There are only 10 “Swiss Cheese” 1963 Pontiac Catalinas in the world, and one is currently being restored at a local Portland business.

It’s just a normal day at work restoring a $500,000 racing machine for Scott Tiemann.

BIOGRAPHY

He started working on cars growing up, and hasn’t looked in the rearview mirror since. Now, Supercar Specialties Automotive Restoration is known across the country.

hotrod.com recently called the business “one of the finest muscle cars restoration shops in the country.” But Tiemann remains humble and said it takes a lot of time and discipline to restore a classic automobile.

“It’s pretty neat to be known for good work,” Tiemann said. “It’s an honor to work on these cars and we get to meet some neat people.”

In 1989, he was able to quit his job at a Portland plant and take his love of restoring muscle cars into a full-time career. It happened when he restored a Pontiac GTO and others saw his work. Soon, other car enthusiasts were asking him to restore rare and valuable automobiles. Pontiacs were always his favorite.

“The key is painstaking attention to detail,” Tiemann said. “There are no shortcuts when you’re working on a car like this.”

Tiemann has never had to advertise for work, because the classic car community has a good communication network coast to coast. He mostly works on American “muscle cars” produced between the early 1960s to the 1970s, and sometimes he works on older “hot rod” type cars.

“It seems all the weird, super-rare stuff comes our way,” Tiemann said with a smile. “There have been too many special cars to only name a few of my favorites.”

Restoring a classic car can be expensive. It can take between 700 to 1,700 hours to finish a job, making the total labor cost rise up to $100,000, according to Tiemann. Specialty parts are also expensive.

He estimates he’s restored approximately 250 cars. Normally his crew of five employees are working on several cars at a time. While Tiemann is self-taught, some of his crew have formal training. It takes six months to one year to restore one of these showpieces of automobile history.

In fact, three cars he restored are currently at the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners. The museum’s mission statement is to collect, preserve, exhibit and interpret the history of transportation in America.

So, what’s it like living every car lovers dream? Tiemann knows that he does for a living what many people would like to do as a hobby.

“It’s great being able to make a living in your backyard,” Tiemann said. “I do something that I love. At the end of the day how many people get to say that?”

Scott is very active in the Pontiac community and almost always hosts seminars at the National Pontiac and GTO conventions.

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