So you’ve decided that you want a project car. Great! Welcome to the expensive world of working on cars!

Now that you’ve started down this road, there’s one very important decision that you need to make: What car do you want to work on?

For some people, this is a simple question to answer. They’ve been dreaming about their ideal car since they were old enough to know what cars were and how awesome they are. Some know that they want a certain type of car, but aren’t sure which make or model they want. For others, though, choosing the right car for your project is tough decision that requires careful thought and deliberation.

To make your decision-making go a little bit more smoothly, I’ve put together a few tips on how to choose the right car for you.

Budget

One of the most universal aspects of working on cars is that its expensive. Tools and parts all cost money, and it can seem like the need to buy them is never-ending. This doesn’t mean you have to spend every penny on your new awesome hobby, it just means that you’ll have to decide ahead of time just how much money you’re willing to spend on it.

You can choose just about any number for your budget (though I would advise against $0, since that’s not really an option in the world of cars). This will dictate, to an extent, what cars are available to you and what condition they’ll be in. The lower the number, the fewer options you’ll have and, most likely, the worse shape they’ll be in.

Don’t fret, though. This isn’t a bad thing, fewer options is often better when you’re trying to make a decision and you can’t underestimate how much you’ll love a car after you’ve poured your blood, sweat, and tears into it, even if it wasn’t your first choice when you bought it.

Effort

The next choice you’re going to have to make is how much effort you’re willing to put in. This can have an enormous impact on your budget. If you’re not willing to rebuild and entire car from the ground up or learn how to patch body panels, you’ll probably want to invest a little bit more up front so that you can avoid it.

Just remember, the whole point of buying a project car is to work on it, so you’ll have to put some effort into it.

What’s your plan?

Now that you have an idea of how much work you want to put into this project and how much you have to spend on it, you need to decide what you’re going to do with it. You have several options to choose from, and the best part is you can combine them together! Are you looking to race your car? Build a show car? Cruise around in it? Restore it to its original glory?

Race cars

There are a lot of different types of racing: drag, touring, rally, autocross, rallycross, time trials, spec racing, drifting, hill climb… the list goes on. If you want to build a race car (or a car that an also race) you’ll need to choose what kind of racing you’re interested in. That way, you’ll be able to build your car so that it will be able to perform under those racing conditions.

Show cars

These are generally meant to be parked and admired. Extra points for a show car that you can actually drive to the show or meet. Often, a show car is also a cruiser, given that its both capable and legal to drive on the road. Show cars can also be subject to sponsorships, if you build the right kind of car.

Show car types are extremely variable, and there are an almost infinite number of car subcultures that you can be a part of and show with—more than I could realistically list here.

Just as an example though, you could restore an American Muscle car, build a ‘stanced’ European or Asian import, or put together a custom build.

Restoration

Restoring a vehicle can either the be the simplest or the most labor-intesive process, depending on what you start with. Depending on the condition of the car, sometimes its just easier to modify a car rather than restore it.

Regardless of what you have to begin with, though, this can be an extremely fulfilling process—taking a car that has seen better days and bringing it back to its original, showroom floor glory.

Restorations are extremely popular with cars ranging from the 1950’s all the way through the 70’s. Some restorations bring the cars back to showroom stock—equipping the car exactly as it would have been at the dealership, imperfections and all. Others make minor improvements to handling, drivability, and passenger comfort as a way to improve the overall enjoyability of the car since their car is used for cruising on nights and weekends. It all depends on the owner’s preferences. And any and all versions of restored vehicles are welcome at weekend car shows.

Type, Style, & Age

With all of that out of the way, you can now narrow your choice down to a type of vehicle.

One thing to keep in mind is that the older the vehicle, the more difficult parts may be to find, which translates into more expensive parts. There are some caveats to this, though. A wide variety of muscle cars from the 60’s and 70’s have been consistently popular throughout the last couple of decades, so there is a lot of aftermarket support for these cars, especially cars built by the Big Three. Pretty much everything else, though, is going to increase in cost as its age increases.

Part of the age equation, though, goes hand in hand with the style of the car. Luckily for us, just about each decade has had it’s own unique styling. You can safely choose a decade to pick your car from and you can be fairly certain that any car you choose will have about the same style to it.

You’ll also need to choose what type of car you’re looking for. And there are a lot to choose from: 2-door, 4-door, coupe, sedan, wagon, utility, sport utility, truck, 2 wheel drive, 4 wheel drive, front wheel drive, rear wheel drive, front engine, rear engine, mid engine, domestic, European import, Asian import, and many, many more. All you have to do is pick your poison.

Which one you choose depends completely on your personal preference, combined with what you want to do with the car.

Choosing the car

You’ve figure out what your budget is, how much labor you’re willing to put in, decided how you want to use the car, and you know what type of car and how old you want it to be. You’re in the home stretch!

Phew!

Now you just need to choose the car itself.

Your choices should be narrowed down by now to only a handful of candidates. With the rest of your decisions made, you can see which cars fit your requirements the closest. Of course, you can always just pick the one you like the best. The choice is ultimately yours.