Classic car & boat restorers

The provenance file every serious buyer asks for.

Classic car restorer assembling receipts, in-progress photos and part numbers into a buyer-ready provenance dossier

A well-restored classic sells for a premium — but only to a buyer who can see the work. BrainCopy captures every receipt, every in-progress photo, every part number, every margin note, and assembles it into a proper provenance dossier. The kind that justifies the ask.

The problem

Seven years into a restoration, you have three shoeboxes of receipts, a workshop notebook with part numbers, 4,000 in-progress photos on your phone, a Google Drive for the trim research, and some crucial notes written on the inside of a parts catalogue. The story of the car or boat is spread across all of that.

When you finally sell, the buyer pays far less than the work is worth — because the work isn't visible. "Trust me, I put in hundreds of hours" isn't a premium. A photo-documented, receipt-linked dossier is.

And the restoration itself suffers when nothing is findable. "What did I pay for that water pump, was it the second or third one, did I replace the gasket?" — the answer exists, in one of three shoeboxes. By the time you find it, you've wasted an evening.

How BrainCopy solves it

Every receipt, every photo, one sentence

Snap a photo of the receipt. Take a shot of the in-progress work. Type "replaced water pump, Bosch part 12345, €180 plus shipping." Ten seconds. BrainCopy files it under this vehicle, this subsystem, this date.

OCR your old notebooks and parts catalogues

Scan your shop notebook pages, the marked-up parts catalogue, the correspondence with the specialist you flew out to consult. OCR turns all of it into searchable text, flagged with uncertainty on the messy bits. Seven years of reasoning becomes findable in seconds.

Receipts are automatically totalled and structured

Every captured receipt feeds a running total per vehicle, per subsystem, per year. "Total paint budget across the 911 restoration" is one query. Warranty periods, part numbers, supplier contacts — all cross-referenced.

Per-vehicle dossier ready to hand to a buyer

Export a structured provenance file: narrative history with dates, a photo timeline, a receipts ledger, a parts specification, the detailed subsystem restoration log. Printable, printable-to-PDF, or presented live from your phone. The difference between "it's a nice one" and "here's the full file" is often five-figure.

Future owner can inherit the archive

At sale, export or legacy-transfer the BrainCopy vehicle dossier to the buyer. The provenance chain continues; the next restoration adds to the same file. Classic-car culture has wanted this for decades.

What you'll actually see

Beta price for Classic car & boat restorers

50% off the €10/month subscription, forever, for restorers during the beta. Your discount never expires.

RESTORE50

Start with RESTORE50 See full pricing

FAQ

Does BrainCopy handle multi-vehicle workshops?
Yes — each vehicle is a project in your graph, with its own scope, photos, receipts and log. Switch between them freely. Ideal for restorers with two or three long-term projects running in parallel.
What about OEM documentation / manuals?
Scan and attach as reference files. OCR makes them searchable, so "where in the manual does it spec the timing?" is a query, not a flip-through.
Can I share the dossier with a shop / specialist?
Per-vehicle, per-tag access. Share the "engine" subsystem with the specialist doing the engine work, without sharing your whole archive. Full multi-user is on the roadmap.
What formats can I import?
Scans (JPG/PDF), phone photos, typed and voice-captured entries, and legacy spreadsheets of your receipts if you kept them. Migration from a shop-management tool is on request.
Cost?
€10/month (€5/month forever with RESTORE50). OCR of a decade of paper documentation is typically €50–€200 one-time. On a five-figure-premium sale, the ROI is immediate.
What if the buyer prefers their own system?
Full export to structured PDFs or a standalone digital dossier. They get the provenance file without needing a BrainCopy account.
Does this work for boats too?
Yes — same structure applies to a classic boat rebuild. Logbook entries and voyage records tie in nicely too if you're also a sailor (see the Sailors page).

Ready to try it?

Takes about 30 seconds to sign up. You can start importing immediately.

Start your restoration log

Who else uses BrainCopy

Different people, same problem: too many memories scattered across too many places.