How much paint and primer is needed to repaint the vette? What is the best paint, primer, and stripper for prepping your car? These other questions I wonder about, why does it take 6+months to paint a vette if you send it to a body shop (I suspect the money flows to these shops on insurance work) and then they wan't 7+k to paint an old vehicle. Im sure it didnt take 6+months to paint these vettes when they were on the road en masse. As far as the 7+k-up prices, I'm sure the prep is esentially the same for a metal car. It is my opinion that they (shops) want to make the most money they can because it is an old car, a corvette, and because it is fiberglass. I'm sure it wouldnt take 6+months to paint a C-4-C6 vette. Excuse the rant.

 

If you go to a collision shop for a paint job, it almost always takes a while. They will drop working on your car to do the insurance work. Prep work on the glass cars is a little diffrent than a metal car, just because of the way you have to work the fiberglass to make it straight, filling, sanding, blocking ect. As far as how much paint it will take, well that depends on the color, sealer, and how many coats of clear is applied. Many colors might take as many as 6 coats to cover.

 

Actually, prep is not the same as for a metal body car, especially if you strip it first. The is a lot more fill-sand cycles for painting fiberglass. It shows if you don't do it.

I invested in a book and a video and did most of the prep work myself after I had my '80 professionally media blasted. Even after all the filling and sanding I did, the shop had to do more.

A good painter job starts with a black epoxy sealer. Then they start the fill-sand cycles. They spray a coat of filling primer and sand it down. High areas turn black again and lows stay gray. They repeat this cycle until they don't get black patches anymore.

When I bought my '80, I was told that the body was "straight" and "accident-free". (Don't get me going about Mr. "Monthief". ) Dull paint hid a lot of problems. Here's what it looked like as I was working on it:

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You can save yourself some $$ by minimizing the prep they need to do before blowing the paint on. That includes taking off anything that comes off instead of taping around them - hood, lights, radio antenna, trim, side vents, grills, headlight surround, etc.

Of course, you can also just take your car to Maaco and get their base+clear special, but they WILL charge you more because it's a Corvette because of the pop-up headlights, side vents, etc. And don't be surprised if your car comes back with LOTS of overspray on your spare tire cover, inner wheel wells, suspension, bumper mounts, radiator, etc.

One of the previous owners cut corners on a paint job. Here's what my car looked like under the hood when I got it:

[IMG][/IMG]

I don't know what color your car is, but dark colors show more surface flaws than white, silver, or yellow. I restored the color to original Code 28 Dark Blue Metallic, so I knew surface flaws were going to be visible.

I'm glad I spent the time and $$ to get the surface smooth. I could have spent a lot more to get it near-perfect, but as you can tell from the reflections in this picture at Car Craft Summer Nationals, the surface is pretty smooth.

[IMG][/IMG]

 

Usually 1.5 gallons primer/surfacer, ready to spray, same with base and clear coats. Add 1/2 gallon sealer, if required. When all is said and done, about $1,200 to $1,500 for materials.
Most custom shops have insurance work that comes in on a regular basis. In my case, about 30%. These are regular customers, the difference is they are probably in a rent car, and it may also be their daily driver. They will get priorty. We explain up front to the custom/restoration customers the time schedule may be somewhat longer due to unexpected jump in collision work. Also, like most high-end shops, the quality/attention to detail does take considerably longer. Average # of hours for a strip/repaint on a C-3 is 150. Depending on the labor rate in your area, 7 to 10k is about average. G/L
P.S. Not to be rude or anything...if the repaint/restoration work profit (Customer paid) was good as the insurance work, we would only do repaint/restorations. We could not survive without the insurance work.

 

big_G: You are not being rude at all, you simply comfirmed what I suspected.

MN80Vette: Thanx for the pics.

 

6 months is the average for most shops around here on repainting a classic vette. They are also charging around 6k to 7k. Our shop is taking about 3 months on average for the older classic cars but we just added another body man that im going to put on the old stuff full time. Our shop charges around 4k for classic cars.

Insurance work is pretty gravy but I feel body shops shouldnt schedule jobs in that they have to keep for an unGodly amount of time.

Whatever shop you choose, make sure you visit it first and check it out very closely. Make sure the shop isnt doing the "float" and takes care of its work on a regular basis.

Good luck!