The History Of Buffalo Restorations:
39 Years of Excellence
By Robert R. Newgard - General Partner

      We didn’t have many tools. A visit to the Sears Roebuck store armed with their credit card, and we managed a roll-around tool chest with the tool essentials we needed to get started. After all, the Model A Ford was a pretty simple car. Much more complicated than the Model T, but still, with a few hand tools and ingenuity (plus borrowing a few tools from friends), we forged ahead.

       However, when my wife Carla found out that the grease remover also removed her fingernail polish, she bowed out of the project. One by one, the three teenage kids found other things that were more interesting to them. My youngest was only ten at the time, but she sure liked to watch Dad do his thing.

       The loss of the family participation on the project was no disappointment for me since I really liked to work uninterrupted. As it turned out, I was spending most all of my spare time out in the garage tinkering with the parts. Everyone knows that you can always do it better yourself, right?

       The learning curve was arduous and long. The family did help in finding reading materials for me to study. I have always liked tools and felt that I could handle the work. However, it was taking longer than we first thought it would. As we discovered later, the time issue is the biggest problem facing most restoration projects.

       The engine had already been re-bored out and new pistons installed. The gears in the tranny appeared to be sound, as well as the rear end ring and pinion. It’s a good thing that we took lots of pictures in the tear down phase. I certainly needed that to be able to put it back together again.

       The previous car owner had completed some of the bodywork. This was particularly good since we did not have a facility to do any auto painting at our home. Besides, I didn’t have much talent for painting.

      We struggled along over the first four or five months, but surprisingly, the project was coming together quite nicely.

       In the following few months, a fine, beautifully restored, mechanically sound car was unveiled. As far as we could tell, it looked just like it had come off the show room floor. We really enjoyed driving around town to show it off. The rumble seat was the favorite for my children; they quickly learned how to get into it without scratching the paint on the fender.

      We rented a large truck and started hauling in more hundreds of parts from these two places. Fifteen large truckloads later, a new need was present - a place to store them.

       Therefore, we built a large barn. In addition, a two-story guesthouse was built. The upper level was an apartment rental; the lower half was the shop for our new antique car restoration business. The apartment rent helped to feed the old car habit we’d developed. The barn held all the parts we planned to use on customers’ cars or for general sale. A large paint booth and an additional assembly area room were added to the barn the following year.

       Two men were hired to do the work on the customers’ cars. A bodyman and a combination bodyman and painter provided the major needs at that time. Then in 1970, Bill Enderud hired on as a working manager/mechanic to supervise and control the ever-expanding workload.

       The upstairs tenant complained a bit about the noise of the compressor and the pounding on metal. However, he was generally gone to work during the day, so it worked out OK.

       The Newgard family expanded their business further by purchasing other Model A’s (and many more parts) for resale and enjoyment. It wasn’t long before the 15 total Model A cars and trucks that we purchased and restored were sold, with three prized units remaining (we still own those, as a matter of fact). Further buying of parts had to stop because the shop customers’ restoration projects were consuming all our time. All purchased rigs were sold over the next few years, and the crew of four men continued to work exclusively with customers and their wonderful variety of Model A Ford cars and trucks.

        In 1988, the legal structure of the Newgard proprietorship was converted to the Startup Partnership, #1, A Family Limited Partnership. All of Robert R. Newgard’s assets were gifted to the Newgard children and grandchildren, who then transferred them over to the newly formed partnership. The reason for this was to provide for my family. This is an estate plan organization. The other family members do not have any operational duties or responsibilities in the company, nor can they or they lose their limited liability protection of the partnership.

       By 1990, more shop space was required to continue our business’s rapid growth. At that time, we had restored in our old shop over 250 Model A cars and trucks (plus six other car brands).

       I hired a recently relocated Russian immigrant family of five living in Centralia, WA to help load up all of the tools, equipment, furniture, clothing (even the food in the refrigerator) to the new location. I purchased two highway vans for this purpose. Mr. LeMay offered to loan me his tractor to move them to the new location. Over the next month, this family and I moved five vans loads of materials and transported them to Puyallup.

       Because the Russian family did not speak English, some of the perishables were not returned to the refrigerator, and some of the non-perishables were found in the fridge. We had a great time together. The family did not allow me to do much in the moving. They took over completely, saying, “no – our job” and pushing me out of the way. So, I directed traffic by waving my arms around, and did lot of pointing.

       Their son had been in this country for a year or so, and he visited the property each evening so we could communicate what was happening, or would happen the following day. This helped a lot and the job went very well indeed. They were a very hardworking group and I appreciated their help a lot.

       An older home was located on this 38,000 square foot property. At this time, my children were all out of my household, married and had jobs of their own. I was single again, so I moved into the house and occupied it as my residence.

       I dug up and removed the six orchard trees. Next, I built two new buildings designed just for restoration projects. When I completed the buildings in December 1991, I made the decision to expand the operation and offer our services to any vehicle, foreign or domestic, 1972 and older only. That rule still applies today with very few exceptions.

      A couple years later, I moved into the 1000 square foot apartment built above the store in the main building.

Buffalo Classic Car Corral

       The corner of the property was perfect for a used car lot. I ran a car lot for a
couple of years as a department of Buffalo Restorations, but finally leased it out to
a party who knew what he was doing in the used car sales business. We became
landlords for the first time. Speedway Auto Sales now leases and operates this corner lot as a professional car sales family.

Buffalo Ships

       A neighborhood shipping and packaging store matched these requirements. Buffalo Ships was formed in 1991. It has provided a convenient location to the local people for the 18 services provided by the store, as well as the accounting and filing function needs of the shop.

       The store is now being effectively managed and operated by Mary Wilson.

Buffalo Auto Detail

       I started Buffalo Auto Detail in 1995 when the volume of cars we produced was high enough to do the work in-house. Previously we farmed out this work to the “Swede Car Wash” business owned by the Carlson family, just across the street. As of the fall of 2001, Wade Hess had managed the detail area. In December 2001, we negotiated a new lease with him and he became the owner/operator of this area. The business was later purchased in 2005 by Speedway Auto Sales and is currently run under their company name.

       I had designed both Buffalo Ships and Buffalo Auto Detail to break even or possibly make a small profit. They have now successfully accomplished their purpose.

So Here We Are Now

       I added other property improvements and refined the process in the restoration department, so that the company now provides our services to between 25 and 30 rigs at a time, and the staff is now at 17 people.

       Today, the restoration business here, which handles everything from old cars and trucks, to custom street rods and choppers, can boast as being one of the largest in the whole country, all 50 states. Most businesses of this type have one or two men producing two or three cars a year. At Buffalo, we are now working on jobs number 1205. That is a current production of about 100 cars and small trucks per year. The costs of the jobs here range from $5,000 to over $100,000, one at $175,000. The costs do not relate to value very well, since these are a part of the owners’ hobby, not an investment.

       In the spring of 2001, I sold all of the company’s remaining thousands of Model A Ford parts to Perry Baxter, of Snohomish, WA. The company had already sold hundreds of parts in hundreds of individual sales from this stock. Perry must have hauled more than 40 pickup truck and trailer loads out of here to his new storage barn location.

       The future promises more of the same. These vehicles are the individual families’ prized possession. These are cars that the customers do not need; they are cars that they want. It is such a grand feeling to see the smiling and happy customer driving out of here with the car of his dreams. We do this every week. 

                                                                 - Robert R. Newgard, General Partner

Buffalo Restorations

10611 Canyon Rd E

Puyallup, WA 98373

1-888-781-0368

buffalo@autorestorations.com

buffaloautorestoration@yahoo.com

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