“About 12 to 18 months, I started feeling more tired, losing weight,” Steve Schweitzer told Autobody News. It turned out to be cancer in the lymph nodes of his throat and neck. Schweitzer has 43 years in the work, as both body man and owner, mechanic and custom restorer.
Steve Schweitzer.
“An old-school master tech,” he said, Schweitzer is now restoring high-end cars in northwest Arkansas. The shop is Retro-Muscle Automotive, 7,000 rented square feet in Van Buren. A side hustle, Steve’s Parts, keeps $2 million in vintage parts inventory, though the cars are crushed out and gone, along with a second 1,600-square-foot shop, which he owns. He’s had the parts seller about 15 years, and his latest body shop in town for about four.
We’re telling you about the shop before saying something else about the cancer because that’s what Steve’s at: body shop work. He’s selling on the web from his parts stockpile and the shop’s reputation continues to grow, from a Fort Smith metro base.
“It’s Pebble Beach [Concours d’Elegance] quality,” he said. “Very few in this niche can do it the right way; we have a great reputation.”
Projects as the “c-word” sunk in have been largely ‘70s-era muscle cars and other desirables, including a ’71 Dodge Challenger convertible he took from crashed hull to nationals’ competitive.
At age 60, he’s been married 32 years. Two kids grown, one teen still in the home. None want to own the shop.
And in that shop, it’s just him.
‘I’m Not Dying’
“I’m not dying,” Schweitzer said. “The tumor is shrinking, the cancer is pulling back, but it’s a slow process.” In a later email he repeated the one-day-at-a-time mode not uncommon in people with cancer. “I’m regaining my health, working as much as I can.”
Schweitzer’s focusing on “therapies that let me keep working,” including methods he called innovative and alternative: “high-dose Vitamin C, black seed oil, colostrum [and ones to] supercharge the immune system,” including the dietary changes — no more sugar — “pushing through the cancer and taking care of it.”
The hood of a 1970 Roadrunner with a factory Hemi, currently being restored, after Schweitzer sprayed clearcoat.
His work is all high-end restoration of classics.
“Just finished a ’77 Bronco,” he said, “not a custom, but total restoration; totally new car.” A current complete resto is “a ’70 model Roadrunner, factory Hemi, one-of-one, with documentation and provenance.” The "Mopar Collectors Guide" is keeping an eye on that one, he said, and he’s tracking the work on the shop’s social media.
A few months back, Schweitzer was at the Mopar Nationals with 50,000 of his closest friends and cars “in the high six-figures, with the same quality as what we’re doing.”
“High-end car owners are the pickiest people on the planet and I don’t blame them,” he said. “You have to have impeccable quality.” He figures it might be the ticket to ongoing operations even through illness.
“I’ve got the tools, the knowledge, the clientele,” Schweitzer said, “might just do one or two cars at a time.”
“I plan for my shop to be a world-class, well-known shop, and it will be as soon as I get one of these high end cars to a national judged show.”
He’s Not Selling, Either
He doesn’t want to, and said he can keep flying solo.
Schweitzer might sell someday. This ain’t that day.
If he did sell the shop in town it’d be assets only, not the business.
“I’ll keep working before dumping it for nothing.” An auction means a dime to a dollar. “I’m not going to do that.”
“Good landlord, good pricing, youthful equipment,” Schweitzer said, seeing a sweet spot for an old school body man in custom or restoration work, someone like himself, coveting beauty to do all that in, like maybe the Ozarks.
Though it could work for just collision. A social media post noting possible availability listed a full megillah of “licenses, insurance, permits, fire-suppression” with, it said, top-line paint, lift, and frame equipment. Landlord is on board, he said, for a new lease, and Schweitzer called his rent “very reasonable.”
So he’s putting in the time, raising cars to coast-to-coast quality. A friend helps with sanding when needed.
“It’s an awesome shop. We do really nice work.”
Paul Hughes