Whether it’s cars, motorcycles or airplanes, enough dough can make anything like-new again. But if you have classic cars in your hangar (and I know a lot of you do—keep the pics coming, I love old stuff) you know that a restored ‘59 Vette won’t be a practical daily traveler. But classic airplanes can be, serving duty as the family ride to the vacation home, work meetings and fly-ins. Unimproved strip? Hot and heavy? There are plenty of classic airplanes that are up to the task if you are. But are they?
When we ran our field report on buying and owning classics and warbirds in the March 2020 Aviation Consumer, we got mail asking if it’s realistic to join the ranks of vintage aircraft ownership expecting new-Cirrus-like dispatch reliability. I used to think the answer was an affirmative no. Don’t even try. Really old airplanes are hangar queens. But while preparing this month’s used aircraft guide on the North American Navion, I changed my mind. The earliest Navions are old gals—70-something years—and account for the majority of the roughly 500 Navions still flying, plus some parked Navions that could fly again with a healthy dose of love, money and patience. And what else does it take to get a 70-something-year-old airplane in go-anywhere-now condition? I’m not necessarily talking about barn finds. This assumes you buy an airworthy bird. I’ve had my hands in enough classics to know that airworthy might be a relative term when talking 70-plus-year-old airplanes that are light on maintenance and paperwork. Can one ever be good as new?