Getting out of the military can be more difficult than you might expect. It turns out that there aren’t as many headhunters handing out cushy six-figure jobs at your base’s front gate as the Transition Assistance Program counselors might have you believe. Sometimes, veterans land on their feet and slide right into a great job before their terminal leave paychecks run out. Other times, life delivers a swift kick in the teeth.
Stuart Wilson, founder of car restoration shop Velocity Restorations, knows something about that. Back in 2010, he rolled up his garage door to see the only thing he had left to his name: an unfinished Bahama blue 1976 Ford Bronco. Fortunately, he also had grit, a vision and a work ethic forged deep beneath the waves with the U.S. Navy.
We caught up with Wilson on a phone call to get the whole story from the man himself.
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Nothing but High-Stress Builds
Before Wilson ever turned a wrench on his ’76 Bronco, he was a nuclear machinist’s mate aboard a ballistic missile submarine responsible for the submarine’s entire propulsion system -- engines, turbines, valves, steam systems, the whole nine yards. He also had a machine shop where he could repair broken components or even fabricate new ones from scratch.
Nuclear submarines are about as high tech as military assets get, but they still have problems. When they break, the stakes are a lot higher than changing a tire or calling a tow truck. Once, Wilson was at sea when the submarine suffered an emergency oxygen generator failure. He was one of two crew members capable of fixing it.
“Ultimately, a buddy and I pulled back-to-back shifts machining where, basically for 102 hours, we did not sleep,” he said. “It was just slightly over four days. We had maybe two, three hours of sleep over this four-day period. And, you know, it seems crazy, seems like you can't do it, but you can make yourself do things that you can never imagine.”
That know-how and determination kept operations humming along instead of descending into catastrophe.
When Wilson got sent to a small-town recruiting office for his shore duty, he needed somewhere to channel all that drive. He started building houses and got to the point where he could do it in 90 days and churn out 25-30 houses a year -- all while keeping up with his Navy responsibilities.
With the extra income from his homebuilding business, Wilson helped himself to a hunting lease in rural Georgia and -- yep -- that old Bronco to use as a hunting truck. He paid just $4,500 for it (I know, it kind of makes me sick, too, considering what we’d have to pay for a first-generation Bronco today).
As anyone who’s wrenched on their own cars knows, that led to a few twists and turns.
“I went down to Destin [in Florida] one weekend, picked up the Bronco, brought the Bronco back to Georgia, drove it around that night,” he said. “Next morning, I came out, there's a massive puddle of oil underneath the truck. Sort of like, ‘OK, cool, the valve cover's leaking.’ You know? Hey, let's take the cover bolts out; check the seal. While I was doing that, I broke the valve cover bolt off. All right, now I need to tap it. I broke the tap in the head. Let's take the head off; I need to take the head somewhere. Broke the head bolt.”
That oil leak in the driveway turned into a 3½-year frame-off restoration. Funny how these things work.
An Old Bronco and a New Beginning
All that brings us back to Wilson standing in his driveway -- his Navy career behind him, the unfinished Bronco in front of him.
Shortly after he separated from the Navy, Wilson went through a divorce. He had shoulder surgery. The 2008 housing crisis had cratered demand for new homes, and his homebuilding business was in the rearview mirror. The man needed purpose.
“There's a Navy admiral video out there where the guy says, ‘Hey, in the Navy, every day you start with the first task of the day is just making your bed,’” Wilson said. “You can make yourself do anything.”
“So that's sort of the same thing, like, ‘Alright, hey, I'm out in the Navy. I'm going through a divorce. I'm broke. I lost my house; you know, I lost all this stuff.’ What can I do? I can pick up the pieces. I can get this project done. I know I can take that money and I can turn it into something else.”
For the next several months, finishing the Bronco with his own hands was Wilson’s sole focus.
“Once it looked complete, I sold that truck for $21,000,” he said. “Used that $21,000 to buy another Bronco for $18,000. Sold that truck and -- 700 vehicles later -- here we are.”
Step Inside Velocity Restorations’ State-of-the-Art Facility
Here we are indeed. Wilson’s Velocity Restorations now occupies a sprawling 135,000-square-foot facility full of 140 master craftsmen in Florida.
The company still builds restomod (a combination of restoration and modern modifications) Broncos, but they’ve added the Ford F-100, F-250 and Mustang to the lineup. Wilson expanded into Chevrolet’s back catalog with the C10, K10 and K5 Blazer. He’ll even build you an International Scout.
And when I say he builds them, I don’t mean that he gets them running and slaps on a coat of paint. These vehicles are immaculate. Every nut and bolt, every line of code in the engine’s fuel mapping is scrutinized to make sure it’s absolutely perfect. Velocity Restorations arranges for finished vehicles to be delivered to the client’s driveway and backs up each vehicle with a two-year warranty.
Here, see for yourself:
“We're building on four assembly lines,” Wilson said. “I plan to scale those four assembly lines to 400 vehicles a year. And then we've got some alternative plans … like late-model vehicles that we're gonna probably try to bring to market here in the next 18-24 months.”
The company is growing and, in some ways, still innovating.
“We did develop an electric Bronco,” he said. “We put several thousand miles on it. We sort of have that in our pocket if we do ever have to go that route. Our current client is not interested in it, but we do have the ability to switch to that if that becomes an action item that we need to take.”
In other ways, Velocity Restorations still exists because skilled people are working with their hands to create things that never go out of style. Even the automakers have taken notice.
“You see some of the paint schemes that are coming out, like it really feels like the manufacturers are seeing that their designs from the late ’60s to late ’70s have really struck an iconic sort of chord in the market,” Wilson said. “People are going back to that simpler, more square body, two-tone paint, a lot of stripes -- things like that, that you actually saw in the ’70s.”
Based on the prices of these Velocity Restoration vehicles, I’d say they struck one hell of a chord with customers, too.
Take a look at the company’s current inventory. At the time of writing, there’s a bargain-basement 1974 Ford Bronco for the modest price of $139,999. Prices go all the way up to $436,400 for a 1971 Chevy Blazer.
The crazy thing is, I think they’re worth it.
What’s Your Story Going to Be?
Velocity Restorations is one of the great success stories. It reminds us that we’re not out of the fight until we decide to quit.
Wilson’s advice? “Don't say you can't do it,” he said. “You can do it; you just have to get started. You're not gonna finish anything that you don't start.”
Maybe building incredible dream machines is in your future, too. A trip to your installation’s hobby shop and some basic tools could be just the kick in the pants you need. Maybe you’re on a different path. Either way, you might as well get the wheels turning now.
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