Restoration students do wheel nice work on vintage rides

A few tense moments later, the 1916 Scripps-Booth Model D roared to life, allowing Toner, a 24-year-old auto restoration student from the Philadelphia suburb of Quakertown, to pull out of his spot and begin a triumphant circuit around the show grounds.

When Penn College revved up its vintage vehicle restoration major in 2012, it became one of just a handful of degree programs around the country teaching young people how to help refurbish and maintain North America's fleet of more than 10 million classic cars.

The multibillion-dollar industry recognizes the problem of its aging workforce and has been throwing money at training programs and scholarships.

McPherson College in Kansas, whose much larger program has been around for nearly 40 years and is the only school that offers a bachelor's degree in restoration, also reports increased student interest.

"There are jobs everywhere, because people are retiring," said Diane Fitzgerald, national director of the Hagerty Education Program at America's Car Museum in Tacoma, Washington, which has provided $2.7 million in training and scholarship money since 2005.

[...] on the last day of class, they got the engine to fire for the first time in more than 50 years.

Weeks later, the newly road-worthy Scripps took its place at The Elegance, where 74 of the world's finest automobiles — from the 1964 Aston Martin driven by James Bond in "Goldfinger" to a mammoth 1949 Daimler DE36 drophead coupe that won Best in Show — went on display and drew throngs of auto enthusiasts.