I have built 3 rods from the ground up, over the last 18 years. The first, an all steel, full fendered 1931 Desoto coupe running custom frame and chev small block, cost me $15,000, and I built everything myself, built the frame, patched/built the body, painted, upholstered, the whole 9 yards. That took me 6 years of evenings and weekends. The second was a 1927 Ford roadster, again building everything myself, but using a Glass body and doing it Hi-boy style, with chevy small block. This one took 3 years of evenings and weekends, but cost $20,000 to build. Last April, I started to build a 31 Ford full fendered roadster pickup. I currently have a finished steel body and bed, with glass fenders, a reworked Model A frame, 4" dropped I-beam front end, S10 rearend, and 1985 Pontiac small block. So far, I have invested about $11,000 but I cheated? a bit and paid $2500 to have the final bondo work done on the much modified cab section, by a qualified bodyman. I still will have to spend $1000 on tires, $500 on paint (painting it myself), $500 on upholstery, (again done by myself),$500 on cooling system, $300 on exhaust, and probably $500 on gauges and wiring. I expect that if I'm lucky, I may have a finished streetable rod for between $16,000 and $18,000. The big caveat here, is that these prices are only real if you fabricate everything yourself, use recycled (we can't say junkyard anymore) parts, and buy an absolute minimum of aftermarket or speedshop parts. You want to be a good welder, with the right equipment, you should know how to paint, bodywork, upholster, wire, etcetera, etcetera. If you farm out much of anything at all, the cost to build a rod will be between $30,000 and $50,000 dollars. I live in Canada, where the costs are marginally different than the USA, but the costs to build a rod don't really differ that much.