pogo69

Wondering what a good repaint these days would cost for my 69HO...anyone had one done recently?

Chris J

I spent 10K and I had mine down to bare metal when I took it in

stevengerard

that's a loaded question and actually the spelling of the thread is correct PAINjob. a good paint job will go anywhere form 10K+ depending on work involved and the market you are in. I've seen pretty good paint jobs for 2k. Must folks say expect to spend 2 - 3 times what you are quoted. Wish I could run my business that way

oldstata

I work at a dealer that has a body shop. with a friend painting it for cheap just paint is going to run 3000.00 and it's with three clear coats and my discount . I would not cut corner on cheap paint I did that with my last car and the top faded after five years .

That's with no body work !!

Edit. Would like to add that is including inside and out all wheel wells and fire wall behind fenders and inside trunk

allyolds68

I paid about $6k for bodywork and paint and I did all the metal work

z11375ss

10k is my estimate. If you know someone who is a painter, try to trade some work for his work. I did that with my Vette and it cost me a grand. I let the painter use my chassis dyno whenever he wanted because he was a really nice guy and I liked him. He had a blown Cobra. One day he said, "Hey, your Vette needs paint. I'll do it for the cost of the paint." It had a crappy laquer job done in the 80s. It had shriveled up and cracked all over. A real mess. Turned out the paint was $900. I gave him $1000 and said buy yourself lunch. He had it for the whole winter, worked on it when he had time. Barter, trade, do what you have to do to keep the cost down. The car still looks great BTW. It was painted in 05. Remember your car IS an H/O. That seems tricky all by itself.

coppercutlass

10k seems a bit high. But when you approach a shop the y also dont know what they are getting into you could have rust holes stuffed with newspaper and filler over them. If you dont mind doing the grunt work i would tear it apart send it out to be soda or media blasted then you can have a shop give you a reall good estimate now that it's in bare metal. We did a complete paint job at one of the shops i worked at . We painted a mitsubishi eclipse mary kay pink with minor dings and dents fixed it came out to 4000 . Your best bet is to go to local shows ask people who painted their car or where they sent it to and how much they paid. There is always way around paying full price.

MX442

Trying to save a buck myself. I'm doing my metal work and strip. I'm willing to do the first coat of epoxy to seal it up. Will painters take on a project that someone else primed and prepped?

z11375ss

They will still have to clean up your mess as they will call it. I think most really good painters would rather do it themselves. Better yet, ask them about this when you bring the car in to talk to them about the pain job.

pogo69

thanks for the replies, I was afraid the price would be up there, I will have to continue picking up the flaked off pieces and sticking them back on for a while

coppercutlass

Here is the deal if you strip the car and expoxy primer or etch prime it then yes it save you money. Now if you know what you are doing somewhat and do the body work your self and tell the painter what you did he will probably look it over and if it's up to his standards or what i call a b+ job you are good to go. When i restored my 72 i didnt paint at the time all i did was body work so i did all my body work primed it blocked and repeated about 2 more times when i was ready i called a friend and he shot it for me. when you restore a car odd's are it will be primered more than once if all you are applying is that corrosion resistance primer coat with untouched metal chances are you will get a better estimate and you now have a true blank cavas to work with. My theory is i like to start out with a rust bucket because odd's are it's untouched and i dont have to fix soemone elses buthcered repairs.

joe_padavano

$10K for a correct 1969 H/O paint job, including the Firefrost Gold stripes, is probably about right. Again, it depends on exactly what is included in that price (stipping, metal repair, body work, etc). Keep in mind that a quality paint job is about 90% labor and 10% materials. I do all the work myself and quality materials cost me about $1000-$1500. You do the math.

jensenracing77

This is an area that (for the most part) you get what you pay for. I just had a guy come last weekend and look at my 70 442. With me taking it all apart to just a shell and some body parts. Him doing the stripping, the little body work it needs, and painting it is just under $10,000 with paint included. I would help him put the body back together to be striped then i have to put everything else back together. He said $9000 but plan for 10K.

I have found that many of the real great guys at paint and body do it as a side job from there day job because they love doing it. Many times they are less money but do great work. That is what my guy is doing. If it was a professional shop i think it would be over $15K for my car. One of the cars he did for himself sold for over 100K so i figure he must be doing something right.

Octania

Wow, that bad eh?

That means I will only be able to get my cars painted if I sell them.

