I dare ya to go with the same wheel/tire combo

the original owner said the car did not handle well with the a34 package and those 14" rims. He had the rear rims widened shortly after getting the car. Here is another pic. This one is circa 71-72 when the orig owners brother got a fairly new Challenger. The options were similar to the Cuda. I am glad there were some pics for this car. Unfortunately they were probably taken on junk Ektachrome instead of Kodachrome film.

Your Cuda looks fantastic. The B7 blue really shines in the sun.
Hopefully you'll be this summer.

Here we go I hear this all the time " you could have paid less going this way" Yep you are correct to bad all those people that do it that way end up going the expensive route after the work they got done SUCKS.

Hey why don't you post picture of the trans job for $500 bucks.

I bet it looks and runs like the one I had to take out of a car of for a customers AAR (He had the trans done on his own mind you).

I personally know what it takes to get a trans to look OE and just the cleaning and case prep cost more than $500.

If you paid for an OE job and got a cast iron painted piece of crap back then something is going really wrong here.

Did the owner of this Cuda in question post pictures of his finished transmission, if so I missed it...

The transmission in question is on my car and it came out real nice. A while back, a number of people jumped ugly when I mentioned the price of the job. I did not mention it to start a mele. With some of the comments made, it made me think something was up. Frank and I talked in length about the restoration process and the issue was resolved. Like I said in my posts a few pages back, I was just surprised how much this type of work went for. I am sure there will be no issues with his work.

Bolted to engine:

**********AMERICAN***MUSCLE*CAR***REVOLUTION**********
**********PART***ONE**********
-PAINT & BODY REVIEW-

______________________________________________________________________________________

Ladies & Gentlemen, this is the moment a lot of you have been waiting for. This is part one of my experience with Tim D's American Muscle Car Revolution. This review will cover all paint and body work done on my 1970 Plymouth Cuda by AMCR. Basically they had a really good solid car to work on. Part two will be in a few weeks and that will cover the mechanical/suspension work AMCR did on my car. Since the carb had to be sent out again I cant really make a review for this end of the project yet because I have not driven the car thoroughly yet. So far so good. Stay tuned...
______________________________________________________________________________________

-------------------BACKGROUND--INFO---------------------
______________________________________________________________________________________
When I started this project three years ago, I was only planning to do a repaint back to the original B7 color (the second owner had it repainted to 71 B7). When I bought the Cuda, the original motor had been through a minor but incorrect rebuild and the original transmission had some minor problems. I had the original 410 gear removed and replaced with a more street friendly 3.54. The rotisserie idea was not in my mind yet because the car was pretty intact and the extremely heavy dealership undercoat was preserving the car pretty well on the underside. The usual spots had some minor surface rust and all the original sheetmetal was intact except a the front driver side fender which was replaced in the early 70's. The original owner that had the car for 31 years clarified that and obviously left it garaged or covered during ownership. I am the third owner of the car.
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------------THE-SEARCH------------
_____________________________________________________________________________________At first I wanted to keep the car in NY at a local shop. Estimates were gotten from several decent autobody shops. The prices ranged from $14K to 45K. Most did not even look at the car thoroughly and threw prices out there and said these were the best case scenarios (no panel replacement, just strip outer shell to bare metal, fix imperfections, prime & repaint. Granted, I had to do the disassembly to get these great prices,LOL. The overall vibe that I got was that they did not want to do it because these are long term jobs take space from the usual quick money fender benders that they do.
A friend eventually pointed me in the direction to a shop on the north shore that did a nice job repainting his impala. After a few visits and detailed conversations of the work I wanted done, we struck a deal, I took the car apart bagging and tagging everything and had the car towed to the shop. Now he promised a 6 month turnaround because he claimed the winter was slow. Needless to say 4 months passed, the car was moved from one side of the shop to the other and nothing was done. I kept getting the runaround as to why nothing hsa been done yet. I am glad they did not touch the car at all because I would've been going through a 2nd resto when I retire, LOL... This time delay proved to be valuable for two reasons. One, it freed up space and two it bought me time to research other shops outside of NY. I knew of moparts for a while before I started this project and i figured it would be a good place to start looking for a shop. It was during a search that I found AMCR's advertisement and I was shocked at what they were offering.(Everyone else seemed shocked as well,LOL). Rotisserie resto work for a set price. I was thinking to myself of the great condition of the car and all the parts coming off and figured this would now be a candidate for an all out rotisserie job. After a few conversations with Tim of the work to be done and looking through his shops portfolio, I decided to use them for this job. The portfolio was impressive and the paint and body guy had been doing this work for 30+ years. He could handle any job thrown his way. Some of the rotted wrecks in the portfolio were basically brought back to life with a whole lot of master fab and metal work. Also, the fact that they had space to start this job ASAP was another plus.
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----------GEORGIA-BOUND-----------____________________________________________________________________________________
When the car arrived at the shop in august of 09, they started on it immediately and had the thing hand stripped to bare metal within a week or two. and mounted on the rotisserie They sent pics of the work as they billed and luckily there was no severe body damage just a few small dents,nick and dings covered by the second repaint. Everything was fixed and I went to look at the car in person and was pleased with the work that had been done.
Next phase was the paint. My big fear was not their skills with body work but whether or not these guys could match that b7 perfectly. Its one of Chryslers nicest colors but also hard to match. That was my worry from the start but Tim reassured me that they would match it. Since they never did a B7 car, I pointed them in the direction of Roger Gibson if they needed any guidance with the color. Apparently he never did one either. Roger did help out with some other things. There was a lot of research from which paint to use down to the primers to LA style darker primer to use underneath it.
There was a slight delay before I approved the test panel, they shot for me.
In the end, I decided on the factory process which used a red oxide primer underneath the base coat. Pros, the color ended up matching, cons, hopefully no chipped paint. The closest match 70 B7 was 2020 Shopline by PPG. Believe it or not the Global was not an exact match. However we used a high quality clear over the base. I could have done a single stage, but I wanted a more durable paint job. During the paint process, all non B7 color parts were shot during this period. (suspension, master cyl, torsion bars, dana, etc..). Again, pictures were constantly emailed to update on the work. Keep in mind the progress was not as rapid because they got two more cars in so they had to divide their time between three (70 RR vert, Charger RT and my Cuda). Assembly took a while because of several delays on my end waiting on parts to be finished. They wont be brought up because they have nothing to do with AMCR. This dragged reassembly out a few extra months.
Now, here comes my only regret of the project. The infamous redo of the bottom of the car. Basically in april or may of 2010, all the big stuff was back on the car. After looking through pics that Tim sent, the dark gray primer was not sitting well with me. I found some clear shots above the gas tank of black primer. This change when the car was almost done cost several months extra headaches for the shop. I do apologize over and over and wish I never did this at this phase. Also a reduced staff didnt help progress either. Eventually, the second reassembly was completed around the starting and finishing of some other projects. My second to last visit to the shop was in October 2010 to inspect the car. There was a few minor things to be addressed. Another thing that held up the project in the end and I am annoyed I did not think of it sooner was a hood and door hinge rebuild by SMS(EXCELLENT WORK). Obviously this required more paint work when they came back. Fast forward to a cold ass morning late december/early january 2011 when the Cuda arrived via Passport Auto. The fun begins!!!!!

