Thread: Paint Quote for My Camaro

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I am currently painting an HHR, which is converted to a panel, and has custom hood, and front and rear pans. The two-tone colors are black over factory charcoal, and it will have mild graphics. These are not pricey colors, and I am using an HVLP gun, which requires less paint. Quality basecoat/clearcoat paint, and body materials, are right at $975.

When I took my 55 belair to an old friend he said he would strip and paint it for 10,000, the second guy said he would do it for 5,800, and the third guy said he did not want to do it because it might make his guys want to quite. Most shops around here are into the insurance fixing, nobody fools with old cars too much around here.

Ended up stripping the whole car my self in one day and etch primming it, took it to another guy I know and the guy that works for him did all the work about 1,000 in labor. He primed it for me and I did a couple hours of bulldozer work for him.

I had a kid email me a few times for about a year about painting his 79 transam. Finally got to look at it this past summer, and quoted him cheap, 3 grand (knowing thats pretty dang cheap for the work and material involved. That would have been stripping to metal, (it had checked lacquer paint) and bodywork, some rust repair, paint black including jambs ect, wetsand and buff. But I have a full time job to pay the bills, and its not so much about making money, like a shop paying huge overhead, insurance, workers, ect.. He never got back to me, ohh well, wonder if he went and seen other quotes were like?
Maybe the first quote he though he could just paint the thing with a fair amount of prep work, then realized what he was in for with multiple layers of paint and rust. Lots of things can be hiding also giving more work. These guys are right, materials today ain't cheap by any means and only continue to rise, and to get a car to the point where its ready for paint is pretty labor intensive, and the prep work is what makes the paint job. Lot depends on color and area. California is one of the more expensive, and could possibly find lower prices just by another area or nearby state. 7,000 surely isn't out of line for that kind of work, but I would expect the work to be done fairly well and look good when done. If you find someone willing to let you do some of the grunt work and willing to work with you, maybe it will cut done on costs a bit. Many painters are squeemish about painting over someone elses work though that their name will be going on. Most have experienced something someone says just needs to be painted and is far from being the case if the job is going to look good. Maybe you can barter for some work like mentioned, or find someone who does it mostly for enjoyment and maybe find a little better price. But check out work and references of any one you don't know you are thinking of doing work, and make sure there is an agreement of what is expected on both sides.

Thanks for all of the replies to my question. As I said before, I don't expect to get a cheap paint job, and expect to get a quality job. But I don't need anything that's going to be show quality. The paint I'm using is single stage and I think the most expensive part is going to be painting the inside dash and door posts. The second concern I have is the following...

He stated that the paint job would be a progressive process and that the car would be at the shop for almost a month. Does that sound right. He said they would prep and paint different parts seperately on different days and that it would be a long process.

As I've mentioned I'm new to the restoring game and have run into many misconceptions on how long things take and how much they cost. I know I'll get a quality job, but initially a quote for 7-8 thousand dollars is hard to swallow for a car that cost me 10k to purchase.

Thanks again for all your insight. I really apprecaite it and learn a lot from all of the posts.