and things.

The actual quality in the process of assembling one is going to be

much the same.

Obviously, an F-Series truck is in closed cabin vehicles,

so you've got to start thinking about what you're going to do

for a headliner and you need to make feel a little bit different.

But ultimately, there's crossover.

There's actually a lot of crossover to the Mustang too, right?

Same thing, same engine, same door handles and things

and fixtures for the most part.

A little bit more complicated because it's a car,

but it's that shared ethos of like,

okay, we're going to do these things in repeated steps

and repeated ways every time.

We added on Chevy's and a Mustang and now a new Mustang.

New to us.

You know, Foxbody is a pretty new car in our world, certainly,

but how do you know what to add?

Or is it like Steve Jobs and you present people what they need to want?

It's a little bit like that and I think part of it,

I think is the shared passion that we have internally

for all of these cars.

Everybody in the team has a say in what they think we should do next.

It's not just an executive level decision.

We really do try and work with the guys on the ground

and say, hey, what are you guys passionate about?

And these are people like your listeners

and guys that are passionate and work on their own trucks

at home and things.

And so they'll be on forums and look and see,

hey, I saw this guy doing this or that.

And then also we kind of look at the timing of like,

who is our buyer being honest?

And so with the Fox,

now as we're getting into this next generation of buyer,

this is the car that they grew up with

or that they had on a poster or they have memories of.

And that's the core thing for almost all of our clients.

All of our clients have a story with a vehicle,

a story of their granddad taking them to get ice cream in the Bronco

or then buying a Foxbody for two and a half thousand dollars

that barely ran and just like having it

because it was cool and made a load of noise or whatever.

They've all got a story.

And then you're right.

There's a little bit of, we don't really know.

And that was the Foxbody at SEMA was,

we wanted to build one and Stuart was one of those people

that had a Foxbody.

He just wanted to build one anyway,

because he has an emotional connection to them.

But it was like, are we crazy doing this?

Is this a good idea?

And we took it to SEMA and we were so lucky.

The reception was absolutely awesome.

We had loads of people being really positive about it

and we've already got four or five orders for them now.

And there we go.

Well, let's talk about the Foxbody

because while you do make a 67 to 68 Mustang,

there are a few companies that do.

And a lot of them make a nice one.

And I'm going to call it a brand new Foxbody.

I know that it is not a brand new car,

but it's a brand new car.

I'm guessing yours was sitting on a Roadster Shop chassis

in the Roadster Shop booth, which makes a lot of sense.

That's a company that has a very parallel path to,

they have an OEM like mindset and process.

It was a black car with like black cloth interior

and automatic like, I mean, it was super subdued interior,

but just awesome.

The thing about the Foxbody was we didn't want to go.

So if you look at like our street series Fastback,

it looks externally for the most part like a stock Fastback

and then the interior is like really different.

So it's got like a completely different custom center console

and door cards and things like that, door panels.

The Foxbody, we really didn't want to mess too much with the exterior,

but with the interior, we wanted to overhaul it,

but we wanted to make sure when people looked at it,

they were like, it didn't ruin the memories

or the history of the Foxbody, it just added or built on that.

And so we're super, super lucky.

We have a really talented team of interior guys.

And of course, their processes, they scan the inside of the car

and they study and they create prototypes and they design things.

And so they went into this with a,

how can we not disrupt people's memories

and just improve upon them,

rather than it being completely different

to what it originally was.

So that was the ethos behind the Fox.

And most of the work on the Foxbody that you can visibly see,

apart from obviously the chassis underneath, is in that interior.

What is the timeline to get a Foxbody?

I'll admit, I saw them on your website,

but I didn't peruse that one too much.

I was mostly digging on Broncos and I ordered myself two Mustangs

and I did all the stuff, but I didn't play with the Fox.

I do that every week. I always mess around.

We're lucky we have those configurators that people can check out

and they're just cool because you can just see colors and things like that.

I want this color, no stripes, these stripes.

Yeah, then you end up down a wormhole

and then suddenly it's 11 o'clock at night

and the Mrs is trying to go to sleep and you're like,

look at this one and she's telling you to go away.

But Foxbody, we're probably about six to nine months out right now on those.

A little bit depends on exactly what the person wants.

We pre-plan our production every year.

So when we go into a year, we know exactly how many of each vehicle we're going to build.

