Chandler remains humble through classic car restorations, awards

By Willis Patenaude, Times-Register

In 1968, Tom Chandler moved to Elkader to take over as the high school band director, bringing with him a pregnant wife, Barbara, on what was supposed to be a five-year stay before the couple moved on. 

But Elkader had other plans. It offered culture, friendly people, a closeness to family residing in the area and a place to raise the blossoming family. After awhile, Tom immersed himself in the local landscape, taking part in the opera house and community theatre, and falling in love with their home, the open space and the river. Even though opportunities to leave arose, the positives of Elkader always outweighed the negatives. 

“The grass was never truly greener on the other side,” Tom remarked. 

But Tom also brought something else when he moved in 1968, and Elkader offered the perfect place to pursue a passion that’s stayed with him since as far back as 1955, when he built a push car with his two brothers, Bill and Darryl. It was at this moment when Tom developed an interest in restoring cars. 

The interest slowly progressed into a full-fledged passion around 1960, when his brother Bill brought home a 1948 Austin that needed a plethora of repairs—repairs the brothers did on the living room floor of their house. 

“We were never a moneyed people. So anything that needed to be repaired, we did it ourselves,” Tom said. 

This is a philosophy Tom learned working in his father’s Coast to Coast store in Cresco in the late 1950s, when he and his brothers worked in the bicycle repair section of the store. The brothers also repaired small engines and helped install AC units and space heaters. Tom enjoyed the work, the hands on process and seeing the finished product. 

As for why this passion centered on lightweight pots cars, that story started when Tom was a senior in high school, after he bought a used Mini and was invited to a sports car race to compete against a Corvette in the woods of Waterloo. Tom paid the $3 entry fee and won, and the fascination has never ended. 

What makes Tom different from other people who restore classic cars are the types of cars he looks for: the unusual cars or the ones no one else is interested in. Of course, they also have to be affordable, which is a holdover from his youth. Tom is not going to break the bank to purchase a car, regardless of how much he wants it. 

Then there is the fact that a majority of people who restore classic cars actually outsource the actual restoration, whereas Tom does all the repair work himself. The only thing Tom doesn’t do, on occasion, is the painting. Otherwise, the entire restoration and fabrication of parts takes place inside Tom’s garage, usually with the help of family and friends. 

It was inside that garage where Tom restored a 1953 British Singer, described as a “cute, frumpy car.” It was the very first restoration done in Elkader. Inside the garage also sits a car no one else was interested in or cared about at the time, a 1939 Cabriolet, a German BMW sports car. 

He purchased for significantly less that the $150,000 to $400,000 it’s worth today, but the money is of little interest to Tom, which is another unique feature of his passion. He rarely sells any of the cars he restores because he doesn’t do it for the money. It is truly a passion.  

“I like them. It’s not a business. I don’t do it for financial gain,” he said. 

The typical restoration lasts about two to three years, depending on side projects, distractions, level of repairs and whatever else life can throw at him. 

The hardest part has never been the time, though, but the painting. It’s the one area where many things can go wrong and there is an extensive amount of cleaning and preparation involved prior to painting. Then there is the sewing and upholstery work, the details, the seams and getting the proper fit. Sometimes it’s the mechanical side of the restoration—the diverse parts and locating or fabricating them. 

However, when all that work is done, Tom enjoys the other side of the restoration, the fun side, when he gets to drive the cars, look at them and share them with people at car shows or by just driving the cars through towns. 

Being a classic car restorer allows him to be a member of smaller communities and groups, to socialize with like-minded people and create friendships. But truthfully, it’s all about the smiles on people’s faces when they see a car. 

“I like to share the enjoyment with people. There is something about other people seeing it for the first time after it’s completed. The sense of accomplishment,” Tom said. 

Recently, Tom finished an eight-year restoration of a 1953 Maverick Sportster, an extremely rare car designed by Sterling Gladwin as a “dream car.” In total, Gladwin only made seven, and the location of four of them is unknown. This particular car was restored in partnership with Geoff Hacker and is not the traditional lightweight sports car Tom usually restores, so his initial reaction to the project was “It’s big!” 

However, the history of the car was intriguing enough, so, in 2013, the restoration started. 

The car needed to be dissembled and shaped, have fiberglass fabricated, woodwork done and a new style of bumpers added to accentuate and feature the grill, rather than hide it. 

Along the way, diversions sidetracked the rebuild, from fixing up a Willys Station Wagon for his daughter Kate to helping his brother with a Datsun. Theatre projects, car shows and the amount of parts needed to restore the Maverick added to the delay, but eventually, with some help from friend Del Reimer and painter Bob Bodish, as well as family, the entire restoration was completed—sort of. 

After all the meticulous work on headlights, windshields and trim, the car revealed some other issues during its first ride. The exhaust system required fixing and the ride height needed to be adjusted. 

After that came the awards, something Tom enjoys but doesn’t need. On May 23, the car won for the “Best Restoration by an Owner” at the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance in Florida. Then, in June, at Cincinnati Concours d’Elegance, which takes place in the iconic Ault Park, the Maverick won the “Chief Judges Award.” 

The car is also scheduled to be shown in September in Des Moines, and is in preliminary talks to be featured at the prestigious Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in 2022.

While he waits for future showings on the Maverick, Tom has already moved on to his next restoration, a very rare 1937 Aero sports car which was built in Czechoslovakia. It needs just about everything done to it, including mechanical work, but all the information Tom can find about the car is written in Czech.

None of this will deter the passion, however. As Tom always says, “If you don’t start something, you can’t get anything done.”