Hot Rod Shops

i'm a 19 year old hot rod enthusiast in the Portland, OR area thinking about possibly making a career out it. i've read a lot of information and checked out every car school i can, but i was hoping to maybe get some feed back about a couple of things:

1 what's the best school? (right now i'm leaning toward wyotech)

2 do i even need to go to hot rod school, or is experience all i need?

3 are there any apprenticeship opportunities in hot rod shops in my area?

also i was wondering if anyone has any names/numbers of people in the Portland metro area that i could talk to, or maybe bounce some ideas off of

thanx,
Nic

nolin,
wyotech is a good school , as My last painters helper i had went there & he turned out to be one heck of a painter .
He is now painting full fledge at another shop.

You might look at this school also. i know its a restoration shop,
but its suppose to be one heck of a school too:
http://www2.mcpherson.edu/academics/auto/index.asp

I havent been up there( McPhearson,Ks) to check it out , as i only live about 40 miles from it.
I know Jay Leno takes some of his cars there to have restored, plus lets the kids learn on them.

Spray

Both Wyotech and Spray's lead have excellent reputations. A friend nearby has a rod shop and hired a young guy who graduated from Wyo last year. He's very pleased with the guy's skills, and put him to work on customer cars right away. There were three other shops vying for the kid, so he was able to earn a better paycheck from the getgo.

In an apprentice program, most shop owners are going to be very reluctant to let you "experiment" on paying customer cars. Besides, most rod shops don't have enough "surplus" help to mentor you except by having you watch over a long period. You'll get more hands on experience at the tech schools. In the real world you get paid for the value you contribute, not the time.

Go to school and learn all you can, make more money doing a different trade and try to get into a union, get a good credit rating, work on as many of your own cars and friends cars as you can after work to learn more. Keep buying more tools along the way and when you get good make sure people see your work. Take a business class, talk to score, and do it on your own. You don't make money working for someone else. Thats what I would do if I was your age again.