Canary94GT

Hey. I haven't been to the forums for a while, but my interest in working further on my '65 i6 200 has increased due to Summer approaching.

The gist: I'm wondering how much it would cost to have someone strip-down, do body work, and repaint the stang.

Details: A few years ago, I had the top of the engine rebuilt and restored the rest of the engine compartment for a High School project.

The car has a really nice-looking enamel paint job from the '80s, but unfortunately the preparation work the guy did was mediocre at best. The paint flaked off in areas and some rust bubbles are visible around the fenders... the guy didn't even repaint the door jambs or under the hood. Other than that, the actual body is near perfect.

My dad and I have been contemplating having her stripped down, body work done (mostly repairing rust bubbles), and repainted with original Wimbledon White.

I am wondering how much I could expect this to cost? A range of cost based on the quality of the work I could expect, would be great I'm really just looking for a ballpark figure, so I know what I am getting into.

Thank you for reading! Much appreciated.

Picture (old, before engine restoration, but body still looks the same):


Couple more pics in my profile/garage.

rwh129

I believe you get what you pay for. So when you say you want quality do you mean good show quality? Daily Driver quality? Weekend cruise? IDK about prices in Seattle but I would guess for quality paint job 3-5K. From the picture I think your car looks ok even with those small bubbles.

MustangFTW

do the body work yourself. the areas your talking about are small and hard to see, there also easy to work on. you probably wont even need bondo, just get some spot filler to smooth anything out then send it in for paint, repainting the entire car is gong to be about 5k for a good job, you could also see if they can match the color and just spray the areas you fixed.

Canary94GT

Thanks for your responses.

@rwh129 - I'm mostly just interested in a range of price, based on the quality of work I could expect around that price.

I'm a fan of "if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it right," so I rather not save a few bucks now and have to spend more down the road.

3-5k is around the price range I was hoping - do you think that would include the body work and prep?

@MustangFTW - I would love to do the work myself, however I have absolutely no experience with body work and painting. I'd kind of just like to get it done right, but I will research into what it would take to do it myself.

rwh129

Yep. For that price they should include all the prep and body work. I would suggest asking them for an estimate and explain exactly what your looking for in return, like you mentioned door jams, under the hood, trunk. Measure the space between your doors and space between hood and fenders. If they take any part off make sure the spaces are as close as possible. I've seen so many early Mustangs with a huge gap on 1 side vs the other once they rempove anything.

Canary94GT

Thanks, that helps a lot; good note about taking measurements.

As for where to get it done, any type of place you would recommend? Definitely not Maaco of course lol, but maybe some local business would be good? Also, should it be a general body repair place or should I try to find someone who works on restorations?

MustangFTW

MAACO itself is not bad, if you find a MAACO near you go check out their work, they usually have cars they painted parked outside. Finding someone who has a specialty with classics would be better since most places dont know what to do with all the chrome trim :P

Canary94GT

That's exactly what I was thinking... they probably would neither know how to take the trim off nor how to put it back on, and that's what I'm worried about.

Kind of goes back to rwh's post about making sure the body panels are realigned correctly.

I want to find someone who has painted/restored classics before, and hopefully Mustangs specifically.

MustangFTW

Or you can remove the trim your self or do the taping. this will also cut down the cost. tho you can probably find someone who specializes in mustangs as they are quite popular. you could ask around the regional chapter for your state on the forum home page they will know specific people in seattle to go to.

i have the same problem, the PO or PPO painted the car with VERY nice paint, a mettalic turquoise color, but he had them paint right over a huge amount of rust so i have to destroy the paint job to get it all off.

Canary94GT

Yeah, it's a shame people dump so much money into a nice paint job only to find out more attention should have been paid to the body beforehand.

I will definitely do some more looking around. Thank you very much for your help.