The Price of Restoration

[dadsbee]

As some may have noticed, I'm also in the "buy it done and tweak it better camp", for a LOT less money than you can do a full restoration on a rusty car.

I had to put arm rests in the Wife's freshy done 383 x 4 gear 67 Formula S.. lol. A tad more work was put into the other 3 I bought running and driving in the past few years, like her 69 Swinger I dropped the entire drive train out of and rebuilt or restored. My 66 HP2, being a 10,000 mile car, has been minor tweaking and correcting only. I do need to redo the drivers seat, as the yellow foam is crumbling beneath it.

NEVER again will I do a full restoration. Thinking back my Bee was a running and driving car with the paint starting to go, once you start stripping there is no going back. I owned the car, gutted it to an empty shell and sent it for metal, body and paint. I personally did ALL of the component restoration, drive train and reassembly work and it still cost me $168,000 CDN (136US at the time from 2015 to 2019) to once again have a running, driving car and I didn't need to do the seats.

If it hadn't been for the memories in the Bee, going back a lifetime, after media blast was done it would have probably been parted.

 

[68BabyBlue]

he allowed 30 hours to replace what ever sheet metal was on his list............

closer to 200 +/- depending on the car

About 250 hours on work order that came with my A33 GTX for everything behind the doors, except the trunk floor and Dutchman panel, which were perfect because of the car being garaged all its life. Lower shop rates in the mid-west, lead guy billed at $35 per hour, helpers at $30. I doubt that would cover the shop utility bill in south Jersey.

 

[1967coronet]

Alot of cost revolves around the pedigree of the car being restored.
R/T Coronet vs 440 model
Road Runner / Belvedere
GTX / Satillite ect.
At this point the (pedigree ) cars demand a higher level of restoration driving the price up.
The step kids get by on swap meet used parts, garage paint jobs ( many are outstanding ) and used drive trains aka motor home 440s , used sure grips and 727s. Steel wheels instead of 18" billet.

I say you can still build a nice mopar under 25k it just depends on how high your sights are set.

 

[eldubb440]

he allowed 30 hours to replace what ever sheet metal was on his list............

closer to 200 +/- depending on the car

I feel the need to back up my claim with actual photos.......... 30 hours, really? other than that, he was pretty good......... why does the guy doing the hardest part always get screwed?

the labor rate he mentions would be super nice, but gets diluted severely with ADHD, at least in my world......... or most of us would be priced out of the game

sorry about the photobomb, if a picture is worth a thousand words, how does it translate to hours and dollars?

 

[440 4 speed]

Yes: I had $20k into this one of 99 in the late 80's. Back then you could scavenge parts off of a Satellite to make it whole. Today if you restore a car you expect to make it better than new. It was fun going to the dealer and ordering new gas tank, exhaust tips and door handles.

View attachment 1773528

View attachment 1773529

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Wasn’t that in North of the 49th money?

 

[Flint]

I bought my # matching 69 383 4spd RR about 3 years ago for 7500. I’ve put tons of new metal on it since and have most of the new legendary correct interior. 30 hours to hang new sheet metal? You could hardly disassemble and cut the old stuff off in that time. Let alone prep to start fitting the new stuff. A squeeze bottle of 3m polyester glazing putty is 80-90 bucks in itself. So yeah I think he is conservative.

 

[eldubb440]

As some may have noticed, I'm also in the "buy it done and tweak it better camp", for a LOT less money than you can do a full restoration on a rusty car.

I had to put arm rests in the Wife's freshy done 383 x 4 gear 67 Formula S.. lol. A tad more work was put into the other 3 I bought running and driving in the past few years, like her 69 Swinger I dropped the entire drive train out of and rebuilt or restored. My 66 HP2, being a 10,000 mile car, has been minor tweaking and correcting only. I do need to redo the drivers seat, as the yellow foam is crumbling beneath it.

NEVER again will I do a full restoration. Thinking back my Bee was a running and driving car with the paint starting to go, once you start stripping there is no going back. I owned the car, gutted it to an empty shell and sent it for metal, body and paint. I personally did ALL of the component restoration, drive train and reassembly work and it still cost me $168,000 CDN (136US at the time from 2015 to 2019) to once again have a running, driving car and I didn't need to do the seats.

If it hadn't been for the memories in the Bee, going back a lifetime, after media blast was done it would have probably been parted.

I'm in the camp of picking up someone else's abandoned project, or private owner car....... 99% of the finished cars for sale are "built for profit" in my opinion

 

[440 4 speed]

Even V code Sixpack/SixBarrel cars are getting hard to justify restoring these days. You might be okay with a matching numbers pedigree E body car. My friend has three L code 440 67 Chargers,and a 66 Hemi Charger,that he cannot justify doing restorations on.

