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.
Nguyen turned his childhood passion into a business, according to the CBS News Atlanta report, after buying a 1970 Ford Bronco in 2017 that repeatedly broke down on Interstate 85, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The paper reports that the breakdowns led his wife to forbid their young children from riding in older vehicles that lacked modern airbags — a household ultimatum that ultimately pointed him toward founding the company in 2018.
A Tech Entrepreneur's Second Act
Before launching Vintage Modern, Nguyen co-founded and sold two Atlanta tech startups: Campus Special, acquired by Chegg in 2014, and Hirewire, acquired by Seasoned in 2016, according to a release distributed via PR Newswire. That entrepreneurial track record recently earned him fresh recognition: in June, Nguyen was named the EY US Entrepreneur Of The Year Southeast Award winner after being selected from nearly 35 regional business finalists, per the same release.
The company originally operated under the name Vintage Broncos before formally rebranding to Vintage Modern, a shift intended to broaden its luxury positioning and explicitly clarify that its builds are independent products not manufactured by Ford Motor Co., according to coverage from the National Law Review. The boutique vehicle market Vintage Modern operates within relies on the federal Low Volume Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Act of 2015, which allows small manufacturers producing under 5,000 cars annually to construct up to 325 turnkey replica vehicles per year under streamlined safety oversight, provided they meet modern emissions rules, according to the Specialty Equipment Market Association.
Expanding Beyond Classic Trucks
Vintage Modern is also pushing beyond its original vintage truck lineup. The company has partnered with Carlex Design to build a limited-production luxury SUV on the 2026 Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG platform, capped at 60 units per year, according to Forbes. It's a sign that the Buford company, born out of one entrepreneur's frustration with a broken-down Bronco on I-85, is now angling to become a broader player in the luxury vehicle space.
