A Buford manufacturer is turning heads across metro Atlanta by building vehicles that look like classic trucks from the outside but run on modern Ford chassis loaded with contemporary safety technology underneath. Vintage Modern’s handcrafted vehicles start at $200,000, and the company has quietly become a favorite among Hollywood and sports celebrities while growing into a significant local employer in Gwinnett County.
The company, founded by Chau Nguyen, builds custom cars by hand at its Buford facility, combining the look of classic vehicles with modern technology and features, according to CBS News Atlanta. High-profile clients who have purchased or commissioned custom vehicles from Vintage Modern include Mark Wahlberg, Jennifer Lopez, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Ryan Reynolds, and Blake Lively, according to WXIA-TV. That celebrity patronage helps explain why these vintage-looking trucks can command six-figure price tags.
From 12 Employees to a 160-Person Workforce
Vintage Modern’s manufacturing footprint in Buford has expanded dramatically, with its workforce growing from 12 initial employees to 160 staff members assembling approximately 250 handcrafted vehicles per year, per the station’s report. That kind of growth represents a notable local jobs story for Gwinnett County, where the company has scaled its operations well beyond its original small-shop footprint.
Each vehicle takes more than 900 hours of handcrafted labor across roughly 60 days to build from a bare chassis into a finished car, using American-made steel body panels and custom leather interiors, according to Vintage Modern’s own account of its process. That intensive, largely manual production process helps justify the luxury price tag attached to every build rolling out of the Buford facility.
Solving Classic Cars’ Safety Problem
To address the safety shortcomings long associated with genuine vintage vehicles, Vintage Modern builds on modern Ford chassis equipped with six airbags, crumple zones, anti-lock brakes, side-impact beams, and pre-collision emergency braking, the company has said. That approach marks a key distinction from a traditional restomod, which restores an older frame, versus what Vintage Modern calls its Modern Classic model, built on a contemporary chassis with today’s safety systems, as the company’s own blog explains…