If the factory paint is good in places but bad in others, you have to review it thoughtfully and see if the damaged or badly worn places can be repaired without painting the whole car. Again, it might save you time and money and result in a car that is worth more than if you had repainted it.
Once the decision has been made that a complete, down to bare metal paint job is required, it’s time to do some further thinking. The first thing to be aware of is that a quality finish is not a job for the faint of heart. It will take you weeks or months if not longer to complete. Some of the top-level jobs at Mick’s Paint have in excess of 1,000 hours of labor. That’s 25 weeks, equaling half a year, and that’s for a professional; an amateur may take even longer. This is time-consuming work with few shortcuts. That’s why top-notch, show-quality paint jobs cost so much. If or when you uncover some less-than-satisfactory repairs under the existing paint, it will be depressing and probably more expensive than you budgeted for.
This pair of tidy Mustangs is in great shape and therefore may be too good and original for what we have in mind. However, it pays to buy the best car you can that is together and complete with all its trim and pieces. A body shell with a pile of parts is not the way to go. Worse still, in Mick’s opinion, is a car in primer.
What Car to Paint
Of course, you might already have the car of your dreams, the car you want to restore and repaint rusting in the back 40, cozy in a garage, tarped in the driveway, or, worse, rusting in the yard. However, if you don’t have the car and you’re trying to figure out what car that should be, read chapter 4 that goes into the decision-making process more fully. Be aware, though, even at this early stage in the process, a poor decision now will no doubt turn out costly in the end.
Are Parts Available?
I’ll get into parts sourcing in more detail in chapter 4, but, again, even at this preliminary stage you want to be thinking about where you’re going to get any parts you might need. If a 1971 Pontiac GTO convertible is your dream car, we can tell you that the parts are expensive and difficult to locate.
Mick’s Paint recently had one in the shop that needed some bodywork, including a new hood. After weeks of searching, a used hood was found for $3,500 but it looked rusty in the photos and needed shipping across the country. By the time it was shipped, was acid dipped to make sure all the rust was removed, and was prepped, it would have cost the customer at least $5,000 before paint, and that was the cost if it didn’t need any other bodywork, which you know it would have. In the end, the owner opted for a good quality fiberglass hood, as the car was not a restoration.
Maybe your dream car is a 1971 GTO, which is a rare car worth restoring, something like that might be out of your price range. It might be time to think about a more popular car to tackle for your first big project.
This 1971 GTO convertible turned into a problem. A good original hood was impossible to buy so a fiberglass hood was sourced. The headlight surrounds are original fiberglass.
A hood for this 1965 El Camino shouldn’t be difficult to find because, after all, it’s interchangeable with the Chevelle. The problem is that all the good ones are on Chevelles, consequently making them not easy to find.
The GTO’s original Endura front bumper was so bad that it needed to be replaced with a fiberglass piece that can be massaged for a better fit.
How Much Will It Cost?
People who don’t know much of anything about painting cars are always surprised at the time it takes and the cost it involves. “It’s just paint. How can it be so expensive?” Well, things have moved on since Earl Scheib painted cars for $19.95 and materials are no longer inexpensive. A gallon of paint in Los Angeles is now between $400 and $1,000 a gallon depending on the color, with reds being more expensive. If it’s a metallic or pearl base coat and clear process, then you’re going to need clear coat. A good quality clear coat costs $450 a gallon and you’ll need three to four gallons. Why so much? Well, you want it to look good and you want plenty of clear so that you don’t sand through to the actual color.
To paint the outside of a typical muscle car might take as much as four to five gallons of paint alone if you go the single-stage route, not including inside the trunk, under the hood, and other miscellaneous areas. If you use the two- or three-stage approach, the amount of paint will be less, maybe 2.5 gallons, but you’re going to need a similar amount of clear coat as well as the relative reducers, hardeners, and so on.
You’re also going to need to buy more than you need so that you have some left over for the inevitable repair. If you are intending to paint under the hood, inside the trunk, and those other areas, then you are going to need as much as four gallons. Remember also that you should put aside a quantity of paint in case the one you choose goes off the market for some technical or regulatory reason that is beyond your control. If you have to make a major repair then you’ll be glad you saved some paint.
You should also be aware that some colors cover better than others and for the ones that don’t cover well, you’re going to need more. Mick’s Paint always gets way more than needed, just in case.
Something else to be considered carefully is the quality of the materials you select. There are cheap materials on the market; for example, you can buy some clear coats for $150 a gallon compared to good clear coat at $450 a gallon. But, we have had many experiences where that cheap clear coat deteriorated within a year to the point that all the paint had to be stripped off, including the base coat, and we had to start over. Some cheap paints contain no Ultra Violet protection and fade quickly, causing deterioration. Consequently, the apparent initial savings are far outweighed by the eventual costs of redoing all that work. Buying cheap materials is false economy.
Totaling up the costs may scare you, but you should keep a file of all paperwork and invoices related to your project. Proof of what you spent could help you retain the value of your car.
In addition to the cost of the actual paint, there are ancillary materials to purchase, such as stripper, which you will need one to two gallons of at the cost of $46 a gallon. There’s also metal prep, sealer, primer, body filler, sanding discs, masking tape and paper, clear coat plus the necessary activator and reducer, rubbing paper, polishing mops, and compound, to name a few. The list goes on and on.
These days the cost of materials alone can be $5,000 or more. That’s just your out-of-pocket costs. That’s not including all the hidden costs such as tools, equipment rental, booth hire, etc., which you have to factor in.
How Long Will It Take?
How long is a piece of string? In the case of a good quality paint job, much longer than you think. There really are no shortcuts to a good, long-lasting, quality paint job. In Mick Jenkins’s opinion, a top-quality finish typically consumes 1,000 hours, at the minimum. In the case of a show-quality paint job, you can double that figure and then add some. Keep in mind that 1,000 hours equates to 20 50-hour