PORTLAND, Maine — In 2019, Andrew Furbush and Krystal Stone took off on one of their first official dates in a 1967 Volvo P1800S coupe. Furbush had just finished restoring the engine under the sporty, two-seater’s hood and needed to put some test miles on it.
It turned out to be a magical drive.
“It was a gorgeous day, we were in this 1967 car and the only radio station I could get in was somehow playing the greatest hits of 1967,” Furbush said. “Like, we could have been driving around in this thing when it was new, listening to the radio and all the songs would have been the same. That seemed like a sign.”
It was.
Prior to that time-traveling car ride, both Stone and Furbush were at low points in their young lives. Their careers and romantic prospects stood at dead ends. Neither knew which way to turn next.
Now, just a few years later, Stone and Furbush are charging ahead with their vintage auto rehabilitation business, Motoresto Maine, and firing on all cylinders, thanks to an alchemic mixture of love and classic cars.
Motoresto Maine is celebrating its one-year anniversary this month with an open house and has a months-long waiting list of cars vying for service. It just had an exotic vehicle in its care accepted at one of the East Coast’s most exclusive car shows, and Stone will soon appear on a nationally known automotive podcast.
Furbush and Stone are also getting married in the fall.
“I feel like everything we went through previously is what brought us to where we are today,” Stone said. “Even though we’re stressed and exhausted because we’re business owners, we still look forward to tomorrow, whereas prior, I didn’t really care if there was a tomorrow.”
Before meeting Furbush, Stone, a hairdresser, had been through a tough breakup and an extended period of depression.
“I was very rock bottom. I was so far down, I was just barely getting by,” she said. “I loved doing hair and I loved riding my motorcycle, but I could care less if I woke up the next day.”
Furbush was in a similar situation. While living in Maryland, he’d come home and found his fiance with another man. So he left the state without picking up his final paycheck, crashing on his sister’s Portland couch on Thanksgiving 2018.
“I packed up two cats and as much stuff as I could fit in my 1996 Jeep,” he said. “I had to leave a lot of stuff behind.”
When they met online the next summer, Furbush and Stone were both initially just looking for someone to try out new Portland restaurants with — but something combustible sparked between them.
For her, it was his love of cats and cars. It helped that Furbush was also tall and easy on the eyes.
He liked her independence and wasn’t intimidated by Stone’s burlesque side career. Upon learning her real name, Furbush Googled Stone and found a Bangor Daily News article noting her advanced motorcycle riding skills.
That impressed him, too.
And they both liked wrenching, as well.
Along with an English degree, Furbush has a minor in engineering and several years of professional automotive restoration experience. At the time of their fateful date in the 1967 coupe, he was working for a Portland Volvo specialty shop.
“I grew up out in the garage with my dad, working on snowmobiles — especially vintage snowmobiles — and motorcycles, three wheelers, four wheelers,” Stone said.
Furbush said Stone’s mechanical experience is easy to spot.
“She has the innate ability to take things apart and put them back together,” he said.
When the pandemic struck in early 2020, the pair decided the best way to keep seeing each other was to move into one apartment, combining housekeeping, COVID-19 contact circles and cats. It wasn’t long before they started plotting their joint business.
“Andrew really wanted to work on classic and vintage. He knows carburetors and he’s so good with electrical stuff, diagnosing things and figuring things out,” Stone said.
In late 2021, with a small business loan in hand, Stone and Furbush cold called an existing auto restoration business on Warren Avenue, asking the owner if he was looking to sell.
He was.
“We signed the papers at the lawyer’s office on Tuesday, and on Wednesday morning we had nine cars waiting for us,” Stone said.
That was June 2022. They’ve been busy every day since.
Last week, they were working on a 1931 Ford Model A truck, a vintage British TVR racing car and a replica Shelby GT Ford Mustang fastback.
Furbush, along with employee Jacob Morneault, spends a lot of time diagnosing niggling problems with finicky car patients, then sourcing hard-to-find or downright nonexistent parts.
They also do tires-up, basket case restorations.
“We do everything but the paint,” Furbush said.
Stone specializes in logistics, upholstery repairs and lighter fixes while also running the office. She continues to do hair a couple days a week, too.
Though they work and live together, the only thing they really disagree on is hockey. She’s a die-hard Boston Bruins fan and he roots for the Washington Capitals.
Then there’s the pickle jar, too.
“She accuses me of putting the lid on too tight even when it’s just lightly tightened,” Furbush said, teasing.
The current star at the Motoresto garage is a 1967 Alfa Romeo Gransport Quatroruotte Zagao. Furbush and Stone have been maintaining the Italian convertible for a client and the shiny red auto was just accepted into this year’s exclusive Concours d’Elegance car show in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Stone and Furbush will be taking the Alfa Romeo there this weekend, a move which will likely bring more customers their way.
The rest of June will be busy for them, as well.
On Saturday, June 17, Motoresto celebrates its first birthday with a food truck-studded open house and car show. Later this month, Stone will be a guest on the “With Her Two Hands” YouTube and podcast channel, hosted by Bogi from All Girls Garage on Motortrend TV.
After the car show, birthday party and podcast interviews are over, Furbush and Stone will celebrate their biggest achievement yet.
On the spooky date of Friday, October 13, they’ll tie the knot, becoming spouses as well as business partners.
“I’m a goth girl, you know,” Stone said.
As the wedding bells ring, Stone said she’s not sure what the couple will drive off into the sunset in, but it’s sure to be wicked cool.
“No idea yet,” she said. “Leaning towards either Italian or [a vintage, borrowed] Jaguar.”