Whether we've got buyers for them or not, we will build them, right?

And so with the Fox, we said, hey, we want to build some notches.

That's really the core product,

but we knew people would be asking about GTs too.

So we got a couple of GTs and like I said,

we've already sold four or five of them, so it really depends on which.

But yeah, about six to nine months.

I did notice the new third gen F-body chassis

goes in that very same booth with yours.

Is that a new model for velocity at some point?

I can't. Not right now.

With the crew cab and then the Foxbody,

we're probably not going to do anything else this year

because of just being honest, the amount of work it takes

to get something like that off the ground.

We still have to build the cars, the other vehicles that we build for customers,

you know, and our bread and butter is still the Bronco.

You know, we still sell more Broncos every year than any of the other models.

So when you're designing a new product,

forget that like commercial application of is this going to work?

And are people actually going to want to buy it?

If you decide you're going to do it, then you got to work it out.

And that it takes a huge team effort.

And so nothing more on the horizon for a little while.

Yeah, would take a bit of a breather.

That's fair.

We've got the classic recreations GT500,

which are also new to us as well.

So that's another thing that.

So that I want to ask you about, but like to end with velocity,

the market in here is in this kind of world, there seems to be,

I was talking about Dan Khan and I had this very common.

It seems to be there's a world where a $400,000 car exists.

These are, I've been one of your pricier ones can be that,

but they're less expensive for the most part.

When you go build a custom car, it can be a lot of money.

But your business is working at this price point was a good fortune

to figure out that that's where the math will work.

Or was that intentional or what?

I think any business, there's always going to be a certain element of,

again, right place, right time.

And I think COVID helped establish the volume of velocity you could produce.

And the more cars you go out there on the road or trucks you go out there,

more people see the quality of what you do.

And then ultimately that leads to a reputation.

We're very lucky that we do have a reputation and we do build a quality product.

It's likewise that if people want to come and see the facility,

we tell customers, you don't have to give us a warning or a booking

if you want to come and see your vehicle in process.

We've got nothing to hide.

So you can come and see what we do.

There's definitely the look that allowed us to build a reputation.

But thereafter, I think, and listen,

I'm somebody that's messed around with cars my entire career.

So I 100% get being on one side of it,

you can look a $300,000 F series truck and F 100 and go,

why is that $300,000?

Like why I could build that car for less.

The truth is people at home probably could,

but it would take them a long time

and they also wouldn't get the benefit of a brand behind them

that helps with the residual value of the vehicle

because people do recognize our cars and the quality.

You don't get a warranty.

We warrant all of our cars.

Obviously there's a timeline there.

So all of these things play into the price.

It's not just the parts and the bill of materials and excuse me, the labor.

It's also the rest of the business and that ecosystem

surrounding the support of that vehicle for the customer.

That adds value but also costs money.

So that's where some of the pricing comes from.

The really tricky one is where,

I don't know if you saw a Seema, we also had a Chevelle there

and that was from our custom side of our business.

That's different to the production line entirely.

I won't put a dollar figure on that car,

but it's a significant amount of money,

like a three year, four year project,

way more than anything that we would build on our production line.

And when people ask why is that car so expensive,

it's because it's a one of a kind car.

And if you saw it close, it's the perfect car.

The guy had to wait four years for it and he spent a lot of money on it,

but there was nothing wrong with that car.

It's literally exactly as he wanted it, perfect.

But it's the only one of its kind.

There will never be one.

There was no repeated process.

The pricing of our normal products is based around, again,

to come back to this repeated uniformity.

It's more of a production line vehicle, but I mean, it's sorted.

There's a dry line that works.

When you turn on the headlights, they're going to work probably every time.

The wipers will move water.

It does all the stuff that a production vehicle just does.

I think our customers, listen, we have a warranty for a reason.

We have a warranty department for a reason.

It would be insane to come on and say there's never a problem with any of our cars.

You know, there's almost a thousand of them on the road.

But the problems that we have if there is a warranty issue, they're very minor.

They don't stop people enjoying and driving the cars.

It might be a loose speaker grill somehow, you know,

or they need to be told how to replace a fuse that's gone out or something like that.

But like what you're talking about, the reliability of the driving experience,

that's what our customers want because they don't want to have to like work

or we get in the car on a Saturday morning because they want to go for a drive

and then worry that the thing's not going to turn over.