__________________-----REPORT--CARD-----_________________________
Here it is folks, the long awaited paint/body report card for AMCR

Overall paint & body grade A (outstanding with the exception of a few small issues)
Customer Service- A+
Professionalism and not giving up when the bandwagon attacked- A+
Execution of 2nd redo of bottom- A+++++


Besides Tim who has been great during this whole experience, I want to point the spotlight on an unsung hero that will get a moparts standing ovation. His name is Mike Snyder. He is the master paint/body and all around great guy at AMCR. This man is one of the best paint/body guys out there. He is a perfectionist and tries his hardest to make all parties happy. HIs 30+ years of experience show on my car and the others he has done. He is not really on the computer much nor a member of this site but I felt he deserved a great deal of recognition as well. MIke, "THIS BUDS FOR YOU"!...

Like stated previously, part two writeup and conclusion is coming soon and then we can bring this thread to a close.

When you say the Global b7 paint didn't match, what didn't it match?

Great review for sure but the score card is incomplete.

When shopping for a body shop or restoration shop, there are THREE major criteria to be met.

1) QUALITY

2) TIME FRAME

3) FINAL COST vs ESTIMATE

Now by reading this thread about your car, and seeing other posts by AMCR I think I can answer the first two with some certainty, however I will speak for most people when I ask... Did AMCR stick to their estimated cost? With the extra work that YOU ask for, I can understand being charged extra, but did they ever raise the cost of the project or go over their famous "$25K MAX labour special" for reasons that they discovered?

...and a question for TIM....If you did indeed stick to your estimated price....Did you "make money" or lose your shirt...by that I mean taking the total amount charged divided by the total hours spent...are you making minimum wage?

...Again a question for Tim...has a project like this made you rethink your $25K deal OR or quite contrary did it reaffirm your offer?

I have enjoyed this whole process and want to give KUDOS to AMCR.
The owner appears to be completely happy based on his grading of Tim and his crew.

There are a number of posters on here waiting for you to fail so they can steer people to their services.

Good job Tim and AMCR. I would not hesitate to send you my AAR !

Truth is - It is almost impossible to quote a price up front on a restoration. No one is 100% sure what lies ahead until they find all the trouble spots. I have seen many people (and friends) lose their ass sticking to quotes.