Is there a list of which cars can be fully restored and which can't? Or any way to tell?

[Tahnval]

Some cars bought from the paper can be fully restored, shown by the mileage being reset to zero and an increase to the value of the car. For these cars, selecting the car information icon will result in Charlie saying either it could be a good deal with some more work (if the car isn't yet fully restored) or that the car is a perfect restoration job (if the car is fully restored). Restored in this setting doesn't mean restored as such - any modifications are allowed, whereas a restoration would be with parts matching the original parts.

Some cars bought from the paper can never be fully restored, regardless of what you do with them. Even if you strip the car down to the bare body, repair it, wash it, repaint it, wash it again, replace every removable part with a brand new one from a shop, replace all the fluids, check tyre pressure and set the engine tuning to optimal...nothing. No comment from Charlie, no mileage reset, no extra value.

It's consistent for any given car, in that any given advertised car will either always be fully restorable or never be fully restorable. That implies that there's something about a car that determines whether or not it can be fully restored, but I don't know what that something is.

I could buy every possible vehicle from the paper and check each one (and I might do that), but I'm hoping there's an easier way to tell.

[Creative Pudding]

Any car which has high millage can be restored. The easiest way to tell if you try to fix the body. If the car can be restored, you will receive a message indicating it will cost you a lot.

[Flacido Domingo]

Sometimes restoration just bugs out (I haven't played in a bit, so not sure how it is now, but I'm guessing more or less similar) and it takes a bit for the car's status to update. For me, it often fixes itself after a race or taking a drive to the shop.

[Tahnval]

Originally posted by Creative Pudding:

Any car which has high millage can be restored. The easiest way to tell if you try to fix the body. If the car can be restored, you will receive a message indicating it will cost you a lot.

So it's a bug. Well, at least that saves me trying every possible car in the paper.

Originally posted by Flacido Domingo:

Sometimes restoration just bugs out (I haven't played in a bit, so not sure how it is now, but I'm guessing more or less similar) and it takes a bit for the car's status to update. For me, it often fixes itself after a race or taking a drive to the shop.

I encountered that this evening. I bought a wrecked Panania because I had a GV8 lying around and I didn't recall putting a GV8 into a Panania. Also, it was all black and I thought that looked good, so I wanted to restore it anyway. Checked the stats and got the "this could be a good deal with some work" message from Charlie, indicating that the car could be restored. I did a full repair, replacement parts as needed and put the GV8 in with some good parts and a supercharger. Repainted, etc, checked the stats again...and nothing. No comment from Charlie. Mileage not reset. Oh well, I don't care about losing money anyway. So I took it to Gutta, did some passes on the drag strip then went to the oval. To find that the stock suspension was not up to 250 Kmh turns with the grip from 285 slicks, so the car rolled. Took it back, repaired it, checked the stats...and got the "good restoration job" message from Charlie and about $20K added to the sale price.

[Creative Pudding]

we had a fix released in Update 40 which seems to be related. (must fix the body but was not enough damage to do so, when you ride on a race those small changes allows to fix it afterwards...)
Anyway if you can reproduce this issue let us known (email your game save as you did before with the car which cannot be restored - before you would go for a race/ride)
Also, if you want you can help with locating what exactly you need to fix after you went out to race and come back to the garage. Those things might help us to catch what is going on.