Are you going through a shop or through a guy doing work on the side? I paid $2,100 to have my car primered with POR 15 rust preventative paint, sanded, assembled/disassembled, two-stage paint, major damage to the rear quarter repaired and over 40 dents and dings fixed, and that was just back in July.
All I had to do was take the car over to his place and pick it back up. I looked around for professional guys doing P&B on the side. They're a lot cheaper than going through a body shop and they're not distracted by high-payout insurance work.
I agree, there's a lot of guys out of work now or working out of their home. The trick is to find the RIGHT guy, hopefully through referral and even better, if you can see an example of other work. Man, I almost got burned by one local guy who seemed to know what he was talking about. I took in one of my other classic cars I was going to sell anyway to get my driver's door hinges replaced and door aligned because I was having a heck of a time with it and had already had the door on and off 2 times. I was having him do this work as a test run in case I liked what he did and wanted him to do the whole car. When I picked the car back up the door gap was better, but not perfect, and when I opened the door, at the bottom to the right of the sill plate and up the side by the lock strike, the blue paint was sprayed all primer gray. I asked him, WTF? He said he was sanding it to get more clearance. Again, I'm like WTF???! He didn't touch my car anymore after that. And before that he took me to his small shop where he had two cars in there and kept bragging about no bondo, only real metal work fab and replacement. Real laid back old school guy in his 50's and I thought I was in good hands. You just never know....
On the other hand, I just got my '68 Satellite back from body and paint. I had them do everything because I remember helping my dad block sand his '67 Chevy for what seemed like every weekday night after work and every saturday for 3 months straight. I had dreams about block sanding...I'm a blue collar guy and actually enjoy physical work, but the block sanding is soooo monotonous and not really one of my favorite things. Anyway, I shopped around for a whole year and talked to a dozen shops about my car. I finally chose one and it came out great even though they had it for 9 months. Body and paint and disassembly and reassembly, including all new rubber and front and rear glass, door handles, mirrors, etc. came out to $10K. I did all the legwork of sourcing and ordering myself for all new parts, which added another $1500 when all was said and done (I had my bumpers rechromed too). I had other quotes between $7500 - $20K from other shops, and ALL of those guys I told them I don't want a show car. My body was a 95% straight california car with just a littel bubbling on the lower rear rocker and under the rear glass edge. I had sticker shock knowing this as I first started getting quotes last year. I didn't want the Earl Shive or Macco $500 job, but I didn't want $15K either. $10K is what it ended up and while not a great deal, I don't feel I got hosed either.
The main thing is whether you hire someone to do both body and paint, or paint only, you've got to be very clear to them on the quality of work you're expecting and stick to it. It's very easy to initially say you just want a driver quality for under $2K and then as they get into it and you check up on the work you may change your mind and make little requests, thinking in your head - man, it sure would be nice for those little ripples to be gone, or man, it sure would be nice to have a little deeper polish to it. I would say if you do paint only and don't hire any bodywork at all, $2-3K is possible as long as you find a shop that will shoot it without doing their own bodywork, but of course, they won't warranty it.
By the way, I'm in northern California so your prices may vary. I've talked to a half dozen guys at car shows with exceptional quality paint and body on their cars and all of these guys separately told me that they painted their car themselves with the help of their car club friends. I would have loved to go that route, but just didn't meet anyone with those skills near me.
