Hi Soaring

I agree the price should be higher then it was 10 years ago, but the thing is the 9K is NOT for a complete restoration at all. I am taking the car apart to the shell and I am putting the interior, glass etc back in myself & he wants me to buy the parts! On top of the fact that the price is so high I have started asking people who have had there cars in there and I am hearing the work is exceptional but they basically hold your car hostage and keep charging you more as they go along! I am mostly surprised at the lack of effort on either of the two restoration shops here in town. When I asked what all the 9K included he couldn't even tell me! I would think for that money he would at least do a quick very ruff estimate on paper I had to ask him if it included painting the dash the underbody etc. He seemed like he was just making it up as he went along.

I guess no matter what neither of them seem proffessional enough for me so I have one more guy coming I was at his shop yesterday & he was actually very polite and interested, so far so good with him.

Darcy

 

I took mine down completely stripped, new qtr. skins hung, doors needed some bondo work, and the fiberglass hood and trunk deck lid needed about 3+ hours of finish work each. Came out close to 9 when I towed it home.

All body shops are the same, no matter where you go...the only difference is you can get MORE mad at the one that charges you more $$$ if they fack something up.
I would say 7-10k would be a reasonable range for a full resto paint job.

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so you are saying you brought your car to the body shop with almost all the body work complete in primer and all they had to do was some very minor work & paint the car & you paid 9 thousand dollars???

If thats how much it is to get a car simply painted.....holy !$$!... I don't know if I am the only one that thinks that is a bit (or lot) on the high side but I wouldn't even consider it.

I do realize you have an exceptional paint job with the flames and everything but wow thats expensive.

your car looks really good by the way. But I guess it should!

Darcy

 

no no no no.....it wasn't primered....I brought it down to them just like you are describing it as: A Shell. All the new metal was hung, but nothing was prepared...we hadn't smoothed any weld seams, the fiberglass still needed a lot of prep, and the stock driver side door had some pretty deep dings that needed filling. Nothing on the car was "paint ready". The pics showing primer were all done at the body shop.

Pretty much every shop I went to quoted at around 10 to do everything, but that was for a requested show quality job and the whole custom flame thing too. I consider the 9k job I got to be a great deal considering the prep and quality of the final product. Since you are just looking for a DD (not neccessarily show quality paint job here) I would let them know that's what you want, and work from there.

And as always you will get what you pay for...Hell Maaco will do it for 700 bucks, but imop these cars deserve more.

 

I didn't do any work at all. The shop did everything for 5K. Here is a pic of how it looked after they stripped it. Now, if you are doing all that work, then 9K is way too much money for the job because we all know that about 75% of the cost is labor. I would find another town and shop to have it done for a more reasonable price, but not Maaco. The second shot is a very recent pic 10 years after it was restored. It still looks very good, so be sure you get a quality job done the first time so you don't have to worry about it later down the road.

 

It was money well spent for the restoration pathway I chose to go with (i.e. the flames, restomod styling with the glass trunk and deck lid, matching engine bay, painted floorpans, matching trunk...)

In Soaring's case, I think 5-7k would still be a reasonable price given THAT particular restoration style. It all depends on what you want the final outcome to be.

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oh ok that makes more sense now. I agree that these cars deserve more then a cheap paint job & I am not even considering that as an option I'm not going to drive the car everyday or anything I have a 2006 vehicle already to drive everday, but I don't want to hesitate to let my GF drive it or run up to the family cottage a few hours away in it so for me to get a "show" quaility job would be a waste of my hard earned money. I guess what I have learned from this is I need to do even more of the work myself I have most of the tools and most of the skills .....so I guess I am going to get even dirtier!

 

Agreed. I started out wanting an original restoration. And, that is what I got. Yes, restoring a vintage Mustang to it's original condition is cheaper than restomod restoration. Not only with the body parts, but with the running gear as well.

 

I had one of my cars resprayed a few years ago, cost me $2700 and looked like ****....

You indeed get what you pay for



Oh and ask if the warranty their work - you don't want that $6000 paintjob starting to peel in 5 years...

 

I'm going to paint my own. Been sanding off and on for a few weeks and in a week or two, it should be ready for primer. Bought a new spray gun today.