Why does bodywork and painting cost so much? Part 1
At a glance most “clean” cars but complete and seemingly solid cars do not need much. Sure, there might be some rust bubbles here and there and some minor dings that come on a sixty year old car even if it had spent more than half of its life off the road, in storage or was being driven. We see this more often then not for someone who has never had a muscle car restored before, the bodywork , paint and mechanical estimate can be jaw drooping.
It all comes down to one thing … labor hours. Most of the labor comes in the form of prep work, disassembly , labeling parts , locating parts, inventorying missing components; not t mention the work involved in the bodywork to straighten and repair the sheet metal, block sanding the body before painting, and color sanding it afterward to achieve a deep finish. The actual gun time painting requires the least amount of time in the project there are countless hours to get to that point of the project; and, unless you’re taking the car to a scuff and shoot paint shop that may or may not mask off the fender badges, it typically takes hundreds of hours to do correctly to even get to the painting portion of the project.
Let’s say for instance your vehicle is seemingly straight, a respray can involve dozens and even hundreds of hours in preparation; and with labor rates of seventy five dollars per hour, the tally adds up quickly. Even with a minimum of 40 hours of prep work on a car with no other bodywork needs totals $3,000.00 (at $75 per hour). The costs of painting, the paint materials, reassembly , follow-up color sanding and biffing , make it difficult for a good-quality paint job on an otherwise excellent body to cost eight thousand dollars typically, it’s more since the cars are rarely as nice as an owner thinks they are.
DISASSEMBLY
The vehicle typically has to be completely disassembled before any restoration or restomod work can begin. If the owner decides to have the shop complete this task it can take 12-20 hours on the average project. Certain models and more complex vehicles can balloon up to 40 hours for this step of the project. It can be less time on a frame-on respray, but it is still labor time in the project. I would recommend setting aside at least $2,000.00 for the job, if the owner can do this step himself or herself, the less manhours will be spent by the shop which would save the owner money. Some shops will allow the owner to complete this step but others will not due to the accountability of parts , just ask the shop what their stance is on this.
BODY REPAIR
This is perhaps the most difficult thing to budget for because every vehicle’s need varies widely, but it’s safe to say almost every vehicle will have at least some sort of hidden rust or previous collision damage to deal with by the shop. With this in mind, it’s difficult to place a budget on the body work, but it can range from 20-30 hours on an essentially perfect body to over a 100 hours on a vehicle that has more rust holes than a colander. At a labor rate of $75 per hour, a mere 20 hours equals $1,500 while a more challenging project can have a 100 hours of body repair would be closer to $7500.00. Repair hours in the past have completely burned through an entire vehicles build budget before any other work can start. It is always better to start with a solid car , so that “deal” might not be so great on that classic if it seems like it will have tons of labor hours repairing rust and damage.
PANEL ALIGNMENT
After all the time is been spent on the repair work the shop will likely want to take the time to correct grand canyon of body gap tolerances built into so many of the vehicles assembled during the late ’60s and early ’70s. That means the shop has to adjusting the body panels to achieve more even gaps, the doors to the fender , the hood to the fender , trunk to the quarter panel , etc. Have you ever noticed on a classic how the gaps are all the same? Even and uniform over the entire car …. well that is a step that could add $2,000 or more to the budget depending on the time involved.
BLOCK SANDING
The smoother and straighter the body, the better the paint job will look, its a simple formula and it all comes down to block sanding. Cars can take hours upon hours upon hour upon hours of block sanding. With each round of block sanding the car could need to be primed several times to make the vehicle as flat as possible. Assuming a reasonable amount of block sanding lets say 100 hours that adds $7,500 to the budget (at $75/hour) and that’s not for a concours-level finish ,that is just for a straight body on most classics. Skipping out of this step or being a cheap ass will affect the quality of the paint job, and the overall finish of the vehicle so make sure the body is as straight as possible with in reason and your budget.