AZDoug

Hmmm, in 2008, one of the most expensive resto shops i ever heard of said perhaps $80K for a Top Flight car starting with a decent driver that was all there, but needed complete redo. Other more resonable shops figured $40K.

Now, 8 years later it is $200K?

Do they see suckers walking in the door with too much money to spend, or have stupid ridiculous prices being bantered about on the internet accustomed people to thinking they have to shell out stupid amounts of money to return a decent car to the condition is was in when it came from the factory?

I think some shops went from simply making a nice living, to wanting to pay for a weekend mansion in Golden Beach, FL.

Doug

Bowlerdude

Doug, one of the biggest problems regarding cost today is a paint job.

Some of these guys want $20,000+ to paint a car today..even a blank check isn't enough for some of them. lol I don't see how a restoration could cost 200k but I think it would also be tough to do one for 40k when at least half of that needs to be allocated to paint.

AZDoug

My paint job cost about $6K in 2009, using $1500/gal paint, and included the painter stripping the old paint down to fiberglass. Everywhere, including all jambs and runners, doors were removed and media blasted ,as well as all decklid and trunk lid

And it is straight.

The painter and used to laugh at people that claimed it took 500, or even 200 hours to paint a car.

I did do my own chrome, trim,and interior R&R.

Doug

DRM500RUBYZR-1

While that paint looks very nice in the professional studio shots, it looks simply OUTSTANDING in the outdoor shot!
Hope you have more taken in the sunlight like that, as it really shows it off nicely!
Great work!

Marty

AZDoug

The paint does show off best outside.

The studio shots show best how straight the body is.

Thanks.

Doug

rfn026

We're getting the terms restoration and fixing it up all confused.

Restoration means that you're returning the car to it's original condition. A really good restoration gets the Bloomington Gold. Also the NCRS Duntov award.

Fixing a cars up get you an award at the local show, and a lot of praise from your friends and neighbors.

AZ - You have an incredible paint job. The problem is that you would probably get a total deduct from both Bloomington and the NCRS. I'm sure you know that. You made a decision to fix your Corvette up the way you like it. That's what most of us do.

A restoration is a whole different thing. My only point here is that all of us have to make a decision as to whether we going to actually restore our Corvettes or whether we're going to create a Corvette that we like.

Is this a hobby? Or, is it a collectible object. Every marque is struggling with this same issue. A lot has been written on this. All of us got started as a hobbyist. Some of us became collectors of historical objects. (Not me though - I like my car as a hobby.)

We have to respect both ends of the spectrum. I'm still a hobbyist but I love what the NCRS folks are doing.

Richard Newton

Bowlerdude

That $6k paint job back in 2009 is a lot more now!

A couple of years ago (maybe 3) I wanted to have one of my 67's painted. I purchased the car in the mid 80's from the original owner who had it painted in 1977. While it was still presentable the paint was getting tired and I really wanted to freshen it up.

I went to several different painters to get estimates on painting my car which has an unhit virgin body. The cheapest estimated I got was for $15K, the highest was $25K! I got the same story from each guy and that was "they don't know what they will find when the car is stripped". So in an effort to save a couple of bucks (because I'm not wealthy) I inquired about how much I could save if I stripped the car myself. Not one of the painters was willing to paint a car they don't strip themselves. A couple of painters were real vague about even giving an estimate. It was like they expected a blank check to do my car or perhaps they just weren't interested, I don't know.

Here in SoCal it's next to impossible to get a car painted for what you paid to have your car done. The whole episode left a bad taste. The car is worth in the neighborhood of high 50's (it's a factory A/C coupe 300 hp) and I just can't see spending close to 40 percent of the value of the car to have it painted. I can see it costing a lot if the car being painted needs a lot of body work, but come on, $25K to paint a unhit car seems like a lot to me.

Recently a friend of mine paid $30k to paint his 55 T-Bird, it looks great, but he's so far upside down that if he ever has to sell it he'll lose a lot of bucks..hope that doesn't happen.

btw..your car looks great!

AZDoug

Well, figuring inflation, that $6K would be about $7K now. My '37 Ford truck streetrod which was painted in early 2012 was about $5K for paint and prep, and perhaps $3K body work. There was no stripping involved as I had already done that.

The fact that they want to strip the car them selves, tells you it is a racket. It took my painter right about 8-10 hours to strip my car, using a razor blade. I would bet those shops bill you 50 hours for the same thing, even if it takes 10 hours. I can see them being concerned about somebody that didn't use the right chemical stripper causing problem with the fiberglass, though.


I can get my car painted again, for about the same price, from at least three different sources i know of in the Phoenix area. All three people paint each part individually, removed from the car, then reassemble when done.

There are also shops in Phoenix that will charge $25k because they "have a name", but their paint isn't any better,and in fact, some of their body prep isn't as good as the inexpensive places.

When i had my car painted last time in Orange County, in 1986, it cost about $1400 for a strip and candy lacquer paint job (no media blasting, they just sanded and painted the jambs), the expensive guy who would remove the body from the frame and had a rotisserie wanted about $5K. Allowing for inflation, that $5K is now about $12K- $15K, for a body off rotisserie paint job.

The fact is, internet blabber has conditioned people to think that $25K for a paint job is normal, when there is no reason it needs to be, unless the painter is charging $150/hr. And, enough people who don't care how much it costs, are getting cars done for Goodguys, and since many body shops have gone out of biz due to EPA regs, they can quote a stupid price, and people will pay it, as they have enough business.

