Maybe I can offer a little help. My 1930 ford coupe just went to the body shop 3 weeks ago, I had 4 different body shop owners come to my garage to give estimates since january. The first guy came to estimate, but said he does alot of insurance work on other cars and said my car may be there up to a year. It was one of those "I'll work on it when I can between insurance jobs,so don't get in a hurry for it." His estimate was 4000.00 without stripping it to bare metal. My second estimate was from a guy who I was told turned out some of the best custom body work around. It was going good until he told me "I've never worked on anything this old before." Besides he was working out of his garage and my insurance agent strongly recommended I didn't take my car there because he didn't have business insurance. If his garage burned down while my car was over there I was screwed. His estimate was 1800.00 WOW. The third guy was Jim Pulskamp he has one of the most reputable body and custom shops in the area. He specializes in 1953-1956 F-100 Ford pickups. He just turned one out that had..........60,000.00 worth of custom and body work, that one will be a trailer queen. Any way I was feeling real good about him being there to give an estimate and I was ready for him to go to work on it. That is until he told me the damage...........12,000.00 to 15,000.00. That is for strip and repaint, there is no rot, rust, bondo, or body damage on the car. So basically I was wondering where is all of that money going to be applied. I told him I would get back with him. The 4th body shop owner Gary was the needle in the hay stack I was looking for. He met me at my garage friday after work, and brought his paint man with him. He was there for about 45 minutes looking around it, running his hands back and forth over the car feeling stuff the untrained eye like mine couldn't see. He did a magnet test on a few parts of the body down around the bottom reveals looking for filler.......none found. So after 45 minutes of questions and answers he said he would like to do it. He is also currently doing a 47 ford tudor in his shop, and I was impressed with the work. The damage was 5,500.00 that is for total strip and paint. I saw the materials he was using on my first inspection of the car. He is using some kind of poly filler in areas where needed. The poly filler is the latest and greatest in body technology. It expands and contracts better with the metal, not like the old bondo or the short grain fiberglass fillers. Also he will using PPG products on the sealer primer and paint. I have been over to see the car 2 times in the last 3 weeks, he had the car totally stripped to bare metal on the first visit. I have owned 3 model A's in the last 19 years so I know what I'm looking for, and what he has accomplished on the car in 3 weeks is outstanding. I hope some of these tips will lead you in the right direction on your car. Oh yeah and by the way I was in Sachse TX. last spring on a vacation and I stopped in at the Sachse Rod Shop for a tour the owner is Mike Milsap. Really good people, I bought some stuff for the rod while I was there........anyway they do paint and body. They were painting a 48 Chevy Fleetmaster while I was there ......good work. And as you know Sachse is a suburb of D/FW. Good Luck and hope I could help.