Gift of the Magi

Carshinebob

Hi. I just finished painting a 69 H.O. for joe (my customer). He picked it up yesterday. Total repaint consisted of dissassembly including removing front clip, stripping old lacquaer (circa 1980), repairing old bodywork as needed, priming with urethane primer and block sanding three times, Painting with an acrylic urethane base coat clear coat system, painting stripes, painting with more clear, color sanding and polishing, and then reassembling. Price came to just shy of 14K. A very nice car and we had to maintain the detail of the engine compartment and frame from overspray. ~BOB

P.S. I almost forgot we're finishing a 72 H.O. conv. that requires a little less work and it's comming in at a little less then 12K.

z11375ss

Well, there you have it!

J-(Chicago)

I knew there was a reason why all my cars have faded paint....... Thanks for the reminder fellas.

z11375ss

That's "Patina" J. All my cars used to have that too. But they ran really good. I remember having a faded Buick Skylark with a 454 chevy in it with a 4.11. They never saw that one coming!

sicky olds

It also would depend on how you are painting your car too. If you are trying to make it era correct, like you state in all other threads, you will want a completely different paint than what is on cars today. Not sure exactly what the difference is, i think its a lacquer or something on the older ones.

Might be wrong though, this is what i was told when i was talking about painting mine.

joe_padavano

You pretty much can't buy lacquer in quantity any more due to emissions requirements. It is available in small quantities (pints and maybe quarts), but that will add up very fast for a complete repaint. Modern BC/CC paints are better anyway.

sicky olds

I know this but if we are to keep our cars original according to some people who feel their cars should stay era correct.

oldcutlass

That wouldn't be forged paint, would it?? Joking! A repaint on your car like the others said would be expensive because it is not a run of the mill DD. I'm sure you would want it to be representitive of the collectability it really is. So yes, $10k+ is where I would set my budget.

coppercutlass

Fwiw i spent about 5k on my body resto . total thats with new quarters, floor pans partial just the front, and material. I did the body work on my car at the begining of my carreer as a body man. I learned alot on this car and it might be missing some trim and does not have much of an interior but when parked next to many cars at cruise nights my car is very straight when compare to people's cars who have paid lots of money for. It comes down to having a little mechanical skill and a good hand to feel low and high spots . Some people might say " oh id rather just pay and avoid the pain. realisticly the body work on my car took me a solid 3 months of just weekend work. I let the body sit in its last coat of primer for 6 months while i did the engine and drive train then we painted it. I say this alot . Go to a junk yard buy a fender smash it fix it then paint it and then buy the same fender again and compare. If you can tack weld you can do most fab work on a car as no one ever bead welds anything on sheet metal, simple cardboard templates go a long way on fab work. Maybe it's the i can do anything attitude i have always had or the fact i was 17 and had something to prove to everyone but i pretty much started cutting away on my car with no real guideance. The only way you will learn is by messing up. I dont know why body work is like taboo to most car guys/ gals and gearheads.

joe_padavano

Apparently for the same reason that most motorheads run screaming like little girls if there's a wiring issue...

My $10K number was for having a shop do the work. This is why I do all my own paint and body also. Just picked up a TP Tools HVLP turbine sprayer at a swap meet. I'm anxious to see how it works. I bought some cheap (~$300 for everything) paint at Carlisle and I plan to try it out (along with the turbine sprayer) on the wife's 1990 Civic beater.

wmachine

That's a rub with me, too. Sure modern BB/CC paint *are* much better. But they don't look the same. They look better too. But that us not the way they came. Contrary to the perfectionist approach that has pretty well taken over the restoration market, the cars were not perfect. It baffles me why anyone would put $50,000+ into a "restoration" and consider these mile deep paint jobs to be 100% correct. Same with "show chrome" and every other aspect of over-restoration.
Somehow, "perfect" (which is still a relative term anyway) has take the place of "correct" in the restoration business.
Personally, I'm bored to tears with over-restorations. Wasn't interested in that "back in the day" and I'm still not.
To me, it would be nice to have a modern paint that actually looks like original lacquer.

pogo69

I agree I would want my re-paint to actually be a lacquer as to the original, I don't think that paint exists any more and I have heard (not sure if true) that some of the ingredients in the current firefrost are possibly hard to find

sammy

Silver Cutlass pictured to left was$4500 and he fixed all my mistakes, mainly sanding. The car was never prepped well before paint. The body work I had done was actually pretty good.

That price included prepping and painting the w25 hood......Not a HO but I just got it done.

Ted

coppercutlass

Essentially only cheap paint is laquer based. You can still do your original paint in single stage. Which is pretty close to the original finish. Since it has not clear just the paint and it gets buffed to a shine. The only diffrence is most single stage paint is now uerethane based or acrylic enamel not too sure on that one. I think centari from dupont in o.e. Color will be as close as to factory laquer finish as it will get.

sicky olds

You can still get era correct paint, not sure about the Firefrost portion of it. And you can still get it by the gallon too. They also still make the paint before that as well, cant remember the name to it.

