Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Tricky Dickie]

I have just had a quotation for refurbishing the body and repainting my 1952 Armstrong Siddeley Whitley. The car is sound, but with some electrolytic corrosion to correct around the joints between the rear wings and body and some remedial work needed around the running boards. The price which I have been quoted for a back-to-bare-metal refurb and respray, plus rechroming both bumpers and boot hinges is an eye-watering £10,500 plus VAT. Admittedly, this is for a first-class wings-off prep and paint job, but I thought that it was a bit steep. Advice please?
Tricky Dickie

[Rick]

Hard to say without seeing the car, but employing others on a big job can be a £ruinous experience.

Say, for argument's sake, that £8500 of the quoted total is labour, at £50 per hour, that equals 170 hours of work, ie one person spending 4.5 weeks on it solid, or two people working on it for 2-and-a-bit weeks to get the job done. Put that way it may not be that unreasonable, some restorers charge higher hourly rates than this.

It's a while since I've checked on re-chroming costs, but they can stack up quite quickly I believe.

Have they given you a breakdown of costs? It would be worth discussing a maximum ceiling for labour costs too, before signing on the dotted line....

RJ
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[D4B]

Also it would be well worth getting a couple more quotes from elsewhere too.... perhaps there are classic restorers / body repairers advertising in the magazines? If not I can recommend this company who did a fantastic job for me years ago but probably too far away from you...

http://www.fhellis.com/index.php

[Roger-hatchy]

I got a quote from a friend of a friend with a body shop.

He wanted £500 to finish the DLM with three top coats.
I'd do all the prep work right up to needing just finishing
I'd also supply the paint, thinners, cleaner etc. so all that was needed was three coats on what you see.

Needless to say we did it at home.

[colwyn500]

I was quoted £1250 to repair a small dent on a Fiat Panda wing. This included removing bumper, headlight, wheel arch liner and various bits and pieces before the multi-stage process of refinishing the wing. At that rate, a large classic car for that price is good. Doing my tiny Fiat myself I must have spent at least 100 hours already working towards painting it. That's equivalent to £5000 already if I was paying someone. There's no paint on it yet!.

[kevin2306]

painting and infact any restoration work is hugely expensive, ive learnt that after many years of messing about with old cars and bikes.
im going to do the paintwork on my vogue myself. done paintwork years ago so will invest some money in a decent gun setup and crack on.

kev

[ukdave2002]

Hi

What are you getting for the £10.5k? A bare metal strip and e-prime at somewhere like SPL will cost £2k, but the shell has to be stripped. The larger cost will be in the prep; I must have spent a year of weekends prepping the MGA, ok a pro would have completed it quicker and the body was "pretty worn!" I spent around £500 on materials, actual painting time is quite short, there may be some rectification/ compounding time, and rebuild the shell and refit all the components.

If they are doing all of the above £10.5k would be good value, but you could save a fortune by stripping the shell yourself, and rebuilding it after it was painted.

Cheers

Dave

PS. When I say strip the shell yourself , I mean take everything off it, so that it can be chemically stripped and e-primed.

[Rosco663]

I agree with all the above comments and suggestions.

Most of the costs will be the labour required for preparation. If you have the tools, time and also, importantly, the room to do this yourself you can make huge savings.

It is really quite amazing how much room a small car in pieces consumes My Series 1 Morris 8 Tourer is taking over the shed....
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Rosco

[Tricky Dickie]

After some negotiation and a lot of argument, I have now got the cost down to £9500 plus the VAT of course (which really is an outrageous addition, over which neither the shop nor I have any control). I have a complete breakdown of the work and they are charging £45 per hour to remove the rear wings, windscreen, bumpers, handles and hinges etc, then Then £55 to strip the body down to bare metal and respray in 2 colours as specified. Another £700 to repair and re-chrome both bumpers and the external boot (trunk) hinges. Back to £45 per hour to re-assemble with new beading, window rubber etc. The car will be mint afterwards and I have neither the skill nor the inclination to do this work myself, so I have agreed and the job will be done at the newly-reduced estimate. It will take at least a month they say, so I'll report back when the job is done.
Thanks for all the advice guys.
Tricky Dickie