rothlane'68

So i’ve been saving up a little cash for a downpayment on a new daily. But since there’s really nothing wrong with the current car, I figured, chase the dream: paint the 442!

Found someone local that came highly recommended. He looked at the car, was optimistic, and told me he would do a little research and call with a number. I thought $10,000 might be the upper limit I might need to budget for, and if he’d said anywhere under that, I had planned to ask him when he could start. Then he came back with his estimate: $15-20k all in!!!

The car does need some body work and patches in the usual places (trunk, cowl, behind all 4 wheels and front floor pans). He also told me we could probably keep the cost closer to $15k if I handled the trim and some dis/reassembly, which I am game for, but there’s no guarantee. His main concerns was how deep the rust around the cowl goes.

I am going to get another estimate or two, but is this a reasonable number? I’m not building a show car… just something I can drive without giving off a Mad Max vibe.

Has anyone had a car painted recently, and if so, what does it actually run these days? If you know someone in central Massachusetts that does this kind of work, feel free to DM me contact info.

no1oldsfan

Wow. 15-20 grand sounds high to me. Maybe someone will chime in with more knowledge than me.

Fun71

My neighbor recently got an older 4 Runner painted for around $2500. I told a coworker and he got his BMW 540 sedan painted at the same place for $2300. This was no body work, just paint. Both vehicles look great and the shop gave a 5 year warranty.

lshlsh2

It depends all on how much rust he is fixing. Pics would help.

joe_padavano

$15-20K for top shelf materials, full prep and block sanding, epoxy primer, brand name BC/CC paint, and cut and buff is not unreasonable. Quality materials alone cost me $2K or more, and a paint job is 90% labor, so do the math.

Rallye469

I’ve gotten 2 estimates to paint my 65 in the last month and THAT is what they’re going for with all the details Joe mentioned above.

Im actually a little surprised that with all the body work you mentioned it’s only that.
You can definitely get it don’t cheaper but in the long run I believe you’d be able to tell.

maybe you go from Mad Max to a nice 20 footer cruiser?

maddoctor

If there is body work, count on the 25 k number. My restoration paint was 4200 for material, (paint , primer, reducer etc). The labour to shoot it was 21k. This is north of your border but it isn't much different.
My 2 cents, 5 cents with inflation.

307-5a

Rust i would think is difficult to estimate as it grows when you take a grinder to it . On one car i have , had to remove the windshield to do rust repairs . Feel fortunate you have a shop that will even think about repairing rust, seems to be a lost art . Difficult to find a shop in my area that will do rust repairs .

cdrod

I just spent $16k to paint my '72 442 convertible (base coat/clear coat) and install rear quarter skins on both sides. I did all of the other metal work (inner wheelhouses, floor pan, trunk drop offs, front fender bottoms, etc.), I also disassembled the car, stripped all the panels to bare metal and gapped the doors and fenders before delivering the car to the body shop. I could not find a better price from a vendor that seemed trustworthy. The first shop I selected quoted me a price then tried to renegotiate the price upwards when they were ready to take the car.

Rodney

BangScreech4-4-2

Canadian dollars?

cfair

I’m have not polled local body shops near San Francisco. Nosing around at Dayton Nationals, I have the impression that the national average starting price for painting old cars (let’s say 75 and earlier) is $15k and the price goes up from there.

I’m not a body & paint guy, but I can remove trim. And interiors & so on. My thought is remove the bumpers, interior, windows, & trim by myself and see where the bid starts after that.

I’m not chasing new paint, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that fresh paint would run me $20-30k for fairly straight cars I drive all the time.

For the prices I’m expecting, frankly, I can live with a few dents & scratches on my driver cars. I don’t play in the judging world, so maybe my preferences are different from yours.

Cheers
Chris

Olds64

^^^THIS^^^

I painted my 71 98 5+ years ago for < $2500 by taking an auto body course. That's all in, including auto parts store brand primer and SS paint, materials and class fees. I'd still think you could do it for < $5000 if you did all the work yourself and bought bargain materials.

rothlane'68

Thanks all, I appreciate the insight. Seems like if I want to go this route, I need to get a second estimate and revise/re-crunch my numbers and see if I can find a way to afford this. The painter is an older guy, semi retired I think, who owns a shop, but does restorations on the side. Unlike a lot of folks over the years who want to run from older cars or hem and haw, he seemed genuinely excited about it. He just goes "oh yeah! its like a Chevelle... you know... I've never done one of these before. Plenty of Chevys, Pontiacs and Porsches... but never an Olds!"

