Cost of Painting??

As I plan my GT40 budget, I would like to know roughly how much it might cost to paint a GT40. I'm thinking of going blue with a double silver stripe.

How much have some of your paint jobs cost? How much body work did you do before handing over to the paint shop? I hate body work and I'm wondering how much of the cost is body prep?


Thanks
 
Your cost is a variable thing. Depends on how much work is forseen by the person doing the prep. Your price will either come as a total package, or an hourly one. Just make sure you get the work done by someone knowledgable in fiberglass, or you will double your efforts, money and time. Mine already had a coat or two on it when it arrived from the original owner. It was taken down to the fiberglass and done over. $6K for the fiberglass mods(nostrils and sealing up other holes and paint. Would have been 10 to 12K if wanted a show finish(many more clear coats and sanding to 100% glass finish).

Bill
 

Ron Earp

Admin
Without going into a lot of detail I'm sort of in a unique position with lots of folks telling me about their GT40 builds. Bill is correct - the cost of bodywork/painting is highly variable and prices run all over the map. Also, what you start with will have a huge impact on the price and outcome.

If your GT40 is a good one with good glass and decent fit, probably figure $6k to $10k for a reasonable (not award winning show quality) job. If your car has poor fit and needs a lot of corrections etc. you could easily double those two figures I provided - body people are expensive.

I think Bill's estimates for show finishes is pretty close if you are starting with something "good". If you need a lot of fixing AND want a show finish, well, it could easily be over $20-$25k.
 
Has anyone had any experience with wrapping their car? Basically it is vinyl sheets placed over the car that allow any sort of colors or graphics that the computer and imagination allows to make just about anything.

Theon Karabatsos
 

Howard Jones

Supporter
Kelly, Don't let the talk of $20K paintjobs scare you off. I did my own body prep, it took 6 months, and did a two color job with clear coat at Miracle for $3400.

Now before all you rich guys begin to scream, many people have said that it looks great and so far it has held up fine.

I did take it to the paint shop without any windows, lights, body hold downs etc. so the car was completely ready to apply primer apon arrival. I also masked the car myself at the paint shop.

The painter used paint that I picked out, BMW colors and the same BMW paint brand, and I had it back home in 2 weeks.

Thats another thing, if you have someone do it all be prepaired for them to have your car for six months or more. If you don't believe me just ask these other guys how long their car was at the body/paint guy. This alone is worth thinking about doing the prep youself.

So.... you can do these cars without spending the cost of the drivetrain on a paintjob but you will need to do most of the hard work youself.

I would do the body/paint work first if I did another car. This will avoid all the dust cleanup of all your nice new parts. Just assemble the roller, fit everything to do with the body, take it all apart again and haul the stripped roller down to the paint guy.

Lastly, if you drive the damn thing a lot on the street the paint WILL get dinged up. These cars are low and everything thrown up by cars in front of you WILL hit you. So a buget paintjob will feel better with a few dings in it.
 

Tim Kay

Lifetime Supporter
At first I wasn't going to reply here thinking I was spending too much ($3,000). But seeing what some are paying maybe it's not so bad /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

Granted, my paint was in excellent shape. This car was painted by a hot rod shop 4 years ago (previous owner) and spent, as Howard said, at least 6 months there. Not sure what it cost but a real nice job was preformed.

I dismantle it (as you can see on the "TK Tornado re-build" thread) and returned just the fiberglass to the same painter. All he is doing is the chip repairs, minor fiberglass fill work, sand and repaint (same colors). I will re-assmeble. Been at the painter for 2 weeks and almost done.

[ QUOTE ]
Lastly, if you drive the damn thing a lot on the street the paint WILL get dinged up. These cars are low and everything thrown up by cars in front of you WILL hit you. So a buget paintjob will feel better with a few dings in it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I applied a 3m bra on my front end up to the leading edge of the nostril & side sills and it kept the paint unscathed /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 

Ron Earp

Admin
I think Howard is completely correct, but I was thinking along the lines of somone who did no bodywork or paint at all - just farmed it all out. Hershal did his (and others have done too) on his own and it looks fantastic, all for not much money at all. Just lots of time and some skill with glass/prep work.

