Academy of Art University in San Francisco just launched its Automotive Restoration program, which teaches students traditional restoration techniques

Tom Matano, who heads Academy of Art’s auto design programs created the legendary Miata and held executive design positions at Mazda, GM and BMW.

Mr. Matano has almost 30 years of experience in the automotive industry, holding design positions at General Motors in Detroit, Michigan, GM Holden’s Ltd. in Melbourne, Australia, and BMW in Munich, Germany. In 1983, he joined Mazda’s North American studio as a Chief Designer.
The Academy of Art University has been there, to enable students to create since 1929.

The industry demand  has alerted colleges to the need for entry level college grad restorers with the skills, historical knowledge, and research ability required for replicating historically authentic classic cars.

Vehicle restoration requires parts to be repaired or reproduced because many cannot be purchased, so training in hands-on skills and machining or repairing parts in historically accurate authentic appearance.

The vintage Automotive Restoration program prepares students for a career in a preservation field by focusing on techniques in woodwork and machine work, sheet metal work, upholstery work, systems knowledge, and process of disassembly and assembly, coupled with historical studies and research skills needed to restore vintage vehicles.

 Our students will receive training on how to evaluate a component and determine if it must be fabricated or if it can be repaired.

 The School of Industrial Design has the facilities and a Automobile Museum where a significant number of cars have already been fully restored to the highest standard where students can closely examine and work on many aesthetically remarkable examples, and is now ranked #4 in the Red Dot World Ranking of Industrial Design schools.

Students will gain hands-on skills in making accurate technical drawings; duplicating automotive woodwork; repairing, replicating, and sculpting auto body panels to factory specifications; painting auto body panels using industry standard equipment; and reassembling restored components back to a superb and visually correct functioning automobile, ready for shows.

ONLINE AT: academyart.edu
BY PHONE: 1.800.544.2787
IN PERSON (Monday-Saturday)
79 New Montgomery St.
San Francisco, CA 94501

The ingenuity and boundless vision of 13 Academy of Art University students—from the schools of Industrial Design, Fashion and Web Design and New Media—was recently displayed in the Academy’s Automobile Museum for a group of executives from Jaguar.

Led by Jaguar Design Director Ian Callum, the group arrived in San Francisco to review the work of these students, who spent their summer semester designing and creating concepts for year 2030 Jaguar automobile interior designs. The Academy was one of the two universities Jaguar selected for corporate sponsorship in America.