About Us

Wife Said No

About Us/Our Story

What’s in a name? The Wife Said No (Car Mods & Restos) was started out of necessity—or at
least that’s what I tell myself. The wife said—not so much. Yet, she tends to say yes more than
she admits.

How It Started

It all began with a trip to Mecum Auctions in 2015. This is where I
convinced the wife to wander and look and maybe pick up a classic car. She was game. I had
given up the Harley, but we (I) still wanted something loud and obnoxious to annoy the
neighbors with every Saturday morning. The hope was to find a Dodge—maybe an old
Challenger to take home and cruise around in on the weekends.
On day one the wife and I roamed and didn’t really find anything I had my heart set on. The
following day, I went back with my son—because, well—the wife said no to a second day of
exhaust fumes and beer. The boy was a little more enthused because he was in high school and
had high hopes of driving something cool with a freshly printed driver’s license.
That day we strolled and meandered. Yes, the boy meanders. He pulled me over to a ’69 Chevrolet Chevelle—a dark blue. It wasn’t a Dodge, but it was pretty. He coaxed me to bid on it. So, we took
seats and built up the nerve to raise a hand. Long story short, I texted the wife and told her we
were the new owners of a 1969 Chevy Chevelle

This was a father/son experience I hadn’t
planned for but pretty cool.
From there, the wife decided what was good for the goose was good for the gander and sought
out a ’32 Ford Coupe. She NEEDED a grocery getter. The 32 is a full story of its own. With the
purchase of the coupe, and still no Dodge to look at, I decided I needed to devise a plan to
justify a car habit—I mean hobby.
So, I told the wife we needed a business name so I could figure out how to make some money
while tinkering. I asked her to come up with a company name—more than once. She put it off
and I would ask again. Until finally, one day I asked, and she said she had. I prodded her to spill
it already. She in her matter of fact way said ‘The Wife Said No.’ I stood there because I wasn’t
sure if she was joking. Clearly, she wasn’t.
The following year we bought the 1970 Challenger.

We began running out of room to store
everything. Then one day, to my surprise, the wife said we should add a lift to the third bay of
the garage. I told her it wouldn’t fit for several different reasons. But here’s the thing—if she is
anything, it is a problem solver. She showed me how we could modify the door and squeeze it
in. One lift turned into to which turning into buying a garage condo.

As they say, the rest is history. We have bought and fixed and modified and sold a few rides
over the years. But I’m not in it for the money.

Not Your Traditional Car Enthusiast or Car Mod Business

Our crew marches to the beat of a different drum. I am not a car show camper. Not that there
is anything wrong with that. I enjoy driving to the weekend shows, cruising in find a spot and
parking. But I don’t sit around waiting for people to come up and ask me about my cars. I like to
walk around and look. See what others are doing—get ideas for solving some design flaw or
mechanical issue.
I am also not a strict originalist. You know, make the car look like it did on the showroom floor
back in 1950. I lean more toward the Ian Roussel or Bad Chad style. I want to see something I
have never seen before. I want to see, and I appreciate, original but I am more of the ‘one off’
type of guy.
Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing the beauty of the rare six or seven figure full restorations. But
I look at those cars and think to myself—you could never drive it. You take that car out once or
twice a year and limit it to a showroom or car show. What’s the fun in that? I want to drive
them and enjoy them without the fear of someone ramming into me while they text and drive.

Car Mods and Restorations

We don’t have a traditional car mod and restoration business. Meaning, I don’t do work on cars
I don’t own. The boy and I will scour the earth for a project car that has interest and potential.
We talk about it and then scheme on how we can get the wife (his mom) to say YES. She is our
money machine—or at least the one in charge of the purse strings. Somehow, she is always at
the ready with cash when we ask. She is what we call our (mostly) silent investor.
We look for cars that can be driven and enjoyed. Something WE want to drive. Then I tinker.
Some projects are a quick fix, drive, flip. Others, well—let’s just say there are a few classics
sitting in the garage or on the lift that have been stripped down and slow to put back together.
The son’s Toyota Supra would be one. We fully intended him to entry Young Guns at SEMA with
that one—but Covid hit and well, that was that.
I pick classic cars that I think I would enjoy cruising and then once the kinks are worked out, I
sell. Perhaps, this isn’t the brightest business model, but the business is about making me
happy and keeping me out of the wife’s hair—and business is good.