They just do that.

And there's obviously there's a price associated with an engineering behind that.

And some people want to pay for it and some people don't.

And that's okay.

But we have a customer and that's how we've been successful.

Are there any bespoke designs in there in your production vehicles,

like just improvements on window regulators or door handles

or something that just make it better than factory?

That's just more bulletproof?

Yeah, tons of stuff that I could talk about that I won't bore you with.

But yeah, I mean, you mentioned window regulators.

We have an electronic window regulator and window control system.

It looks old school, looks like an old crank window,

but actually push it up and push it down.

And there's a lot of people out there doing that now.

We're probably one of the early people to do it,

but you can now control on our vehicles.

You can control the passenger side from the driver side by double tapping it and things like that.

One of the really good things that a lot of people don't know,

because you can't tell this until you actually touch one of our vehicles,

is the door handles like on a Bronco, the door handle mechanism itself.

So the mechanism inside is all new, but stock style mechanism, apart from one piece.

And we learned this 300 Broncos in.

There's like a retaining rod that helps the actuation of the control inside stay straight.

And that rod over time, if you use it as you open the door across the life cycle of a vehicle,

you know, you're opening thousands of times,

opening and closing and pushing that button on a Bronco.

If anyone knows Jim on Bronco.

Well, Ford never made this retention that helps keep the rod straight.

So over time it bends and it breaks, then you can't open the door, right?

So we got completely custom designed and insert just this one piece that just goes in there to stop that happening.

Customers that buy the vehicles from us today,

just have them from two or three years ago won't know they needed that

until probably six years down the road, a much longer ownership.

But those are the things that we look for and that we try and find and see,

because we know that that will make a material difference to people longer down the line.

And there's a whole ton of things.

We have a custom serpentine system to get the engine in there,

because of course it's tight.

There's a ton of different stuff that we put in.

Okay. Tell me about classic Greek creations.

I'm a fan of classic Greek, I'm a fan of Jason Engel.

I talked to Jason Bay, I think before there was a classic Greek creations.

I remember the very first car he built and I remember seeing it going across Barrett Jackson.

It's now your company.

It's changed hands a few times and it really needed a good home.

So I'm glad it's got one.

What are your plans for classic?

Yeah, listen, we're really excited about it and obviously you're right.

There's a complex history behind the company,

but at the end of the day, classic have a reputation of building a solid product

and really being passionate about the GT500 and having the Shelby license and all of that stuff.

So our plans are really to continue that.

What we will help with for the classic Greek creations band

is the same as what Velocity excels at is that reproducibility of processes.

That really is it.

We don't want to change too much of any of the designs or anything like that particularly.

We're very keen.

We have a Shelby license.

We've renegotiated that.

So Shelby are fully aware of everything we're doing and signed off on all of our stuff.

The core focus for us is going to be the carbon fiber cars.

We do have the license to do the steel GT500 as well.

But for us, we're most excited about the carbon cars

and the plan is to really try and make that brand performance and technical focus.

So as we made the acquisition, there was about 50 customers that still had builds in process.

We have to finish those builds.

So one of my jobs is going back and having those conversations with all those customers

and saying how can we work through this together to still get you,

provided it works for everybody, still get you a car.

We've got a commitment to those people.

So for the next couple of years, that's what we're going to be doing is getting through those cars.

But then after that, we already started reengineering some of the stuff on the cars a little bit

and we want to go and put up times down.

I mean, that's the simple thing.

We want to send a car to Germany.

We want to do a Nurburgring time.

We want to maybe put a car up the hill climb of the wood.

We want to go to some of the tracks in America and actually show these cars

as a step above our standard resto mod fastback is still 300,000 car.

These are much more expensive.

The carbon fiber ones, we want to show why we want to show the engineering that's behind them

and the actual technical prowess of the vehicles.

Are these the new ones that just debuted three months ago?

Those carbon cars or is this for under this a different thing?

They've been building carbon fiber GT 500s for a while.

We relaunched the website when we made the acquisition.

So maybe that's what you saw, but they had had the ability to make the carbon fiber GT 500s for some time.

I didn't know that. Learn another new thing there.

This is awesome, man.

And then you have another line that is just full custom restorations.

Is that something that is available as needed for premier customers?

Or is it anyone that has a desire and the checkbook can do it?

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head.