They must be in pretty poor shape. I expect to break even if I sell providing I ever get it finished.

 

[chargervert]

You are building your car yourself,he has to pay someone to restore them.

 

[eldubb440]

You are building your car yourself,he has to pay someone to restore them.

im open to trades

 

[RemCharger]

I personally did ALL of the component restoration, drive train and reassembly work and it still cost me $168,000 CDN

 

[Dave6T4]

I'm in the 'buy a driver' camp. Total purchase price for these 5 cars was $59,500 in the last 3 years. I drive them all (except the white 63 Fairlane which I sold to buy a 64 Polara vert).
View attachment 1773557

1963 Meteor! Hardly ever seen at car shows up here. My Mom bought a 4-door sedan, new

 

[hemifiedbird]

What I have found is that if you are doing extreme restoration work, It still costs the same from a base Charger to a R/T Hemi Charger. But if you are doing a Hemi Car/Six Pack of any brand it should require to be done correct. and if you do it correct you are beyond $150000 easily. So by far it is cheaper for the buyer to buy a finished car and tweak it to your own. The only issue I have with that is that I personally get more satisfaction driving a car that I built from ground up and not just tweak.

 

[eldubb440]

1963 Meteor! Hardly ever seen at car shows up here. My Mom bought a 4-door sedan, new

I have a 63 Fairlane in the yard........ local old car junk yard has a decent Meteor

 

[SlingLow]

I have a 63 Fairlane in the yard........ local old car junk yard has a decent Meteor

Does it have decent headlight bezels and/or rear taillight horseshoes? My buddy is looking for them for 1 of his 2 S-33s.

 

[eldubb440]

Does it have decent headlight bezels and/or rear taillight horseshoes? My buddy is looking for them for 1 of his 2 S-33s.

both are decent cars, neither is being parted; sorry

 

[#41]

Interesting video, I can’t say that I disagree with much of what he says. This is becoming a very expensive hobby- maybe it has always been

I don't think people selling their cars and parts for prices that people will pay as "greed". Does he expect people to sell things for less than market value? In that case, a flipper just gobbles it up and sells it for the market price.

At any rate, the bits and pieces of this hobby have gotten way more expensive, but these cars are now a half-decade+ in age and you can't build them out of salvage yard parts anymore. Still, the hobby is only as expensive as you allow it to be. I am often astounded by the cost of restorations stated by people.

 

[RemCharger]

, It still costs the same from a base Charger to a R/T Hemi Charger. But if you are doing a Hemi Car/Six Pack of any brand it should require to be done correct.

The worst of course, being the Charger R/T Hemi Six Pack car. Poor fellas from down undah

 

[kiwigtx]

I agree with those who are buying already done cars.....works out a lot cheaper. I restored my '70 GTX starting back in '98. It took approx. three years to compete a total bare-metal restoration with some panel work and clean everything thing up as best as possible given availability of parts in the day. All purchases from USA were conducted using a Fax and a Credit Card as bank transfers were too expensive and took too long.

I had the best painter in New Zealand work on the car - right from the strip down to final showing at a Concours Masters Class event in Feb 2002. Some of the panel work was done by a guy who was smoking weed....so I took it off him - he did good work, but started taking a bit long to do smaller areas. I used the best of materials available, and I did as much as I could myself on every part of the build.

Final assembly was conducted at home in the garage while waiting for my first child to arrive. I took 2 weeks off work figuring if the factory could do that in 2 days, I should be fine. I think the last three days before the Sunday morning Concours show myself and painter plus two more helpers only slept about 4 hours each. We finished at about 7:00am the morning of the show and called it done.
Finished with a very creditable 3rd placing.... lost out winning by a single point due to 'Age points' on two much older Pommy bangers.

At a total cost of around NZ$150K all up, I know I wouldn't be able to that again.....mostly because my wife would say no.....lol But the mental stress that goes with the process is a lot to take....unless you are loaded with money to start with.

Fortunately, when I started I had a reasonably rare car here in NZ....now it seems every 'Tom, Dick & Harry' has one or something similar. I have no idea where some get their money from.....must be into drug-dealing or something.

 

[AR67GTX]

Professional paint work has gone out of sight. Old Corvette guys are grumbling over $30k to $40k estimates on the west coast. Even my local buddies are seeing $15k to $20k on Mopar and Shelby Mustang paint jobs here in Arkansas. One of them just found a local painter who agreed to re-shoot a 66 Shelby in the proper, single stage white for $10k (it had been painted in a too-Brite white that he just couldn’t take). Minor body work except to fit reproduction doors. The owner stripped the car to a rolling shell including glass removal. He felt this was a real bargain. Makes me long for the days I did a body off restoration on my 66 Corvette and repainted it in my garage with DuPont Lacquer for probably well less than $250 in materials.