Doug

The front bumper wasn't aligned yet in this first picture

AZDoug

Well, What i am questioning is $200K for Bloomington Gold. I think is it a price quoted hoping some people have too much money, and just don't care if they spend that amount.

Other than the fact that I didn't take my body off the frame, my car is every bit as nice, and probably MUCH nicer than any BG car, with its leather seat and door panels, flawless chrome on all trim pieces, extra sound deadener in the cockpit, Stayfast top, finished trunk, etc. I do not see the allure of orange peel paint, overspray and wavy body panels. My car is not "fixed up", it is just restored in a different way, but not of any less quality.

I have finished the outside of my frame, so it looks new from the side, only if you get underneath, can you tell the body hasn't been removed, but in reality, 10-16 hours under the car, could fix that so it looked almost new.




Ignore the shifter plate, I fixed it later, i had it off to fuss with the shifter and had forgotten to reattach it to the floor pan.






Doug

rfn026

You just made my point. You fixed your car up. You didn't do a restoration. I think we're going to see a lot more of that. Most people just want to drive a nice car. They don't want. or need, the paperwork of the most expensive cars They just want to have fun.

There will always be people who want a restoration and a few of them can actually afford to do it. That number is getting smaller every year though. I see this in the NCRS regional events.

This is going to push the sale price of the BG and Duntov cars higher though. That's not necessarily a bad thing. The top tier cars will go higher and higher and the nice cars will stay about the same for the next few years. If you look at the charts you'll see this has already been happening.

Richard Newton

AZDoug

Well, lets see.

Resto to BG vs , Restomod

Paint needed , vs Paint needed

Interior redone , vs Interior redone (custom)

Replace all wiring ,vs Replace all wiring
With Lectric Limited , vs With Lectric Limited

Replace all glass (non tinted) ,vs Replace all glass (tinted)

Rebuild gauges , vs Rebuild gauges
to stock , vs to stock

Rebuild suspension ,vs Rebuild suspension
to stock , vs add disc brakes, and 12 bolt diff

Rebuild motor to stock , vs Put in new custom motor

Redo brightwork , vs redo brightwork

Now, my car, has all correct fasteners, etc, and other than choice of paint color, and interior material (and wheels), looks original, and is far better fit and finish than it ever came from the factory on the outside and inside.

Why was my Resto $45K (including the new motor), and why should redoing the car to BG costs $155K more than i paid?

That is my point. It shouldn't. It doesn't take any more time to paint it one way vs the other, or install Al Knoch plastic interior my Al Knock leather interior, or redo the dash either way.

My front suspension has been completely rebuilt to original, and my rear suspension is as new, though not original. My steering box has been rebuilt (by me).

I did do my own assembly on a lot of this stuff, though had I not spent close to $20K on the custom motor and EFI, I wouldn't have no more than $25K in the resto. I bet $20K buys a lot of assembly labor by some shop had I not done the steering box and suspension and wiring and dash install myself.

It certainly doesn't take $155K more to take the body off the frame and scrape the floor pan and wash it with lacquer thinner, and R&R the brake lines before painting the frame and painting some stencil number son it and adding some dabs of paint here and there. (I choose not to bother with that as I drive my car to shows, and at the drag strip occasionally, and occasionally get caught in the rain).

I suppose you could spend some extra $$ on a correct jack, and labels and wheel covers, that i didn't do, but tires cost probably the same, correct, or not.

Whoever charges $200K to restore a Corvette is raping the victim getting his car done, or is grossly time inefficient.

Doug

rfn026

It's all relative. It's also about the value of the car. My original point was that you you have to take a lot of things into consideration before you jump into a restoration.

A friend of mine spent close to $1,000,000 on his Mercedes SSK restoration. He thought it was well worth the money. He spent less than 10% of the value of the car on the restoration. This is one of the instances where restoration makes a great deal of sense.

The real problem is that you can't restore most Corvettes for 10% of the value. Ok, the Grand Sports are an exception here. And a few others.

Richard Newton

SBR

If you have a decent car to start with, there is no way a Bloomington Gold restoration costs 200K. The only way it can cost that is if you start with a birdcage. I just finished a restoration with one of the top shops in the country (Nabers Motors) and my total bill was 110K. It will be going for the Gold in June. That's a long way from 200K.

Nowhere Man

you showing the car any where else?

SBR

Possibly at the Wisconsin NCRS regional meet in September. It depends on my work schedule.

Ken Sungela

Reading an online article about a pickup sold out of the Pratte collection last week, the following quote by Boyd C. was included:

Despite its (the pickup) drippingly cool demeanor, Coddington noted the struggle of turning a profit on some of the high-end builds. “Most people don’t understand that 90 percent of the time when you build those cars, they don’t make any money. At that time, we were building between 15 and 20 cars a year, and the reason we were able to do that was because we had the wheel shop.”

It's a little confusing to me who he's referring to when he says "they don't make any money" because he then goes onto say the wheel shop is his profit center. It sounds like "they" is the car that doesn't make Boyd's shop and money, but the wheels do.

Nowhere Man

Why is that shocking?? It's a big risk gambling that two rich drunks at a big auction will like your custom car.

The old rule is to make your first million in cars is start with two million still holds true