The body shop that has been doing a "rotisserie restoration" on my 71 charger rt has got me going insane. How many hours does a normal higher quality restoration take? I know there are alot of variables but a ballpark on car that was very solid with NO sheetmetal replacement how many hours would that normally take? It was pretty much a sand it down, clean the underside, then re-undercoat the underside, not even a painted undercarriage. Take the interior out freshen it up, drop k-member and suspension, blast it all, paint or cover it all the way it should be and put it back together? Any input from you guys would be great as I feel like I am paying for someone taking a nap on the job every day!

Wow!! you are paying someone to do all that??

A lot is all I can say, a lot. Good luck and I hope you have deep pockets.

I hope your not paying someone to scrape undercoating off with a torch and puddy knife??

I know someone who can remove all undercoating in 4 hours, not 4 weeks with a puddy knife.

Written estimate???

Anything can and usually does take more time than either party might initially think it will.

As an example.
I was replacing all the under-body brake lines on a 1970 Challenger. And I had to remove the rear axle vent valve and block.
Problem arose when the valve was seized in the block. So out came the mapp gas torch to heat it up just a tad, an adjustable wrench to hold said valve. etc etc

What should have taken 5 minutes to replace took nearly an hour. Sorry but no one can plan for that.

And an estimate is just that,,,,an estimate.

I try to estimate everything I do. And when it comes to old car work,,,,,all my customers know before the 1st screw gets turned. It's an estimate and not a guarantee written in stone.

In reality... Hour wise for what you described could range from 150-300 depending on how far apart the interior is going and what "little" things are being done during the restoration. Is the engine and drivetrain still installed? was this a shell on rollers? are they duplicating somewhat factory procedures? do they need to detail the rear end? replace brake and fuel lines?

40 hrs week x 4 weeks is 160 hours -
A general shop may only work on the car 20-30% of that time during the month depending on other workload which is why restorations take so long.

Generally paint work is estimated seperatly from disassembly and assembly work on this type of stuff. Paint work could range from $6,000- $20,000 depending on the shop. Most shops charge hourly for mechanical work and depending on the area that could range from $60.00-$150/hr

Sorry for being so flip before.


I did a rotisserie resto on my gold 71. I did it ALL myself, so I know what it takes.

I was single at the time in 2005 and started with a 100% rust free car. Took it apart, steamed cleaned it bare, then media blasted it bare in my driveway with 2 different medias, then did 85% of the body work myself. Then a friend painted it in 10 days at his shop, then I put it back together myself, by myself in 10 months including disassemblly.

I worked on it just about everyday, almost every hour that I was not sleeping or working.

I have no idea on the hours involved but it was a lot. I would do 15 hour days on the weekends.

I have the right equipment to do it here and fast, not messing around taking my car here and there waiting on people. Otherwise it would have taken twice as long.

25 years of truck maintenance experience and 20 years of car racing experience helped me a ton.
I tried it with a different car when I was 25 years old and never got the car finished and sold it.



After steam cleaning, before media blasting.


I totally rebuilt every part of the car, there's ton of work involved.


A lot of the car got put together right where you see it, outside because my garage door open would be too low to have it sideways like that inside. Didn't lay on my back hardly at all.

I documented the build on this website back in 2005 for all to see.

Last one I did on the rotisserie was about as clean as a car as most people would start with. I did pretty much the complete tear down. It needed previous crash damage fixed and had minor rust. Interior I just pulled and put back in as it was, didn't reinstall the drivetrain. Did the rear suspension, brake lines etc... more just a body/paint and partial reassemble. I had over 400 hours into it, but the underside was painted also. I didn't do all the small parts and detail work. To do a full resto from start to finish, easily 1000 hours even on a clean car to do it all. I normally don't keep track, if I do they start to seem like work and I consider it a hobby

Turns out, it is much easier to buy 2, 3, 5, even 10 of these cars than it is to just restore ONE of them.

They supposedly "have done" 900 hours on the car already and it is still not assembled yet. Still in pieces, painted, but still in pieces. I feel they should have had about 500-600 in it at this stage so they got a hard a## chewing this morning and I told them it needs to be finished up for less than 1000 total hours as it was a "deep" resto but not that deep! Especially on such a solid car to start with

Got any pictures you can share so we can get a idea of the scope of the work needed?

Sounds like they may have under quoted you labor hours. Usually due to: Lack of experience, lowballing to hook you in for more labor, lack of skill, poor management or combinations there of.