If you want to know where to get this stuff check with Amesolds on here, he is the one who told me about it when i talked to him about painting both my cars.

MX442

@ copper

I have been studying this topic for years. I think that the people earning a living at it WANT it to be taboo so that you spend BIG bucks to bring it to them. Guess what? Nobody cares more about MY wallet and MY project, than me! I have learned that I can do anything if I want to.

I truly believe in what you say. I put 100 hours of practice into a POS fender from a car that I parted out. From that, I learned a lot. It only took me 3 days to patch my 2 good fenders for my restoration.

The next problem lies with the paint. I get the feeling that nobody wants to lay base/clear over my body work. My other problem for home spraying is equipment. I can epoxy a few pieces at a time, but it is not feasible to turn my garage into a spray booth to shoot a whole car start to finish. So it's bite the bullet and pay someone 10k after the car is stripped, or learn to do it myself and build a spray booth in the garage.

@ wmachine, I'm with you there. Today's restorations are WAY over the top and OVER restored from what they looked like when they left the factory.

MX442

Oh yeah, I went to the local "roadster show" here a couple weeks ago. This is the premier league of local show cars. Out of 200 cars, I felt that only about a dozen had "flawless" show quality paint. You wouldn't believe how many professionally built cars had waves or blemishes in the prep work on a $50k + car! I know I CAN do better than that! It just takes time... But paying someone $100 per hour in labor, you have to draw the line somewhere.

oldcutlass

The $10k figure I said would be to remove all trim, strip, repair, prep, paint, and reassemble. Doing it yourself would be less expensive, and I agree, paint jobs are getting way out of hand in price.

joe_padavano

And I wouldn't either. Any problem of solvents or contaminants causing a problem in the paint and it rapidly becomes a very big pizzing contest. The painter has no idea what the owner did, and to quote Gregory House, "Everybody lies."

Sure it is. I've done it several times. Google "homemade spray booth". A roll of 6 mil plastic sheet, a PVC or 2x4 frame, furnace filters, and a large barn fan and you've got a spray booth. Buy a HobbyAir supplied air breathing system for a few hundred bucks to protect your lungs.

1969Hurst

Had mine done about 10 years ago and it ran about $12k, base coat/clear coat, had a shop do it all as I am no good at bodywork/paint.. anything above a rattle can that is. I'm thinking the Firefrost ingredients can still be had, I know I've heard some say that some local sources do not carry some of the items. Last time I talked to Kurt Karch he was able to source ingredients in his area.

1969Hurst

Also... not accusing or insinuating anyone on this thread would do it....

For the love of all that is holy... please, please... put the m'fing hood scoop decal on correctly.... Continually amazed at seeing expensive restorations, real or tribute car, that someone does not realize the hood scoop decal is directional....

jstrits

Buy a few fenders at a swap meet and practice. I'm a hvac guy by trade but have been playing with cars a long time. after doing old gas pumps for a bit and getting better with each one I started on cars. Was tired of paying for it and it wasn't usually up to my meticulous standards. Now I'm getting to a point where i could just about quit my job and do this. And I do it right inthis garage in the pics. Its my "dirty garage". No big fancy shop. hard to guage costs sometimes. I'll have almost 600 hours in this car but it came off the frame and literally every bolt and nut was replated, cleaned or replaced. But for paint only on this car with hood stripes and having a pinstriper doing the sides I'd be around $10,000 probably at least just for paint. Took me almost 40 hours to wet-sand 3 grits and then buff three rounds.

MX442

^ Beautiful! I'm going to learn how to do this myself. I have already done underneath my car and the frame. I followed the tech sheets and didn't have any problems. (other than pos15 sucks for frames.. Don't do it!)

Another thing that can be done at home is powdercoating. I put an old double oven in my garage, and bought a cheap powder gun from eastwood. The parts have been turning out great!

I might as well learn to spray base and clear. My beater daily driver has flaked off all the clearcoat on the top and trunk. I'll start on that.

dc2x4drvr

I know this thread is old...just had a quote today for a repaint on my 442. The guy charges 50/hr + materials. He estimated 200 hrs, and my car has 0 rust, doesn't need any bodywork. Oh, he uses Standox system.
I'm still going to check another shop.

sicky olds

Can bring it down to Southern Texas here and have Louis paint it for you .

coppercutlass

I'm simply drooling and evious of that underbody . Good god I wish I did mine like that the first time around. I just did a blast and prime then undercoat.