These are just my opinions and observations.
Both Kirk and John are great gentelmen and they both seem to operate well run businesses and I found both to be very easy to talk to.
Vintage is clearly a larger operation and seemed to be setup better for "production". This can be seen in the organization and fairly tiddy shop. Kirk was very busy but took the time to show me around and answer my questions and to educate. I liked the fact that Vintage replaces all the panels in the floor pans. I was not that impressed with what I read as a common complaint with Vintage was the paint jobs. I think they could use a little more finish sanding and perhaps another coat of paint. Overall I think Kirk produces a good product at a good price.
JPS appeared to be more of a hotrod shop that has found itself making Speedsters. John seems to be very flexible and will "do whatever you desire". While his shop had less of a "production" feel and more of a less tidy old autoshop vibe. His cars seem to be works of art. He freely admits that he gets his bodies from Kirk. John's paint from what I saw is superior to that of Vintage. He described the process and I saw a couple of finished cars that were very nice paint jobs. I don't think JPS takes the time to refresh the Pans as nice as vintage does however and John will only replace the floor pans if they are rusted. He stated that the older German steel is much higher quality than the new steel, which may be true. I don't know, but what I do know is I liked the way Vintage had the pan nicely painted and sharp.
I took some digital pictures of both places but JPS is so much smaller I didn't have a lot to take pictures of. At JPS they were building a speedster and I got to see how they put on the dash and they also had a sharp silver Speedster in for it's 100 mile "tighten everything" check up. I arrived at Vintage around lunch time so most of the workers were out of the shop.
I have posted pictures in the file area under two folders.
Vintage Tour
JPS Tour
James Abella
