Is it hard to work on a classic car?

I know how to change oil, coolant, brake fluid, transmission fluid, disk brakes, drum brakes, air filters etc on modern day cars. I would like to get a classic car in the future, but I hear people saying they are unreliable and the require a lot of money to take care of and fix. Are they difficult to fix? And are there shop manuals to buy to tell you how to do the repairs yourself? I like the cars from the 50's like the 56 ford crest line

Cars from the 50's are dead simple.
You have lots of space to move around.
No EFI electronics, wire looms, sensors, etc etc to move around.
No AC makes it even more spacious.

They are old, and thus, break a lot. Some design flaws were acceptable for the time. Would I drive one across country, through a desert? Hell no. Unless I rebuilt it myself, was prepared with camping gear, and also stress tested it.

Owning the vehicle will be a stress test of the weak links. At some point you will ave repaired all the weak links and will be good to go till the next failure.

Most people like to just make car payments and drive. Others like to fix them up. Do you want to be stranded, or do your biz. Do you love cars, or to go to your event?

Usually car people have 2 vehicles to deal with this love hate.

Could be

No they are not hard to work on- they need to be worked on more frequently!
Take the ignition. It will have a coil, cap, rotor, spark plugs, wires and points. The points need to be cleaned and set every twelve thousand miles or less. Plugs need replaced or gaped every six thousand miles or so. The cap and rotor need checked and or replaced on a semiannual basis. The heads need to be done about every 50,000 miles.
Then there's the carburetor- which needs adjusting every time the engine is timed. I forgot to mention they need to have the timing set any time the points are messed with.
As for books- official service manuals can be bought. Often all the cars were covered by one single book. Motors Manual or Chilton's. These books can still be found at old book stores, e-bay and places specializing in classic cars.
What I would suggest is checking out the on line ads at Hemmings Motor News. (
Expect to pay 6000 dollars for a decent 56 ford (a lot more if it is a t-bird).

Classic cars are fairly simple to work on. The problem is they require almost constant maintenance and repairs. That's why they aren't recommend as daily drivers

Actually working on a classic car is EASIER than working on newer cars.
The main reason for the expense is the parts are not as widely available. Some replacement parts actually have to be custom fabricated.

The 'trick' is don't have one that has to run to get you to work tomorrow. If you have at least two, you can work on the classic when you want. I currently have four cars, including my '89 427 Mustang. DON'T have JUST a classic.

There are all sorts of manuals and guides. Cars from before 1960 or so are actually much easier to work on than modern cars - no computers, no programming, simple mechanial sensors, parts that bold on, etc. Etc… But they are not as reliable, require much more maintenance and parts can be expensive. Make your first car something simple, cheap, easy to get and fix. After that, don't waste time on anything but the absolute highest end car you can afford. In the end, your time is the most vauable asset. Also - don't expect to make a profit. You will be luck to sell you project for 1/3 of what you paid for parts.

It depends. Finding a distributor cap for a 12 cyl Packard might take a while. An old carburetor might need to be rebuilt since you are not apt to find a replacement very easily. Classic from pre WW2 are easy to work on but parts are rare. 6 Volt electrical systems were common and polarities were not uniform. Classics from the late 50's and 60's can be a challenge. By then, they were using Air Conditioning and Cars started to have some early solid state electronics that would now be hard to replace. If your classic is old enough, the entire engine is easy to reach. By 19 60 you might need a special wrench for the starter that is good on no other car. I would think nothing of using a car from the 1930s as a daily driver, but only if I had a back-up and my commute to work was short. Unless you have just completed a full body off restore, there's no knowing how old and worn or deteriorated some of those parts might be. Equally funny is the fact that there were different kinds of brakes on different cars. My old Plymouth had Lockheed Brakes instead of the more common Bendix brakes. Unless you have someone around that is 80 years old to show you how to adjust them, you could be in trouble.

Which one? '56 Ford v8 ? No not hard,

Some GM's even had a window where an allen adjusted dwell. My Dad put a Delta Mark 10 B CDI ignition on his '66 Olds Vista Cruiser, so, no more points adjustments,

Older cars, Except for drum brakes, were easier to work on BUT required more frequent tune ups. More lube points, some had no sealed bearing so it was a Mess to do wheel bearings (Dad showed me how on his '53 Olds, too!). Drum brakes wore a Hassle. But, More Room to get at things. Seals Easy to get to BUT leaked less. Air cleaners took oil, not a new element. Front end alignments easier BUT a rear wheel dive (as almost all were) required very few FE alignments. Generators needed new brushes a lot, but again, on top, There they were