It really is for people that already know like who we are and what we do and maybe work with us before.

And that's not from like a egotistical perspective.

It's just because if you haven't worked with us before, it might be a bit scary to get in a process like that

just with some of the pricing that that sort of stuff works out.

You know, it's that when we build those cars, they are built by the hourly rate and it's as long as it takes.

And so, yeah, we build two or three cars in that program a year.

On the Chevelle, we partner with people too.

So on the Chevelle, we partnered with Dutch Boys who did a lot of the fabrication of the body.

We worked with other people.

We did all the interior and a lot of the other technical stuff,

but we work with people that are also experts in their field.

And those are the ones that go to the seamers, go to the shows, get displayed to keep us kind of showing,

hey, we still, our core, our heart, we are still custom car builders.

We're not just about building as many as possible.

Yeah, it could be any model.

So what tends to happen is somebody will buy a vehicle from us and then love it and then think,

you know, we've like we're building a power wagon right now.

I really want to do a power wagon. Can you guys do it for me?

And then we start the process of speccing out and doing all of the renderings and designs and working out.

But we tell people up from this can take three or four years and it's still by the hour.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Tom, this has been refreshing like on a interview here.

So like, that's a compliment.

Way to go.

I appreciate it.

And what you're doing there is amazing.

Let's end on this.

What does a chief revenue officer do?

That's a good question.

I don't know.

Look at cars.

No, the sales of the business, you know, running the sales team here, the marketing team,

so all that stuff and then customer experience as well.

So just everything that's customer facing.

And I am 100% the last person to claim any responsibility over the brilliant people that actually build the cars.

You know, I know how they're built, obviously in our built cars, but there are different geniuses,

20 meters that way in our big facility.

They're the real technical minds behind it.

I just focus on what are we selling and how are we selling it and marketing it?

What's the best way for people to find more about velocity and classic recreations?

You could go on both the websites.

So easy to find them.

You just Google velocityrestaurations.com and classic, I think it's classic dash recreations.com,

all the information's on the website.

And the thing I said, we got a YouTube channel too that I do videos on that people can watch.

Oh, yeah.

We do in-depth walk around videos of the vehicles, which people like, you know, so you can see

exactly what we're building.

And I say in the videos, if you've got any questions, just give us a call.

We'd really have anything to hide.

And if people want to come and visit the shop, they can do.

They just need to book an appointment.

So you can find all that stuff on the website.

Cool.

Thank you, Tom.

It's been a pleasure.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Tom.

All right.

It's fascinating, fascinating for sure.

That is it, though, for our first month of January, 2026 together.

I'll be back on Friday, February 6th.

No, no, no, no, no.

Burn, stop.

We need another Groundhog Day line here.

I don't want to miss it.

Well, it's Groundhog Day again.

And that must mean that we're up here at Gobbler's Knob waiting for the forecast from the world's

most famous Groundhog weatherman, Punxsutawney Phil, who's just about to tell us how much

more winter we can expect.

Bing!

Right, Burn?

Bing!

For those of you who are Kibbe and Friends show fans, Bing comes from Groundhog Day.

OK, I'll be back on February 6th, but between now and then hit me up on Facebook or Instagram

anytime.

Be sure to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube, and you can find every

single show, plus all the merch at the homepage of themusclecarplace.com website.

And as always, don't forget to keep chasing your dreams like you've let me chase mine.

Thanks for listening, everybody.

Bye-bye.

Thanks for parking at the Muscle Car Place online podcast.

TMCP #637: Tom Maxwell of Velocity Restorations // Classic Cars and Trucks Made on Modern Day “Small-Mass Production Line”

About this episode

Velocity Restorations

production-like classic car

Ford Mustangs

Ford Broncos Ford

Chevrolet Blazers

Chevrolet K5 Blazer

Ford F-Series

Foxbody Mustang

roval

Ford Gt

Chevrolet Camaro

Ferrari 250

Ferrari 62 Ferrari

Ferrari

muscle cars

Chevrolet El Camino

Crown Victoria

Mercury Marauder

ARCA

Meekum

Barrett-Jackson

Gen 3 Hemi

Errington Performance

Cadillac Brougham

National Parts Depot

classic recreations

Land Defenders

Land Rover

restomod

Ford F 100

Ford Foxbody

Shelby GT500

Chevrolet Chevelle

Dodge Power Wagon

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