During the past eight years I’ve done about an 80 percent restoration on my 1962 Thunderbird convertible. It’s been a real labor of love. In that same time, I’ve also been restoring something that’s equally near and dear to my heart: Me. I guess you could say that project is about 80 percent complete, too.

Not that long ago, both of these beautiful machines took a real beating, broke down and pretty much stopped working altogether. My T-bird and I are oddly similar; we’re both bo...