A well run shop would have your engine/trans and front end sitting on a K-member waiting for the car to come out of paint. One experianced person in a outfitted shop could make it a roller in 16 hours...That is unless the owner is holding up the process with parts.

Obviously by your post, you've never "fully" restored a vehicle, sure no metal replacement in your definition, but they had to strip the car down to a shell, blast/strip/dip the major components of sheetmetal, prime, paint, along with any hammer or filler work, nevermind the finial stages of blocking coat after coat of primer to prepare for paint, nevermind the interior prep/assembly, driveline, exterior decals/trim, etc, etc, electrical, fuel/emission lines, brake lines, exhaust, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc... the minutia of preparing, detailing all the componets for a full restoration are staggering, to the uninformed, it looks like a cake walk on a "clean" car, it isn't...trust me, 1000 hrs is the norm for a "good" restoration,....I can spend upwards of 500 hrs just priming, blocking, painting, color sanding, and buffing a paint job, nevermind the rest of the vehicles needs,....And by putting the "gun" to the builders/shop's head to finish the car based on your estimation of completion, it's guaranteed they will start cutting corners, then you'll get what you "payed for"...

I loaded a few pics of it to photobucket so you can see what has been done in the 900 hours. The first pic where there is snow is when I bought the car, as you can see it was not a rough car at all, it started out with spots in the paint from moisture when it was shot before we got it and this body shop said they could sand those out of the clear and reclear it and it was going to be my driver. well that turned into it needed this, it needed that and then it was on a rotiserrie.

http://s1327.beta.photobucket.com/user/vette1986/library/charger%20rt

I do know it took 415 hours for my paint job, not counting stripping of the old paint.

Even for a shop, team, group of guys who know what they are doing and are good at it...
One of these cars can easily take between 400-1200 hours. That's a wide range I know..
If it's just an all over paint job you're on the lower end
If it's sheet metal replacement, undercarriage, interior and drivetrain it's in the upper range..
And some (quite a few) in really bad condtion can
go upwards of 2000 hours...

and this is for "Good" restoration guys...

Add significantly more time for a DIY guy...

People ask "Why does it take so long?"...
Here's one classic example:

To guide coat and block sand (by hand) an entire car (B-Body for example) 1 time can take 24-40+ hours

And these cars might need that step done 2 even 3 times...
to get it straight..

Thats 120 hours of block sanding..alone!
Not including the prep time to put it in the booth and prime it..

So with no real repairs/metal replacement at all
it can be 200 hours just to sand the car down,
fill/ prime/block to get it ready to paint...

Then there's the paint job...
Most people think its 3-4 coats of base
then 3 coats of clear and then they are done...

In reality..alot of guys will spray 2 coats of base, then evaluate
the car... If there are any issues, dirt, runs, tiny scratches from
blocking etc... They stop and water sand them out and then
repeat...

Why?
Because this is what you have to do to get these cars looking as
good as they do...

Noticed we havent discussed the clearcoat work!
Think you can buff one of these cars perfect in 1 hour... HAHAHAHA
only on TV....

Even the best professional sprayers get runs/dirt/dry spots/issues etc... It adds up really fast...

400 hours for an allover -non repair paint job is not out of the
question... What's out of the question is:: How many people are willing to pay for this?

Notice too... Most body shops today will NOT do an all over paint job..
Why? because they can't make any money doing it...
What they end up charging for it... Most people won't pay...

I think before anyone gets into the mopar restoration hobby,
should take several body work classes at a local community college.
So they can get a feel for what they are getting into.

When you want to redo one of these cars...
you are signing up to either
1) do
or
2) pay somebody to do....

hundreds and hundreds of hours of work...
If you aren't into it, you better have a fat wallet that is into
it... or it is just going to sit and languish....

These cars are beasts in more ways than horsepower and torque...

My

Best of luck to you

Checkout my pictures, some never seen before. This about 1/4 of the pictures I took. I took many before pulling the car apart, have only loaded a 1000 or so on photobucket, here's one album to look at. I took over 2000 photos, that alone takes some time to do. I did it at the end of each day and posted them here and the positive feedback I received motivated me to stay at it. web page

I realize the labor hours billed out on the job. But sometimes I think you have to take a step back and look at the overall cost.

What is this guy charging per hour? If it's $50/hr, then 900 hour equals $45,000 just in labor. I'd imagine parts are like $10-15K??

Was the motor or trans rebuilt as part of this shop's resto?

If this total bill gets up near $60-$70K plus I just don't see that quality and throughness of restoration work done. The pics look very nice and appropiate for what you seem to be looking for. Just not $70K plus type of work.