Funny Ain't It?

[aris_unlimited]

I told my body guy that I wanted the car to be straight. He asked what kind of quality I was really looking for, I told him not a show car but something that has maybe been on the street for a year or so. Took him a week to do all the body work and paint the areas I wanted painted. Cost $2k. And he replaced the front fenders and rear quarters (I supplied parts), fixed little rust holes, and used seam sealer to kind of cover up all the trouble areas. Even with parts included it was less than $5k. Anybody asking $20k is freaking nuts.

[dutch]

sounds like a disscussion with no end imo.... 
treasure that body guy...  I spent way more than the 2K on materials, not including any sheetmetal. 

[aris_unlimited]

With front fenders, rear quarters, and paint I invested $2500 into materials. $1300 for front fenders (with yearones ridiculous shipping costs) $700 for rear quarters from AMD on ebay, much better shipping. And roughly $500 for paint and other supplies. Of course I only had him paint the interior, jam the doors, engine bay, and inner trunk. Wanted to make sure I got some other work done before I painted the rest of the car, which is a good thing because I think I am going to change color lol.

[Moparal]

How far away are you from Huntsville?

[ViperMan]

I'll back Mr. Cooter by quoting Mr. Jay Leno.

"If you restore a car, and you do it right, and you [sell it and] make money on it, you did something wrong."

I once helped prepare an $83,000 estimate to restore a '72 Ford LTD.  The Customer thought we were crazy.  But then we provided an itemized list of everything - parts, labor, labor to FIND rare parts, dissasembly, bagging/tagging, etc...  We showed everything, and he was convinced.

On disassembly ALONE we went over budget because everything on the car was rusted solid, and because someone (previous owner, selling dealership, who knows) sprayed a dozen cans of rubberized undercoat underneath the car, so that even removing the TRIM from the fenders took around 4 hours...

Chip Foose built cars on Overhaulin' in just a week...  But he had a crew of 20+ people working on it, and many working 20-hour shifts...  7 x 20 x 20 = 2,800 hours.  Factor in an average rate of $25 an hour, you're at $70,000 just for labor.  But they don't tell you THAT during the show, do they.