Classic Joe, making the complicated simple!

Aint it the truth!

If only it were just a few dents. It wont even pass inspection as is (cracked windshield) and fixing that would probably mean fixing the cowl anyway... Ive never liked to do things piecemeal, so this feels like the best path forward. The way prices are, I don't know if I'll ever be able to buy anything that isn't another big project, so sticking with the project I've got makes sense.

I just wish I'd borrowed the money when interest rates were lower.

rothlane'68

I appreciate the push! You're absolutely right, and I would prefer to do the work myself. I looked at going the Voc/Tech school route a couple years ago and while it's still very tempting, I have even less free time these days. I also feel like if I don't get this done soon I'll just never get to it, and paint just feels like a big undertaking... but hey... so is a $10k loan that I'll spend three years paying off!

cfair

I’ve always found my favorite middle ground between learning body & paint and the other extreme of just writing a (big) check, was to remove the bumpers, trim and interior myself. I recommend this for a couple of reasons:

You may want to straighten, polish or rechrome your bumpers and that’s a good thing to do while the car is in the body shop. I’ve been polishing stainless for the past few days and each piece is taking 15-40 minutes with straightening, sanding & polishing. Olds used a lot of trim…

These days the stainless, diecast and aluminum trim pieces are getting rare, but so are all the clips & retainers that hold them in. If you take all the stuff off, you can bag and tag all the shiny parts then polish them up yourself while the car is in paint. And you’ll be sure that nothing gets lost by the body shop since it’s in your garage. One shop lost my ‘66 98 convertible windshield trims in the 80’s and it was a giant hassle to find replacements then. Let alone now.

You’ll be saving hours for the body shop taping off all your trim and the paint job will come out better on top of that. They should give you a discount for saving them all that labor which, frankly, you may be better off doing since you know (or can ask here) how to remove the stuff.

Pulling the interior will introduce you to the condition of your car from the inside. You can replace, restore or clean up the parts at your leisure and there’s no risk of overspray on your rare parts. That’s also a good time to pull the windows, grease up the regulators or even convert to power windows if you’re into it. And you can clean out your door bottoms and the rear quarters of all the dirt that winds up down there. Along with the screws that fell in in the 1970’s and now rattle around… You may or may not want to mess with windows since they’re wildly time consuming to get back in alignment - see my other posts on that.

Paint & body is also a good time to consider redoing any sagging door hinges so they shut well, and align nicely as the factory intended.

Not to scare you off, but this method has worked well for me across 3 or 4 paint jobs over the past 40 years.

Hope that helps
Chris

Olds64

You might also consider rattle can spraying your car. This would be even cheaper than painting it by taking an auto body course, but I think it would be about the lowest quality paint you could get that might be passable as a 10 ft. paint job.

joe_padavano

Of course there's always this...

https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/hr...get-paint-job/

oldcutlass

That probably would have turned out decent if it were not for the goofy red stripes.

Some people will do their own body work and then take it somewhere to prep and spray. That would save you a ton.

66-3X2 442

There is a reason most reputable shops work by the hour. Hidden rust is hard to figure & if the shop miss figures the time, they will short cut the job. I have seen this so many times with other guys. Paint materials have gone out of sight.

HighwayStar 442

!960 "I'm Earl Scheib, and I'll paint any car, any color for $29.95. No ups, no extras,"

You Tube

Tedd Thompson

I painted my BMW z3 twice but I wasn't satisfied, I did all the body work sanding, priming and could have got by with the second paint job except I didn't like the color by then and I didn't have a spray booth, there was too much junk in the air. There is a huge amount of labor and prep involved to go at it for a third time. Still cost 7 grand to have it shot by a pro or he said he was a pro anyway. On my small car costs were about $300 per shot just for paint...Tedd

