Cost of Paint and Body Work?

D. Nye

Lifetime Supporter
The Mk IV has been at the body shop for a month and when I dropped the car off they gave me an estimate of 18 to 20K which I was expecting. However I just got a call and was told the price would be in the 28 to 30K range.
Does paint and body work really cost that much for one of these cars? I think I read somewhere the continuation cars cost in the mid 20's.

What is the going price for this work?

Thanks for any comments.

Don
 
Sounds like you're getting ripped-off at those prices.
1/3 to 1/2 of that is reasonable.

If they are doing all of the body alignment and prep, it's more reasonable.
 

Rick Muck- Mark IV

GT40s Sponsor
Supporter
FYI one of the new "Kar Kraft" continuation MK IVs was a total body shop bill of over 60K!

I always marvel at people putting kits together that budget 4-5K for the body and paint. Boy do they get an education!
 

Mike Pass

Supporter
In the Uk the cheapest I have seen was £1,500 for a nice Gulf scheme with 3 coats of clear. The car was left so they could do it when there was no work in. Came out really nice. The best (mono colour) paint job I have seen which was truly immaculate was £8,500. Your prices seem way high.
Cheers
Mike
 

Randy V

Moderator-Admin
Staff member
Admin
Lifetime Supporter
A lot has to do with what all you want and need to be done.
Some people want even the bottom sides of the front and rear clip glass smooth and painted. That takes a lot of work.
If the spider on your car was left unsupported, the spider will sag - which creates all sorts of problems in fitting the doors.
Are you expecting the body shop to hang the doors, fit and install the outside handle and latch mechanisms? There's a ton of work to be done there as well.
Then comes the fact that you are working with a body that was taken from the mold of a race car. The race car bodies look great on the track and at speed, but the gaps were terrible, the surfaces of the body were acceptable - but none of these are attributes of something that would be considered a show-car.

So - tell us what you have and what you are looking for in body and paint work. Also, the caliber of shop you're dealing with as some generally only work on only the highest quality and caliber of cars...
 
Don,
Based on what I saw of your car, that number seems really high unless you are having them do a lot of custom work or something.
 

Mike

Lifetime Supporter
Prep & paint done right ain't cheap. I'd want them to break that estimate down into line items but I spent mid 20s on my color change with a few tweaks. The paint alone price is ridiculous.
 

Tim Kay

Lifetime Supporter
A good quality repaint I had done under 20k. An outstanding show quality, glasurit primer and paint, I paid 30k not including body fitment.
 

Ian Anderson

Lifetime Supporter
Drove the car in, with nothing pre done. Raw fiberglass!
Two weeks later paid £1700 and drove home

8 years later still shines brilliantly, a few chips stars and scuffs. But it is driven on the road, Le Mans three times, track days, shows etc. 100% perfect well not any more!

It was done in twin pack old style paint so no need for all the clear coats.

Ian
 
A show quality candy paint job is 10-15k no prep...someone that's doing a nice paint on gt will probably be into prep which wouldn't include any drilling or installing but finish seams and gaps along with catalyzed primer ready for paint around 5k and add another 2500 to 4000 for nice paint with stripe along with 5 nice coats of clear and finished sand and buffed.the price of paint is nothing compared to time for prep..even the best painter can't hide terrible bodywork
 
Don It comes down to hours and supplies needed to do the job. What is the shop rate for your body shop? most people don't realize what it takes to do a car right and those on here that have done there own if they add up the hours they put into it and put an hourly rate to it would be shocked. We use ppg products and It continues to go up in price. The last mk-1 we did took over 4k in supplies and a ton of hours to get the gaps right and surfaces flat. This number seem high but not out of the park, what about blisters in the gel-coat, If the car is going to be a dark color It might not be a bad idea to epoxy seal it black and park it in the sun on a 90 degree day, or bake it in the booth and see what pops up. What are they exactly doing to get your show quality paint and how many hours to get there. Don give me a call if you want.....................m
 

D. Nye

Lifetime Supporter
What they are telling me is there is a great number of blisters in the gel coat all over the car. If you have seen my build log this car had fair gaps and did not look that bad to me. Yes there were blisters which I pointed out when I dropped it off. I'm going Friday to review the car with them one more time to see what they think is going to take all this time to make right. What upsets me the most is the fact we reviewed the car and I was asked to sign a shop ticket estimating the work at 18 to 20 than being called a month later and told it will be 10K more. What's stopping them from going up again?
I want to thank everyone for their input.

