How the Modern Classic Cars Foundation is addressing the classic car skills shortage

As the automotive industry looks to include more technology and computer-controlled systems in cars than ever before, the nature of mechanics’ jobs is changing. As a result, the skills required to work on old cars are at risk of dying out, although one Sydney-based charity is looking to change that.

Originally created as a resto-modding business mainly working on MGs, the Modern Classic Cars Foundation was reestablished as a charity in February 2025 with the mission of training young people with the skills required across various trades to ensure the future of the Veteran, Classic, Hot Rod, and Muscle Car industries.

The foundation’s founder David Dyer told Retro Rides that he saw this issue firsthand over the past 10 years since he launched the original business.

“It started as a ‘cottage industry’ for myself to just do the odd car here and there, but it grew to the stage of employing 10 people, we have our own paint and panel shop, and we could sort of do everything,” David explains.

Modern Classic Cars originally started out as a resto-modding business primarily focused on MGs before transforming into a foundation in early 2025 (Image: Modern Classic Cars Foundation)

“But it was obvious that there was a huge problem for ourselves getting staff… the industry was dying. Everyone I spoke to or anyone who did work for us were all in their 60s or 70s, and very few of them had any young people working for them.

“The training today is set up for training apprentices to work on the cars of today, and that makes perfect sense – there’s not a lot of value in getting young people to learn how to tune triple Weber carburettor setups. But it also means paint and panel apprentices aren’t being taught how to do rust repairs anymore because cars don’t rust. Even timber veneer, since cars don’t have that in them now… those skills are just disappearing.”

Those skills that the Modern Classic Cars Foundation seeks to help preserve and teach to the next generation include anything required for cars that are currently eligible for the classic plate scheme in New South Wales or Victoria, meaning any vehicles from across the 20th Century. This means anything from working with carburettors to magnetos, timber-work to engine machining, and really “the whole gamut” as David puts it.

However, it was when David started reaching out to everyone from government ministers to training organisations and other businesses about the problem that the penny dropped that he’d need to be the one to do something about it. 

“Everyone agreed there was a problem, but nothing was being done about it. So then I decided about three months ago that we had the perfect setup [at Modern Classic Cars] to do the training ourselves, so we converted the business into a foundation,” he says.

The foundation is currently in the process of taking its first 10 apprentices on board at its Sydney workshop, while also hoping to roll out the scheme with the help of businesses in other major Australian cities (Image: Modern Classic Cars Foundation)

“The market [for classic car maintenance and restoration] is surprisingly pretty equal Australia-wide. Obviously, it’s bigger in Sydney and Melbourne as the two largest cities, but we’re hearing the same stories everywhere from Tasmania to Townsville and Western Australia.”

Currently, the foundation is in the process of interviewing apprentices ahead of taking the first 10 on board in Sydney over the coming weeks as at the time of writing. Four of those chosen apprentices will be mechanics, two doing paint and panel work, two vehicle trimmers, one auto electrician, and one engine machinist.

“The plan is to train them in a variety of skills that gets them to a stage where they’re not costing another company money in training them up,” says David.

From there, the plan is to get the number of apprentices based in the foundation’s own Sydney workshop up to 15, before hopefully “copy and pasting the system around the country”. David says the foundation is already in talks with relevant businesses in Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth, while also actively seeking interested businesses to partner with in other states.

Anyone interested in getting involved as an apprentice, partner business, skills trainer, or even a vehicle or parts donor can find more information on the Modern Classic Cars Foundation website.

While the automotive skills shortage may seem to relate most to mechanical work, even finding skilled vehicle trimmers is becoming harder (Image: Modern Classic Cars Foundation)