Mopar Muscle Association UK

I love JCs work, some really nice cars come out of his place, just making the point that its not for everyone.

Some of you may or may not have seen a midnight purple '69 Roadrunner with a lift off hood that I briefly owned. The paint looked so deep you could almost dive in to it. If you'd like details of the painter then let me know!

I'd like to poke the stick into the wasp's nest and stir it about a bit on the subject of DIY restos and professional paint and body costs.

I sat down and worked out exactly what it cost to restore the body and paint my Road Runner.

Okay, it's what Mr R would call a "DIY Resto" nevertheless, the final result wasn't too bad at all, by no means a show car, but pretty good.

The whole job, including charging my labour at £40 an hour worked out at £105,000 and if you're gonna say that I'm a slow worker, even if I worked twice as fast, it would have added up to over 50 grand!

Taking out my labour costs, the resto cost including purchasing parts, body and mechanical, worked out at £4,700 if I remember correctly.

Not wishing to perpetuate this hijack, but this is the car Jem's talking about

I think if you take on as much of the labor as possible you can bring the price down a lot.

All the stuff that takes time costs money.

So if you want to save costs you strip the car to a bare shell yourself and re-build the car yourself. This is what I did and it saved me a packet. Although it has taken me ages to Bananarama! and although the job was well done there were one or two shortcuts taken which I now regret. Some were decisions I made and some were decisions made behind my back.

What you shouldn't do though is attempt welding repairs unless you think you are as good as or better than someone like JC. Otherwise he would have to undo all your work and do it again. Which again would add to the costs.

At the end of the day some people think any paint that looks shiney is great. Other people know a really good paint job when they see it. It is all down to how good your eye is and how high your expectations are.

A good paint job does not sit on filler. It is very thin. All the lines are sharp as a knife. Reflections are straight like curved mirrors.

Personally. If I could afford a £10K paint job I would go for it. As it is I have done the best I can with what I have got for the little I paid.

I had my Satellite done for £400. Mind you, I think they used a paint roller...

I dont wanna know whats under the paint on mine.... Happy with my 10ft paint job !

PS - jpc work is lovely.

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Speaking of JC's, is anyone going tomorrow?

JustinMFox wrote:Speaking of JC's, is anyone going tomorrow?

From the sounds of half the post's on this thread there's gonna be a few people round at the JC's place with sore knee's!!

had a listen to all chat ,going to prep and spray my self ,let you all no how it comes out ----doing it in 2 weeks

70rtse wrote:had a listen to all chat ,going to prep and spray my self ,let you all no how it comes out ----doing it in 2 weeks

Way to go mate...even for the type of money being quoted on here there's no guarantee for the paintwork and bodywork.
I know been there done it.
Rich.

Each to their own.


I think the bottom line to this is, just because you might not be able to stretch to the cost of a professional resto DOES NOT mean the company that quotes for it has its office head quarters in (and I quote) 'La La land'.

secondly, if you do not want to go ahead after being quoted, publicly declaring it in such a way is (in my view) inappropriate.

Years n years ago when I was on the tools, I used to often hear '...how much to put an extra double socket in?????'. To which I would reply '...well if you think you can shift yer furniture, get yer carpet back, floor boards up, joists drilled, ring main hooked into, socket box chased/fitted/wired/connected/tested/certificated then everything put back as it was - - for LESS. then be my guest'.

Its always expensive when you are being charged, but NEVER if you are taking someone elses money - thats a result - isn't it?

Clivey......................the "Bottom Line" is....................those that can`t afford it, are the ones to "SHOUT" the loudest about the cost.




Remember......"If you want the best, forget the rest"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JC Auto-refinishing. .

Maybe I should be in the advertising business. Great slogan, what!!!!!!!!!!