Reading Bill's post - Good luck with the '59 - I was reminded of another good way to endear yourself to shops when you need to get work done on your Imperial. Be able to provide them with a place where you know parts for your car's problem can be obtained. One thing that makes shops leery of taking on your car is the idea that they don't know where to get parts for it and they don't want to spend a whole lot of time finding out. Another is that there is unlikely to be any profit in the acquisition of the parts. As I'm sure you know, the price we as customers pay for parts and the price shops buy them at are substantially different. However, this rarely applies when they have to get the parts long distance from a specialist supplier. The loss of this profit margin makes working on these cars even more unattractive, not to mention the time it will take to find who has the parts and the time it will take to get them. I am lucky in that there is an old time shop near me that has a large inner grassed over parking / storage area. On several occasions, the owner has taken in a car, found out what was wrong and then moved it to this area while I get a shopping list. I then get the needed parts, sometimes using UPS, and bring them to him. The shop's ability to store the car easily in a disassembled state takes the sting out of having it hog up one of his precious bays. This guy never advertises, mainly because he doesn't have to. He does excellent work and employs real mechanics who know how to use manuals. I am even luckier in that I have a friend who is an emergency truck repair mechanic. He specializes in eighteen wheelers and the like. He is on call 24 / 7, as the expression goes. He is the guy you see on the side of the road, doing everything he can to get the truck moving again. He is busier than a one legged man in a butt kicking contest and he is able to get parts at amazing prices. I am perennially broke, not to mention cheap, but he is able to get parts for me at amazing prices. I just replaced the four brake pads and the two rotors on my '92 Chrysler. The rotors were only $11.00 each and the pads came to $17.00, total. So my total cost for parts was less than $40.00. I have not checked into what it would have cost over the counter, let alone from a brake shop. At $40, who needs to. The easier you can make it for a shop to work on your Imperial, the more likely it is that they will be willing to take on the job when you cannot do it yourself. I was able to give the company that is working on the engine of my '58 Imperial a list of places to get parts for the car. That list took me several years to compile, but it serves me well. You have to make working on your Imperial seem like an attractive proposition. Hugh