Andy

x 2…if I understand the OP correctly he has cowl rust, rust in lower panels etc..I am surprised you were quoted 15k.. believe me it will add up to way more than that if done correctly as 66-3x2 mentions

chopolds

This subject can be the cause of many arguments. An estimate, is just an estimate. I've heard stories of guys getting quoted 10K for body and paint, and owing another 6K when they go to pick it up. Finding an honest body resto place is difficult. Finding a really good one is, as well, and they may not be the same place. I have had to do 2 cars over, that I gave guys a rough ballpark figure (but had too long a wait), and went to another shop to get the job done. One fellow, said he was too embarrassed to even drive the car home. He spent almost 10 K (this is back in the early 90's), and then spent another 8 or 9K for me to redo most of the work. And gave him a discount on painting it, because I really did feel bad for him.
I usually recommend guys to go to local car shows, and cruise nights, and ask around. Especially cars that have been done for a significant amount of time, so you can assume the job was done right. You will quickly find who is good, who is not, who can deliver, in a decent amount of time, and who puts your car in "paint jail". If you're lucky, you might find someone who is good, and reasonably fast.
Costs also depend on where in the country you live. Urban areas will cost more, due to higher rents, and labor rates. Material costs are not a flexible, but there are tiers of quality of materials used. Car lot cheap, production mid-range, and premium. And yes, there are differences.SO if the car is your pride and joy, don't cheap out on materials. Even if you plan on flipping it, if you sue the cheapest stuff on an older car, you might get a bad rep for selling junk.
Rust repair and bodywork is where it's hardest to find someone good. SO many butchers, and corner cutters out there. Best thing here is to physically go to their shop and see projects in the works. Look for complete rust removal, both surface, and rot. Look for tightly fitting metal where welding is done, and fully welded seams, not tacks, or stitch welds. Look for smooth mostly straight surfaces where welding was done. Not too many people do fine metal finishing, where no fillers are used, so a bit of body filler is not a bad thing, Good guys try to keep it under 1/8" or so. On a fully welded, and well prepped surface, this can last many, many years.

1966442

There is NO WAY to give a price up front on a job like this.
It would have to be by the hour plus materials.

allyolds68

If you want a more accurate estimate strip all the paint off the car....

no1oldsfan

Obviously I am old and haven't had to have a car repainted in this day and age. I had no idea repainting a car was that expensive these days. Rust is a very strong issue on repainting a car. We all know that if you see "some" rust there is easy ten times more. Rusted out cowl is no joke. Rust damage is no joke and very deep. Thanks to everyone for the knowledge.

rothlane'68

Yeah, nah!

A whole $10 of free metal work?! Where do i sign???

If I understood him correctly, the $5k difference in the estimate was for the cowl... if it wasn't bad, maybe we're at $15k, if its bad, 20k. Unfortunately, outside of a few guys from the forum that I have bought parts from, I am not too familiar with the local car community. A work buddy has a buddy who has restored a few Chevelles, and when that guy gets back from vacation, I am going to meet up with him and see if I cant find someone for a second or third estimate, hell, maybe he knows the first guy. Speaking of the first guy, as I said, he came highly recommended, but by the guys who work at the shop I've used for insurance jobs in the past. They've done a great job there (my neighbor is an adjuster and he says they do some of the best work in the region) and I trust their judgement, but only so far. If it means anything to anyone, he said he usually uses Wanda paint. He said its middle of the road, but he likes the results he gets.

Speaking of the rust bucket, here are some pictures so you can all tell me just how much more you think its going to cost:

Just happen to have a fender off... how convenient.

The side of the cowl. Small rust hole at the bottom. Whole outer panel probably needs to go.


Bottom of the driver door. Other side isn't as bad.


passenger quarter panel, other side is better


jeez... look at the dash, that cant be good.


Bottom of the door at the front... glad the previous owner stanced the car and I kept it that way for 10 years so water would puddle in there... great choice! the other side is the same.


Lets pop that stainless strip off... oh yeah, baby... there is is!
cowl, right


cowl, center (F**K!)


Cowl, left


the whole dang thang:


Go ahead, I can take it. What do you think?

In better news, the rockers and frame are solid.

chopolds

There's rot, but not so bad. It will take some labor to fix, but it's not the end of the world.

allyolds68

To fix the windshield base correctly they're going to have to strip out the dash. If you have someone else so it, that repair alone could be $5k

Your lower cowl and dog leg that supports the front fender are in surprisingly good shape . To fix that door properly you have to cut everything bad out, including the seam.

The rockers are galvanized so they are almost never bad.

As other's have said, stay away from urban areas. Labor rates are more than double what they are in the middle of no where. 15 years ago I had body work and paint on my 68 convertible at a place in the middle of no where. It was $6500 and all the metal work was completed by me prior to sending it there. I got what I paid for. It wasn't a great job....

