Jeff Wilson has a passion for all things old, and he’s turned his passion into a business. He restores gas pumps, pedal cars, soda machines and antique bicycles. His work can be found in many car collections throughout this area and across the country.

 Wilson’s business, called Gas from the Past, is in downtown Pleasant Hill in Cass County. Wilson grew up in Pleasant Hill, and he still has family there. When he acquired the building two years ago, it had no heat, no electricity and no water. It had been a GMC dealership in the 1940s.

 “It was a rough old building,” Wilson said. “I’ve been walking by this place since I was a kid.”

 His renovation started when he power-washed the interior with a fire hose. He ordered new windows, put in an epoxy floor and installed garage doors. The building began to look alive again.

 The real treat, however, is what you find when you walk through the front door. There sit the gas pumps and façade of a 1950 Gulf service station from Williamsburg, Ky. The service station was being torn down to make room for a highway expansion, so Wilson bought the porcelain steel panels and brought them back in a truck.

 He and his dad, Dan Wilson, reconstructed the station inside Wilson’s building. Dan is a retired Kansas City policeman who lives in Raytown. Reassembling the panels was a bit like putting a puzzle together in spite of the fact that each had been labeled. The “station” has a small office that Wilson has loaded with automotive memorabilia. The shop is also decorated with several vintage bicycles.

 Wilson loves rescuing old items and using them in new ways. The paint booth in his shop is disguised with corrugated tin that he salvaged from a chicken coop that was located outside of Peculiar. He decorated it with an intriguing collection of signs.

 So how did Wilson make the transition from working on cars to restoring gas pumps and antique bicycles? “I restored a gas pump for myself, and someone said, ‘Hey, I’d like for you to do one for me,’ and that business just escalated. I started with gas pumps and merged into Coke machines and then went into antique bicycles.” He’s even restored old bumper cars.

 Wilson’s clients are nationwide. Most of the time he restores items that people bring to him, but he sometimes works with customers to find the items they want. Whatever it is, if it’s old, Wilson can make it like new again.