The Cost of Paint Jobs
 

I've been wondering for a while now how much some of you have been paying for paint and body work on your race cars. I know what we have to charge for overall paint for the average customer that walks into our shop. When you respond please indicate price, what all you had done, single color or multi color ect.Our collision work usually does not allow us time to do this kind of work but every day there are changes in this business that make me think about other aspects of this business.
Jeff Ross
Ross Family Racing

Re: The Cost of Paint Jobs
 

My mustang is multi color (candy & pearl) from House of color. The body work and paint was
$10,000.00 from circus .

My dragster is the same paint scheme and it was less expensive.

HotRod 161
Quick Rod 161

Re: The Cost of Paint Jobs
 

Dang! I'd never spend that much on paint. We have always given the work to the first person that wants to do it for free.

Re: The Cost of Paint Jobs
 

...price just went up on the wagon! LOL ;)

http://www.staginglight.com/images/zac_tri_state.jpg

You do beautiful work Jeff. Put yourself out there, and you'll do well not only for yourself, but people will do well by you.

The entire job on the Turismo (Huge thanks to Parkway Enterprises) retailed about $6,000 through Bob Barber and the gang at Paintworks. Lots of man-hours in the doors and the rest of the body. Two-color.
Before & During: http://www.staginglight.com/stocker/paintworks.html
After: http://www.staginglight.com/stocker/photos99.html

Jeff painted the Volare before I bought it from him. Then I did the lettering, and covered a bunch of it up with contingency decals. ;-)

http://www.staginglight.com/images/volare_pd07.jpg

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Jeff the guy that painted my Nova paints several race cars....thing is he uses them as filler for the insurance jobs....he had my car from may to sep......now I bought new quarters & one fender. He installed them sand blasted everything & painted it with Dupont croma base, base clear......$2100. That was 8 years ago & like I said he uses those cars as filler for his slow times. Hey Jeff where is the wagon now??

Re: The Cost of Paint Jobs
 

I will paint them all day long for $10,000!!

I usually get $3000 for a multi color job on a dragster. This includes sanding and buffing and inside all panels.

Stockers and Super Stockers are $5000-$6000 for a multi color job, sanded and buffed also.

Re: The Cost of Paint Jobs
 

just the cost of paint do all work myself even the paint mix my own paint sometimes

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I paint enough stuff in the run of a day I don't screw with it when I'm home! 20 to 25 Kenworths a day! (that's just my 8 hour shift) Well I don't paint them the robots do BUT Nate or I one programed them to do it so I guess I can say I paint them. I have 8 more robot coming.....looked out last night & in my tack area their was a dump truck & a trackhoe!!!!! I was still painting trucks!!!! Oh well if 4 robots are good 12 will be great!

Re: The Cost of Paint Jobs
 

The 3 things someone always wants out of a body shop are , Fast , Cheap & Good, well pick 2 , because you won't get all 3.
The shop that did my car is a full on modern production shop. Dropped my car off on a friday , by noon Monday it was gutted and just a body & frame setting there. It was done over the winter time and the shop is big enough it wasn't in there way to get crash work done. They figured the retail price would have been around $7,000.00 , and the body didn't need any panels replaced.

http://public.fotki.com/Maliburacr/i.../2006_updates/

Being a damage appraiser I get to a lot of shops and it seems like you always see shops taking in projects for when it's slow. They always seem to still be there a year or longer.
Anyone ( besides Jeff ) know what a gallon of red pigmented auto paint costs ?

Re: The Cost of Paint Jobs
 

painting a car takes a day or so..but all the preparation to get to the paint takes weeks of sanding straightening and repairing small dents rust etc. the cost of materials are out the roof. it depends on how good a job you want. nice show quality works takes time. and most people want paid for there time...i still like color sanded and buffed laquer jobs. you could do em yourself..the good old days were fun.. i dont see quality like i used too. stickers versus hand painted lettering. and so on..$6000 would be a good deal for a truely nice job. in todays world..

Re: The Cost of Paint Jobs
 

Where have all the hand lettering guys gone? You dont see them like you used to.

Re: The Cost of Paint Jobs
 

Well, my last paint job was about $2,000 on my Corvette. It didn't require any major body work, and it was only one color (red if you couldn't guess). I'm no collision guy, so I don't know everything that was required, but I'm guessing it was primarily a sand, paint, and buff (admittedly, the mask job that was done wasn't that great because there was overspray on some of the trim, aluminum, and frame).

I'd have a hard time justifying a $10,000 circus paint job (but man I would LOVE to have one on my car.) So, I generally try to look for an up and comer that is hungry. I'd love to find somebody to do it for free (with me supplying material), but I'm not sure that you can find that anymore.

If there are any good painters out there though looking to showcase their work for free on an original '63 Corvette, let me know...

Oh, and as for the hand-lettered cars, they are still out there. You just have to look for the guy that takes extreme pride in his vehicle, and can afford it (it seems that most of the hand-lettered cars I see nowadays are gold leaf.)

Re: The Cost of Paint Jobs
 

I just got a price on a gallon of Dupont "viper" red in chromapremier basecoat and lets just say I didnt pay that much for the car I'm painting !!!! If you need to buy everything in one shot to do a overall paint/resto you can easily pay $2500 or more for paint/materials . Forget about the color........ anyone priced a gallon of any high end primers !!!!!




bob

Re: The Cost of Paint Jobs
 

First was the artist rendition. I think I had $2800 just in materials on my car. Dupont's version of House of Kolor. Primer, silver base and then the color and clear. It started out as the "sponsor special", materials only and turned into $10K all done. Best Appearing first time out though...

Also, you can't get a paint job better than Maaco at a retail shop for less than $5K on a street car. EPA drove the cost up. So if you look at that then talk race car graphic design, $10K isn't horrible. That's retail of course.

Re: The Cost of Paint Jobs
 

Re: The Cost of Paint Jobs
 

Dan's the man. He does great work, and he gets it done when he says he's going to. I don't even know how many cars that he's done have won best appearing awards, but I've got to guess it's 8 to 10. He's lettered my car at least 4 times...I just can't afford to give him carte blanche to win one of those awards. Maybe one of these days though.

More impressive than the lettering that he does is the airbrush work. I swear half the time I see one of his headlights I think they're real...

Re: The Cost of Paint Jobs
 

I have a street car ( 69 nova) that i took apart (interior,motor,trans,removed the front clip) and had a close friend install 2 half quarters, 2 outer wheel housings, and 2 rocker panels. then sprayed the car and hung the front clip back on after i installed the motor/trans. In total (paint, supplies, and labor) i have $5000 invested in it. It's a solid color (69 dusk blue,no stripes, ect.) I think i got a good deal...adam