I'd received estimates for my own 40 before I sold it in the $7-8k range for bodywork and paint, which wasn't too bad given that I wasn't going to do any of that myself since I don't know much about it and what little I do know I really disliked due to fiberglass issues with skin and sneezing.
 
Body work is tough. Thats why they get the cash for doing the work! You can do the work just take the time , hey! we are all here because of a great design of an auto. The GT-40. Paint now is VERY expensive its not that hard to paint a body ,good luck and best in the biuld of your GT.
 

Howard Jones

Supporter
The lowest "all in" estimate was 10 Grand. The guy then said he didn't want to do it. He said couldn't make any money on it. It's either a lot of money or a lot of time. Counted in months and thousands.
 

Howard Jones

Supporter
What I'm talking about is this. My fit lines were VERY bad. there was not 10"s anywhere that was the same. I had to add layers of FG cloth to the edge and then sand back to proper fit of 3/16" gap. I also had to add as much a 3/8" of material to the flat surfaces of the door at the bottom and in the areas of the side air intakes. The top of the doors at the front along the leading edge of the door opening also needed about 1\8" of glass. Each layer of matting will give you about 3\32" of thickness so you can see that letting each layer setup for at least 6 hours will take some time. I also filled the gurney bubbles on both doors. This alone took about a week. I also filled the euro license plate hole with a piece of blasa wood cut to fit and bonded it into place with fiber glass. If I did this again I would cut it out and simply re-glass the area, fill and sand flat.

After the glass is good and setup I used VetPannel Adhesive as a bondo type of filler. This stuff is very hard and will not dent as easy as bondo but really goes thru sand paper.

I used a air board and a couple of hand boards along with a oribital sander and some PVC pipe of various diameters wrapped with sandpaper.

The total cost of materials isn't enough to consider really but surely well under 500 bucks. More like a few hunderd. Buy as you need it. Start with quart size and buy more as you need it. Use the same brand of resin, dondo, etc. all the way thru. I Assume you have a air compressor.

Once I had all the major fitting and filling done I flat boarded the whole car from 150 grit to 300 grit and finally down to 400 grit.

I worked on the car no less that 4-5 days a week with weekday eves after work averageing about 2-3 hours each. Most weekends I put in one long day. 8-10 hours. I took very few breaks of more than a few days except I was out of town once for a week.

You will find that once you begin the sanding you will want to get it over with. Take a spring vacation with the family and then empty the garage as much as possible and have at it. Use a lot of ventilation when working with fiber glass. and always use dust masks when sanding.

I know this all sounds like a lot of work and it is but you can save the cost of your powertrain by doing this part yourself.

When I took it to the paint shop they charged me 8 hours of prep to final final sand and apply the sandable filler/primer so it was very nearly complete. I even went so far as to work all day at the paint shop doing my own masking.

The car was delivered without anything attached to the bodywork. No glass, door hardware, lights etc.

So lets say about 6 months. 24 weeks with 120 weekdays at 2 hours a day = about 250 hours and 20 weekend days at 10 hours a day for lets say another 250 hours. Thats right at 500 hours. Ya thats about right. ENJOY your free motor and gearbox. 500 hours at 25 dollars per hour(thats cheep) is $12500. 5 grand for the motor and 7500 for the rest isn't too far off.

Something to think about. YOU CAN DO IT! Mine was my first.
 
Thanks Howard - excellent info - I'll give it my best shot! I'm hoping that most of the body won't need too much attention, we'll see. I have done some prep work in the past but nothing on this scale.

Chris
 

Ian Anderson

Lifetime Supporter
Howard

We went to Ascari factory and their pros in their paint shop take 300 to 350 hours to prep one of their cars. (carbon body)

So allowing the difference between pro and amateur 500 hours sounds right.

Ian
 

Neal

Lifetime Supporter
$6k-$8k depending on how much prep you do. Another forum member and I were talking about similar problem areas on these bodies. It's funny as we had four of the same basic issues, top of drivers door is slighly proud of the spider, rear flare to clip seams are low, lower door gaps are tight up front, wide in the rear, and air intakes on side of clip are mis-matched. None were difficult to correct, just time consuming. Keep after it and you'll get the end product you really want.
 
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