hi

there is alot of great advice here

there are a couple of things that should be taken into consideration, and i have had personal dealings with just about all of the shops listed here and feel they are good shops.

1- i know our cars are all labor of love and usually have some degree of sentimental value (especially yours being that your the original owner), but there has to be some kind of $$ ceiling that your willing to invest in your resto work.
the problem that i have found is that most shops wont give you a ceiling price, in their own defense they say "we dont know what were getting into" that only holds water if the car has areas of unknowns such as rust, prior work covering mistakes, etc. so if nothing else try to get a worst case scenario price quote. they must have some kind of idea as this isnt their first go around + its hard to turn back once your 1/2 way thru the resto + out of funds.

another aspect in ref to pricing, there should be a cap on payments per aspect ie:
when the car is stripped $$ not to exceed,
when the car is in prime $$ not to exceed,
when the car is painted $$ not to exceed,
etc etc,

that way even if you do have a ceiling it wont be reached when the car is only 1/2 done (that happened to me once)

-- i also think its a great idea to be able to visit the shop at least once a month, or get very well detailed pictures, but being there in person is the way to go

--also, you mention you want it to be like when you picked the car up,
thats going to require alot of parts hunting and chasing, because repro parts werent on your car when it was made,
so either your car has to be a great survivior, which takes care of the parts chasing but then you probably wouldnt need to restore it, or hopefully its very original and you have the orginal parts for reference.
or you can go the year one route + make life easy.

another issue to address is that most resto shops can do beautiful work, but how many of them really know about the correctness of every nut, bolt, clip, widget, etc as far as whats correct or not. because if they dont know, then your resto wont be correct. you have to know what you want and so does your resto shop, so spend alot of time in the survivior tent with a digital camera for reference points

but, you should start gathering for whatever original parts you need now, because parts come and go, but youll always be able to get the labor done.

ive been parts gathering for 4+ years for my next resto + still have a few to get.

also ask for a time frame, not to rush the shop, but so you know what to expect.

good luck + keep us posted

tony