"We got home at 10.30 at night and there was a heap of strife," Mr Holgate said.

"The wife stood on the front step, she looked out and she said 'what are you going to do with that heap of s**t'. Well, I did something with it and here it is," he smiles, gesturing toward the restored 1926-model Oldsmobile on his lawn.

In the more than four decades since he brought it home, Mr Holgate's wife Chris admits she's come to love the old-hunk-of-junk.

"I've learned a lot, I've helped a lot," Mrs Holgate said.

"I'm the apprentice he's always had but [who] never got a certificate!"

Aside from its odometer having easily eclipsed six digits by now, the old car still looks practically brand new.

But at the time he bought the car in 1974, it really was more rust than rev and needed a lot of imagination to see its potential.

"I didn't want to buy something everyone else had," Mr Holgate said.

"We stumbled on the Oldsmobile. I was out in Tumut and someone told me it was sitting on the side of the road between Batlow and Tumbarumba. It was a fluke find."

With its original American hickory wood wheels, the Oldsmobile became the first in his collection of four classic cars, and one Ferguson tractor he affectionately calls 'Harry'.

"He's shiny, but he's a working tractor. I bought it because I needed one, but I wanted one I'd like so I went up to Raymond Terrace to bring it back," he said.

Inside his garage sits the restored 1923 Gardner, the 1926 Oldsmobile, a series 2 Morris 8, and a Jewett.

Each is a familiar sight on the regional circuit as Mr Holgate travels with the Wagga Wagga Vintage and Veteran Car Club.

At times it keeps him up at night that he once passed up the opportunity to own what would have been his personal holy grail.

"A Coupe XB, I've restored one once, but I want to do my own. I turned down one years ago because it was going for $3000 and I thought it was too dear," he said.

"Now they're $30,000 to buy an unrestored one. Hindsight, that's what they call that."

Holden enthusiast Terry Vearing has a very personal connection to his collection, which includes a light blue 1978 HZ Premier, and off-white 1984 Statesman and an electric blue 1960 Holden EK Special.

"The Premier is a recreation of a car I had when I was about 20, I sold that one which I always regretted," Mr Vearing said, recalling the images of himself inside that first car back in 1984.

"These cars were my era, they're the cars of my youth."

As Mr Vearing describes it "some blokes are Ford guys, others are Holden guys". Shrugging, he admits, "I'm just a Holden guy".

"It's got to be a Holden. As a young fella on the farm, virtually all we had was Holden," he said.

"Back then, they were just cars. Now there's value, sentimental and financial."

The Premier was bought in 2012 after Mr Vearing saw it listed online. But his hesitation almost cost him.

"As soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted it, but I um'd and ah'd, and [my wife] Sharon just said, 'let's go and get it'," Mr Vearing said.

"She helps me find the cars and the parts I want. When we were in Melbourne looking at a Statesman [in 2017] that was garbage, Sharon went online looking for accommodation and found another Statesman that was well looked after. That's the one I bought," he said.

When the EK Special came into his possession in 2013, it was in a sorry state.

"A mate of mine had started work on it, lost interest, so I took over. That one was in the worst condition. But I knew what it could look like from that first day. I can visualise it, I know what I want," he said

Sitting in his shed now is a beaten up 1978 HZ Utility and a 1939 Chevrolet affectionately known as Mr Vearing's "retirement project".

With four daughters and 10 grandchildren, Mr Vearing is passing his passion on to the next generation, too.

As a member of the Red Lion Car and Motorcycle club, the family spends a lot of their leisure time travelling to car shows in the region.

Every car has a memory attached and Mr Holgate's light blue 1923 Gardner may have the best stories of all.

"It's easy to remember when I finished that one. Our eldest son, Geoffrey was born a few days after," he said.

"I finished it up, then I went down to the hospital, I did the dad thing then went out to register it."

A few years later, the blue fabric interior of the Oldsmobile was the first sight to grace the eyes of youngest son Matthew.

"We brought him home in that car, then drove him out to the church to be christened in it too," Mr Holgate said.

The Oldsmobile has certainly travelled the farthest. It has been all the way to the Northern Territory and to Tasmania. Notwithstanding a fair few challenges along the way.

"In Tasmania, we drove into Seymour. Chris got out to book into the hotel, and I went to take off and there was nothing, no bang, nothing. It just didn't move," Mr Holgate said.

"The axle had gone. We happened to have another one under the seat. I had been worried the axle would go on the way up to the boat, it's steep.

"Imagine going up the ramp when you get stuck and there are 100 cars behind you you're holding up. Luckily the axle went early."

In 2014, the Holgates drove it out to Alice Springs to qualify for the Overland Badge - a milestone achievement that has now been welded to the front of the car.

"About seven of us drove out there, we drove about 400km a day," Mr Holsgate said.

"It's got no air con, just wind-down windows. We went out via Coober Pedy, you have to do that journey when it's cooler."

Once again, along the way, Mr Holgate played bush mechanic.

"A bearing collapsed in the diff halfway out to Ayres Rock, so we got to Curtin Springs, but we didn't get to the rock. I was disappointed about that," he said.

Now on his bucket list is one last long-haul journey in the Oldsmobile.

"I want to drive to Perth in it," Mr Holgate said proudly, with more than a hinting sense of adventure in his eye.

Both Mr Vearing and Mr Holgate have been "tinkering with cars" since their teen years.

Trained as panel beaters, the two men admit they have often risen at the crack of dawn to begin their hobby projects, before heading into work and returning home for a full night in the shed.

Acknowledging that inside his shed is where the magic happens, Mr Vearing's family have inscribed its door with the words "la-la land".

"That's what they say, I come down here and I'm in la-la land," he explains.

"I get up at 3am, I go down to the shed, I get it done and I come back after work to do more."

Between their day jobs and their passion projects, a large percentage of their lives have been spent at the workbench with tools in hand.

What keeps them coming back, both agree, is the sense of achievement in transforming a scrap heap into a treasure.

"It's the challenge. It's being able to say, 'I did this'," Mr Holgate said.

When the finished product emerges from the garage for the first time, Mrs Vearing explains she can see the animated joy in her husband's whole countenance.

"The grin on his face that first drive tells the whole story," said Mrs Vearing.

"He just loves it. He's done up so many cars and sold them, I've never been attached to those ones. But these ones [he's kept], I understand the joy of it."