[RichSchmidt]

What is really scary is that even when a car is totaled in New Jersey and is clipped at a professional shop,and instpected by the state inspector,there is no way to verify if the welding was done correctly.I weld race car chassis and have never had an official course.My welds get certified to protect sombody in a 175mph crash and are done with a Home Depot mig welder.
Once a car goes up for inspection after a rebuild,the welded repairs are already ground,seamsealed and painted.If the entire thing were on the verge of falling apart nobody would even know,and this could be the case even with many of the very reputable body shops.Around my area,it is still common place for car restorers to braze 1/4 panels on with a torch,and to make structural repairs to a car by heating up and bending the frame of the car with a torch.Once brushed off and painted nobody will ever be able to tell the differance,but will the metal ever be the same?
As for backyard restorations,you will be lucky to find somebody who actually puts the effort out to go buy a welder and cutting tools.Half of the cars I see at cruise nights have floorpans,firewalls and fender aprons that were repaired with everything from pop rivets to adhesive glues.The scary part is that many of these cars were daily drivers with floors that had no more sturcture to them then was provided by the 3 layers of floor mats that covered the rust holes,and there are cheap skates out there who would rather remove one rear shock from their rotted out camaro then replace the punched out shock mount.That is how bad the state of affairs is on old cars in the northeast.So in reality anything done with a welder is better then the bailing wire and pop rivet fixes that are employed on the majority of vintage cars of true driver quality.
The fact of the matter is that clean old original cars are almost non existant in unrestored form.If you took a brand new Camaro back in 1969 and put it in the average notheast garage the day you bought it,after 35 years,it would have rot on it even if it never touched the road.Most base models were driven daily and either have major accident damage,or severe rust,or both.Most supercars were either burned for insurance money back in the 70's when gas prices got too high,or turned into race cars that were eventually cut up and tubbed and junked when their race car build became outdated.Very few people had the forthsight to stash these cars away,and most of the ones that turn up have some kind of tale of woe behind them like the owner died in 1972 or in combat or some other reason why a perfectly good bigblock muscle car wasnt being driven and beaten to death over the last 30 years.
Most supercars turn up in former race car condition{no useable sheetmetal from the firewall back},or as abandoned wrecks that were wrapped around a pole back in 1976 and the owner left under a tree in his back yard with the good intentions of fixing someday until the rust gremelins ate what was left of the car from the inside out.We now have to consider restoring these relics or just letting them vanish off the face of the earth.One side of the hobby feels that by ridding the world of all the rust buckets and cut up bigblock camaros the market will be higher for the remaining few.The other side of the market feels that if it can be saved it shoud be.These are two very different opinions on a the very core subject of our hobby.Either way,people should admire other people's cars for what they are,and limit their actions to their own vehicles.If you dont like the way a car was restored,then dont buy it.These are only cars,and the only people willing to pay 6 figure sums for them are people who have nothing better to do with 6 figures.If somebody wants to spend their retirement check on a pieced together heap with bogus parts,then that is their opinion.I know enough about the muscle car market to know what want and how much I feel it is worth and that is what I concern myself with.
Another thing to remember is that our beloved supercars were some of the most poorly built vehicles on the history of automobiles.I hate to say that,but it is true.In a discussion the other day with a fellow racer,I pondered at the fact that I started my car hobby back in 1988,and was into 1st and 2nd gen camaros at the time.My first camaro was a 1973 and I bought it in 1989.It had 2 1/4's put on it,the trunk floor was completley missing,the door jams had holes in them as did the lower door frame and the lower front fenders.While on a high school budget,I looked at many camaros,and all the affordable base model 1st gens had major rot issues,as did all the mid 2nd gens such as the many 75 and 76 camaros I knew of at that time.Almost all of the 50's iron I have even seen since the late 80's has been more solid then those camaros.Today I would have to search high and low for a 1984 camaro that even had a litle bit of actual rust holes in it,yet in 1989 I couldnt find 1 20 year old camaro even a base model 6 banger for a reasonable price that didnt have rust holes the size of footballs all over it.We have to remember what it is we are working with here.