Body/Paint Rates with Inflation

[392 Cuda]

I've been looking around for a good body/paint shop to complete my project (color change, bedliner undercoat, driver quality paint).

The first couple estimates I received south of Chicago are ~250hrs for body/paint (post-repair/welding) at $85-100/hr. - Definitely higher than I expected.

What has veryone been paying for body/paint lately?

[ec_co]

body/paint has gotten ridiculously expensive the last several years. even pre-covid it was getting bad, but post-covid is insane. pre-covid I was being quoted $7-10K ..... now $15-20K. I'm seriously thinking of just going the Maaco route, it'll never be a show car and just a fun semi-daily driver.

[anlauto]

$20,000.00 is about average starting place these days.  Most body shops want nothing to do with classic cars, and most specialty shops have big egos and even bigger waiting lists to get in..as the value of these cars go up, shops think every car is a 71 Hemicuda

What's worse is when you have to include metal repair in the same invoice ....try telling someone it will cost $40K to have the bare shell of their car restored

[torredcuda]

Restoration shops around here are $100-120/hr. I do my own body and paint so never had an estimate but I`ve heard $20k is minimum for paint.

[tparker]

$100 an hour seems a fair rate. Materials aren't that expensive. I spent somewhere between $1-2k I think. I didn't add it all up. So from there it depends on the amount of work to do. Spraying is a no biggie nor putting everything back together. The big expense is how much body work. It seems almost 2 months seems excessive to me unless virtually everything needs work. But that is a novices opinion. Seems like a week to prep and paint once body work is done. How much body work is needed?

I did all my own body work and paint.... and it shows. But I did it and it wasn't hard. Someone with skill could have done a much better job in well under half the time I did. My car need a roof, rear window/trunk panel, trunk floors, one lower rear quarter and front window channel re fabricated along with two dents that needed addressing. I probably spent about a month to do all that work or so. I didn't spend a ton of time getting the panels perfectly smooth, but they arn't that bad. This can be a time sink.

I wonder if this is one area that is over priced. I am sure there are some amazing body and paint dudes out there, but I think there are dimimishing returns on the amount of work that goes into some of the cars... unless you are going for something perfect. In which case, the cars didn't look that good out the factory doors. LOL.

Just some thoughts.

[mopar jack]

Just got my 71 road runner out of body shop hell. It went into the shop 2 1/2 years ago at an estimate of 15k for some rust repair and paint. It came out at close to 30k !!  The base paint cost $1300. per gallon and needed 2 gallons. We decides to shoot clear over the base and most clears are around $1000 per gallon.

[anlauto]

Just got my 71 road runner out of body shop hell. It went into the shop 2 1/2 years ago at an estimate of 15k for some rust repair and paint. It came out at close to 30k !!  The base paint cost $1300. per gallon and needed 2 gallons. We decides to shoot clear over the base and most clears are around $1000 per gallon.

Car looks fantastic in that colour 

[jimynick]

Just got my 71 road runner out of body shop hell. It went into the shop 2 1/2 years ago at an estimate of 15k for some rust repair and paint. It came out at close to 30k !!  The base paint cost $1300. per gallon and needed 2 gallons. We decides to shoot clear over the base and most clears are around $1000 per gallon.

Car looks fantastic in that colour 

Firstly, your car looks great! Secondly, I can't help but wonder about the amount of supplies you were charged for. Most bases are either 1:1 or 1:2 reduction, thereby yielding either 4 or 6 gallons reduced and I'll postulate that the clear was the same, for a net 8-10 gallons of product. That's an amazing amount of paint. My own Challenger took a non-mixed gallon of clear and is glass-like and we had 3 ltrs of base to cover a gray primered car- and it did. I'm not implying that you are exaggerating as I'm also guessing these were the amounts you were told, but it seems a bit over the top to me. I hope you didn't get taken advantage of.   

[mopar jack]

yeah the whole volume of paint thing had me confused.  This was not a base coat clear coat format but actually single stage acrylic enamel. Long story but I painted my 71 barracuda 25 years ago with Dupont Centari and loved it, it still shows well. So I am an old guy that doesn't like change and requested the shop use single stage enamel which is not available or allowed where I live. My color choice was vitamin C and the only paint we could find was through BSAF in there Glasurit line ($$$).  So painter tells me it's $1300 per gallon spayable. I'm like you thinking this will get reduced and be enough to shoot whole car but painter runs some fancy calculation program that shows a need for 2 gallons. My road runner is certainly bigger than an E body. I am not a big fan of clear coat but when all was said and done we decided to clear so that the poly (metallic) wouldn't be an issue when it got wet sanded and buffed. I lucked out on the clear and it free.

[anlauto]

May have been $30K but it looks like a million 

[mopar jack]

Thanks Alan. Did a pre install test run tonight, got the wheelie thing like the plume car you did!

[headejm]

FWIW - My 1970 Challenger used 2 gallons of base and 2 gallons of clear. My car is PPG Deltron FC7. It's a fairly heavy metallic color.

1 light coat
3 heavy coats
2 dust coats

3 coats of clear

I took home about 1 pint of the FC7 and I'm not sure how much clear was leftover.

Also, your car looks great! 

[torredcuda]

For just the outside I`ve found 1 gallon of clear is usually not enough an 2 gallons should leave you extra, more if you are doing the engine bay, trunk etc. Base depends on color and coverage but usually less than clear or single stage. AS for cost it depends on brand, sure you can do it for $1-2k and have a nice job but the higher end paints are much more money, whether they are worth it or not is up to you.

[Rich G.]

I just bought a gallon or Tor-Red for the truck I'm working on and it was about $900.00 a gallon. I was thinking about a cream metallic for the fenders and the color I picked was $1800 a gallon! (PPG) Time to pick a different color for them.😳 Add all the other stuff like thinners, hardners, sandpaper etc. etc and your easily 3-5 K just in materials. The Cuda I did a few years ago was $600.00 a gallon. Things aren't getting any cheaper that's for sure.

[EV2RTSE]

@Rich G. while you have the EV2 out, could you spray mine too? Please? Pretty Please? 

FWIW I have a shop close to me that gave me a ballpark of 8-12k just based on a few pics I showed them, still would like to have them put eyes on the car for a more thorough estimate. But it "should" be close to ready for paint.