Well I'm torn between a nice black paint job or a Candyapple red one for my 69. Everytime I see 68EFIVert I come back to red...

Anyways I'm a long ways from paint. If my car had been okay like the inspection said I'd have it painted by March, but due to some repair work just to get it on the road I will have to wait a bit longer.

 

$500 a gallon for just paint, are you guys serious??? Is this some special paint that changes colors?
I'm in the wrong business, there's got to be some profit there.
How does Maaco paint cars for $250, including labor?

I was figuring maybe $2000 or $3000 (labor included) for a real nice job since there's not much bodywork needed on my car and keeping the same origional color.

 

My car was pretty straight going in and the final body shop bill was $9800. That did not include any of the fiberglass, chrome or anything. I had the majority of the metal work done. They just made it "straight" then primer, paint, 4 buff out jobs and reassembly of the exterior and interior. The expense comes from not wanting pretty straight but "straight".

 

Ummmm... that's alot!! I remember I stripped a 65 GTO down to metal in most areas, then did body work in certain areas, then painted the whole thing (this is the shortened version of it). ALOT more work then you seem to have had, and I want to say the total bill was 8k and some. And I worked at a pretty nice body shop too. But this was 4yrs ago or so.

 

That paint looks good!

 

they are using single stage that is about 100$ a gallon and the sander taper guys make about 8$ an hour and sand about 10 cars a day down. and the painter sprays about 2 cars an hour.

 

You wanna see what a $250 Maaco paint job looks like after 1 year in the sun and then 6 years???

 

I cant remember how much the primers were, but I have gone through two gallons of high fill primer. The base clear total was $320 for a gallon of each, but then I ended up using another gallon of clear so I could get the peel out of it. Try not to spray it in cold weather, it really doesnt like it. Also I think the flash time would be higher and you would need more than 20 minutes between coats of clear.

The work getting to the painting point is mind bending, especially when you have a bunch of dents to fix and no replacement panels available. Nobody makes quarters, fenders, door skins, or much of anything else for Cougars. So its find a donor car to cut it off, or fix whats there.