Hello, I haven't had a car done in 25 years. And I'm throwing around the idea of getting my R/Ts paint and body done. What am I going to be looking at for price. I know it all comes down to what body panels will need replaced. I'm just looking for what to expect from an average job. 30K to start? What have you guys payed recently ? Thanks

I had a 68 Charger painted maybe 5 years now.
All the major welded on panels were on . the bolt on stuff was just hanging there.

Guy took it, finessed the dutchman panel fit for the car and welded it. Hung and adjusted everything else.
Cost was right at $9000

I got back and assembled painted shell

Car is EE1 and color makes a difference

Figure around $40,000 according to how slick you want it.

How much work does your car need? The terms "paint" and "body" combined could be anything from $15,000 to $115,000. A professional restoration shop in my area to paint a body that needs NO metal work, doesn't need the jambs, trunk, interior and engine compartment done, and only blocking and priming the body itself without a vinyl top is right at $15,000 which includes material.

This is BC/CC.

WRT Paint. Go to a PPG dealer or such and inquire about some various paint materials: i.e. primer, solvent, color, clear.
After 25 years, be prepared for a SHOCK at prices for name brand materials. You'd think that Gold paint actually contained Gold flakes in it.

WRT Body: Can say, since I've always done all my body work, even some painting.

my one buddy painted a 55 chevy about 10yrs back, and just the paint and materials was a tad over 7k then.
that includes everything, primer, sealer, paint, clear and thinner. sandpaper and a little bondo was included as well, but that was just a TINY bit of the total cost.
the paint color was red, and as all know, red is the most expensive color there is.
materials have SKYROCKETED since then for ALL materials involved.
back then, JUNK thinner could be bought for $10-15.00 per 5 gallon can. we used that for general cleaning.
last fall, the same brand JUNK thinner was $50.00 per 5 gallon can.

And to think back around 1970 at the little car sales and body shop we sanded taped and shot enamel for $125, any adddd body work was $1.50 an hour. That old man could lay down some paint, like glass.

Had my buddy shoot my Road Runner 6 years ago out in AZ. Wanted a driver quality job, he convinced me to go single stage. Paint is fading and getting thin on a few spots. Bit of a bummer, but I figure thats what 5k gets ya.

Looking at 2 stage respray options as well.

What i'm seeing here is the good shops charge time and materials. they send detailed pictures weekly and you pay them weekly for time spent. Wait is a year or more. Lots of shops i've checked into do bad work and have lots of complaints against them, some charge storage fee when the car is sitting waiting on parts, I was told expect to pay 30k average for a car that isn't rusty to strip and completely redo the car. This is rotisserie inside/out etc. Cuts costs if you can do some of the manual labor work yourself before and after paint but have to be careful with the warranty part of it too. I am in the process of this now, had the car done for a quoted price, not happy with the quality of the work and so having it redone by another shop. I was able to agree to recover some of the money i spent but still waiting to be paid by the shop.

sadly, you may wait some time to get paid. i hope not, but you never know.
back in my junkyard and used car lot days, we went around to the various body shops in the area mooching their leftover cans of paint.
when it came time to spray a car, we would "mix up a custom color".
we also included some kind of special graphics, like a type of firebird chicken on the hood of a camero, or some stylish stripe pattern on a B-body.
this was way before the 80's and 90's graphics appeared, and we always made sure to have a little left over for future "small touch ups".
when the car was sold, we always told the buyer it was a "custom" mix, and if there was a crash, the car would need a total re-spray.
no problem for the buyer, super cheap for us !

Anymore, just finding a shop that will mess with our old dinosaurs can be a job all by itself. And many don't really know how to deal with rust effectively. At least the way that our cars rust.

I should add the only reason he said he would refund any of my money was because it is coming apart under the new paint already, i brought it home from the paint shop and went into a heated shop. Another issue i had with this car was I paid a shop to replace the vinyl top when i got the car to replace the original one that had pieces missing, After he removed the rest of the top he said there was some surface rust under the top that needed to be taken care of. I asked him to walk me thru what he was going to do, said all the right things, i didnt want to pay him 400 dollars to take a bomb can to it. Thats exactly what i ended up with now i have the top off. He also cracked the windshield, ruined the drip rail moldings and windshield moldings, said it was all like that when i brought it to him. Lots of dishonest shops out there. Hard to see in the picture where the paint is coming apart, its in the reflection of the lights on top of the quarter, this is just one of several areas with issues

I have been in this business my whole life, currently selling these products for the last 21 years. Restoration is very tedious to do correctly. So yes expect to pay a lot of hours for labor. I have painted a few race cars in the last 20 years and i can tell you this. A typical race car, glass/carbon nose, doors, trunklid, steel roof and quarters. I takes me about 3-400 hours to strip the steel, block out the fiberglass. Then block and polyester prime usually about 5-9 times to get the car straight. Then add in that yes the materials are very expensive.
Remember that like most things....you will get what you pay for. Expensive primer, paint, clear will give you way better results than cheaper products.

IF you want to know prices for products, you can ask me. Where i work we sell almost all the major paint lines and auto body products.

[Thanks i appreciate that, I didnt want to accept that things had gone up that much in the last 10 years and found someone to do it for my budget. In the end its going to cost a lot more so lesson learned, That lesson is i cant afford to pay someone and i cant achieve the quality i want myself so need to learn to like primer i guess lol

You can save some money by doing some things yourself. A lot of time is spent disassembling and reassembling the car. You can take all the trim, weatherstrip, lights, etc off the car and put it all back on yourself. It takes a LOT of time to be careful and mark all the items that come off and organize the fasteners etc. Then it takes even longer to put it all back carefully. Also if you can, strip the car to the metal and epoxy prime it, that too saves a bunch of time for the shop......just some ideas to save a little $$$$

Yes i disassembled the car and put it on a rotisserie, dont want to pay for the stuff i can do. Its getting media blasted and will take it to them afterwards to epoxy seal, then i will bring it home to sit until later in the year when its my turn at the shop. i will reassemble the car when there done with the paint work. I have all the sub components to do while im waiting anyway. I went thru all the mechanicals when i bought the car 5 years ago. Its a EV2 car and the last shop painted it the wrong color along with everything else going on with it.