Oldsguy

I don't think that it looks that bad but then I am using my Vista as a reference so you don't have many troubles. I think some elbow grease in grinding, sanding, cleaning, welding (if you can), or using some kind of filler, and priming will fix it up. What Joe P. gave a link to is what I did minus the final poslish on my old post war 2dr sedan. My friend and I cleaned it up and sanded it, primered it and rolled on some tractor enamel with mini rollers. It turned out pretty good for an old car.

ijasond

You should be able to get that car painted in basecoat clearcoat for around $2500-$3500. The real money is getting to that point.

Just based on your description I would rough guesstimate 60 hours of metal work and 40 hours of bodywork. Depending on the shops rate that’s roughly another $6500.

$1200 to have it blasted before they even see what they’re dealing with.

Time to disassemble the car and reassemble it another 24 hours, or roughly $1600.

Cut and buff is a good 16 hours. $1200

Assuming paint and body materials are the only thing the shop has to purchase, figure 15% of the total cost above. So roughly $2,000 minimum.

Also, most shops know they are going to run into things that they can’t see, so they usually account for some of that on the front end and just shoot 10% or so higher right off the bat. That’s one less call they have to make to you for more money a week after they start

So I would say bare minimum for a quality job would be $16k. And be leery of anyone willing to do it for the bare minimum. If you are dealing with a shop that uses more high end paints/materials and has a reputation for top notch quality, they are going to be on the higher side and could easily double that price. $30k is not uncommon.

None of this includes any parts. Based on that, I'd say the guy who gave you the quote knows what he is talking about.

.

cherokeepeople

.about 20 years ago i painted a pickup for a guy he brought me the truck and asked what it needed so i told him and off he went.about 2 months later he comes back with it on a trailer and says how about now.told him what else to do and off he went couple weeks later here it comes on the trailer.said looks good,but would be nice to have the box off.off he goes.we set up a time a week or so later for him to drop it off and he brings me the box mounted to a frame that was cut up to make a trailer.i had a big paint room and got both the box and the truck minus the box in and shot em both.couple days later he came and took em both home.it was the easiest paint job i ever did.my point is the more stuff you can do yourself will save you time and money.

Oldsguy

I just returned from a short jaunt in town for some chores and on the way home saw a guy wet sanding a classic car about 1/2 mile from my home. Turns out it is a '71 Caprice convertible and he is doing the work for the owner. He is a body man and does jobs either on the side from his regular job or exclusively, didn't get which if he said. Anyway he said the owner had the car down in Florida for body work and it stayed there for six years waiting to be finished. The owner just recently retrieved it after paying $17 grand to get it out of "kidnapped" status and the work still wasn't done right. They had cut out rot in the floorboards and left three inches overlap to put the replacement floorbaord in, tack welding it all around with the new floorboard on top of the old, water trap city... They had also overlapped the quarter panels the same way.

no1oldsfan

Definitely sounds like do as much work as you can on your own. Whole lot of labor in disassembly and reassembly.

Rallye469

Olds guy….that’s brutal.

Cherokeepeople…This what I was going to suggest.
It doesn’t cost much to buy a welder, practice a little and do the “behind the scenes” work yourself. You may even feel confident enough to fix the window sill yourself. Do all of the little time consuming jobs you can handle…most of them won’t even be seen or noticed when the car is done. Let the body guy/painter do the things that REALLY require skill.
You’ll save thousands.

It didn’t take me long to learn how to mig decent enough to get most jobs done. (Especially when they’re hidden from view- like that cowl)

My other suggestion is that it might be easier to replace a door than to do the work to save it. Check FB marketplace. I’ve see decent doors go for a few hundred bucks.

66_Jetstar

15k seems real cheap based on the pictures. The previous repairs indicate there is plenty of rust repair to do. This can easily be the type of scenario where you're quoted 15k, he does 15k worth of work and tells you to either drop off more cash or pick up the car!

tkcutlass

FWIW Here's the cowl patch https://autobodyspecialt.com/1968-72...-base-channel/

Wish I had seen that before I pieced mealed mine.

cherokeepeople

that looks like the same piece my neighbor put in his 69 gto.in his case it wasn't wide enough for his rust.he had to add some on both front and back side of it.

FStanley

Paint brand and quality are a huge factor PPG Deltron topcoat with two tone colors, clear, hardener, thinner, etc was $3600 just recently.. however there are still Earl Schiebs around.

http://earlscheib.blogspot.com/

griffey57

Maaco isn't a bad option either. My buddy just had his 69 firebird painted there, and they did a phenomenal job.