Don
 

Randy V

Moderator-Admin
Staff member
Admin
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Yeah, you can't see those air-pockets in the gel coat until you sand through them or they pop on their own.. The tough ones are in the reliefs molded into the doors and front clip for the lexan. But they also appeared in other places too and it's not uncommon for hand laid fiberglass as I was told. I guess a chopper gun would embed more glass in those areas of the mold? I don't know.
I took a small plastic head hammer and tapped every square millimeter of mine to get them to break if present and only found a few that way.
Excellence is not cheap and most of us that look at it after the fact are aware of what you went through to achieve it...
 
Don if you like to sand and get a body guy to prep your car ready to shoot and have a place to spray and buy the materials and a round trip air fare and some huge Texas steaks and a couple greenbacks I'll be more than happy to Squirt your gt
 
The Mk IV has been at the body shop for a month and when I dropped the car off they gave me an estimate of 18 to 20K which I was expecting. However I just got a call and was told the price would be in the 28 to 30K range.....
Don

Don, I did all the body work and paint on my car, plus I've done a few others in the past. There is an indescribable amount of work to be done on these cars, more so if you do it yourself and pay attention to the details. I also found a fair amount of voids under the gelcoat after tapping every inch of the body with a dime or scribe, so that added even more hours. You also have countless hours of color sanding and polishing, more body fitment/alignment/adjustment, plus cutting templates for and applying the 3M protective film. If you want it done right and don't want to do this aspect of a build yourself, you have to be prepared to pay (and wait...).

The good thing about doing it yourself is that when it comes time to repair a panel, you know it pretty well. Also, you're not going to want to drive the car very far after paying $30k for a paint job so you end up trailering it to events (Parking Lot Queen), instead of driving the car like it should be.

I went with British Racing Green (non-metallic) so it's easier to blend in, if and when the time comes.

Hope it works out for you!

Tom
 

Randy V

Moderator-Admin
Staff member
Admin
Lifetime Supporter
Tom - I'd love to see pics of your car in BRG!!! Do you have a link?
 
The comical thing about this is the original cars had poor panel alignment and were probably painted at Slough for the equivalent of $1500 in today's dollar. $30,000 to paint a replica of a GT40 or for that matter ANY car is beyond my comprehension unless you have unlimited money, are unsuspecting and have unlimited money, or want only the best and be able to brag about it. Nobody in the general public could tell the difference between a $3K and $30K paint job so I guess it comes down to what your end goal is and what to do with the rest of the money not spent on a $30K paint job. I have had several cars painted and none were anywhere close to $30K but then I would have left that body shop the minute they told me $20K.

You should bring your car home and take it to a different shop, set a defined budget and have them work to that budget. Pocket the rest of the money and use it to buy more cars, parts for your car, or something else. But they are sticking it to you.
 

Rick Muck- Mark IV

GT40s Sponsor
Supporter
OK, $1000 then. Nor does Superformance spend $30K painting there cars and the result speaks for itself

Absolutely SPF does not spend 30K on paint. But the point is it is not hard to spend 30K in the US for body prep and paint on a fiberglass car. As I indicated I have first hand knowledge of better than $60,000 (in fact very close to 70) being spent to gain a very nice ,but not Pebble Beach level finish on a Kar Kraft GT MK IV.

I owned a restoration business and have seen the hours involved to prep a body. The actuall spray painting is the SMALLEST part of the cost. The prep and materials are the big cost. A gallon of PPG metallic red was just quoted to a friend for a 1964 Galaxie.....$860.00 per gallon!

Put the best paint job on a wavy orange and you will still have orange peel!
 
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