If you're anything like us, you hate performing bodywork on your car. Hours and hours spent cutting, welding, sanding, and inhaling huge volumes of body filler dust has just never seemed appealing. In fact, the only people we've met who really seem to enjoy bodywork are those who do it for a living. These select few have amazing patience and the ability to spend hours block-sanding a single panel to absolute perfection. It also takes a certain touch to be able to "feel" the imperfections in a body panel. For whatever reason, we've just never developed the skills it takes to prep and paint a car to look better than new. This, however, is only the first part of our problem. Our second issue is we're too cheap to pay a ridiculous amount of money for a show-quality paint job. Fortunately, we've developed some skills over the years, which allow us to get the most out of our paint job by doing a certain portion of the work ourselves and picking a good shop to do the rest. Follow along, and we'll share how you can get the most out of your paint job no matter what your budget.
The subject for this article is our '69 Coronet 500 convertible. You may remember this vehicle as being involved in an accident while being towed behind a friend's truck. The accident left several areas on the car crumpled. Upon closer inspection, however, we decided that a full paint job, rather than spot repairs, was in order. We struck a deal with J.D.'s Paint and body in Mulberry, Florida, to repair and paint the entire car. This brings us to the first step in getting the most for your money when having a car painted-getting a fair estimate.
Pay For Bodywork, Not Mechanical Work
Remember that when a paint shop gives you an estimate to paint your car, the biggest part of the estimate is usually the labor. If the actual paint and supplies are deducted from the estimate, the remaining amount can be divided into the business' shop rate, which will tell how many hours they are estimating they will spend on your car. Also remember it takes a significant amount of time to remove emblems, bumpers, lights, and trim from the vehicle to prepare it for the bodywork. While we don't enjoy doing actual bodywork, we can save ourselves some money by removing all the necessary items before the car goes into the shop. We even remove the car's interior so the body shop won't have to spend any unnecessary time taping this area off or worrying about cleaning up overspray. This ensures the money we're paying is to do bodywork, not the stuff we can do ourselves.
A second benefit of removing the trim and associated hardware ourselves is that we expose areas prone to rust. Window channels, wheel lip moldings, and chrome trim can all trap dirt and moisture leading to hidden rust issues. Hidden rust can add significantly to the cost of the paint job if it's not factored into the initial estimate, so we'd rather expose any areas now and know what we're in for. Our Coronet had rusty areas around the bolt holes holding the tailpanel trim to the car that would have never been seen if we hadn't removed the panel before taking the car to the paint shop. With these areas exposed, our estimator can better evaluate the amount of work that will be needed and give us a more accurate estimate.
Since both our front fenders and our driver-side, lower rear quarter-panel were damaged in an accident, we knew we would need to find those parts. For the quarter-panel patch we called local parts supplier, AllStar MuscleCar Parts, and ordered a new Goodmark panel. The front fenders, however, are not being reproduced, so finding used parts was our only choice. After making several phone calls, we scored a nice pair of fenders from the Bayer Boys, Chrysler specialists in Douglasville, Georgia. If we hadn't found our fenders at a reasonable cost, our next step would have been to scrounge the junkyards looking for serviceable parts. All this is time consuming, but we'd rather do it ourselves than pay the paint shop to do it for us. We can search for the best deal this way and, hopefully, save ourselves a few bucks in the process.
Find The Parts
Most paint shops deal primarily with collision and insurance claims and only paint a handful of older cars, so their parts supplier may not handle body parts for classic cars. This can inflate the cost of your paint job because an employee of the shop has to track down suppliers and parts to repair your car. Since we already have contacts in the classic car industry, it just makes sense for us to find the parts ourselves and bring them to the paint shop with us. Many projects can get put on the back burner when a part isn't readily available, so we'll ensure this doesn't happen by providing our own parts. Of course, there could be hidden damage that won't be discovered until the body is stripped, but by getting the parts you know you'll need you can guarantee that the paint shop will have most of what's necessary to finish your project.
Pick The Right Shop
Choosing the correct shop to perform the work on your car is not an easy task. Most cities seem to have a body shop on every corner, some specializing in spot repairs, some that only perform insurance work, others at dealerships, and then specialty shops that do only custom work, so how do you pick? In our experience there are several different levels of quality that you can expect from various paint shops; our goal is to get the best value for our money. Of course, this means evaluating our project and choosing the proper level of paint quality so that we don't overpay. It doesn't make sense to put a killer, show-quality paint job on a driver-quality '74 Fury. On the other hand, a budget paint job is a good way to ruin an otherwise great looking musclecar. Since our Coronet is a very solid car in good condition, we decided to put a good quality paint job on it so we'll be shying away from the budget shops. A shop specializing in restorations can be a good choice if you're in a hurry to get your car finished. The quality is usually high and most of these shops can schedule and get your car completed in a timely manner, but the cost can be prohibitive for the average enthusiast. We've found that local paint shops, if given enough time, are usually the most economical way to get a quality paint job on a musclecar. we try to keep our business with a local shop such as J.D.'s Paint and Body.
J.D.'s shop, like most functional body shops, makes its money through collision and insurance work. The quality of his work must meet OEM and insurance specifications so we know he can do a good job. While this type of work is lucrative, it can be sporadic at times, so J.D. will take on a classic car or restoration project to keep his employees busy when there is a lull in the collision business. For this reason, a shop like J.D.'s Paint and Body is a good choice for a quality paint job at a reasonable price, but you must be patient. Knowing that J.D.'s primary source of income is insurance work dictates that if he has collision work to do, it takes priority over our restoration project. While it can be frustrating to see your project sit idle for long periods of time, knowing that the finished product will be worth the wait can make the time pass a little easier. We look at it as long-term storage for one of our projects, giving us time to refurbish the drivetrain and interior of that car, or work on one of our other projects in the meantime. From our experience, this is the best way to get a good paint job for a reasonable cost.
Use The Right Materials
Another reason we shy away from budget paint shops for our projects is they generally use economical products to perform their work. by using fillers, primers, and paints that are cheaper than the best products available, they can paint a car at an inexpensive price. The downfall is economical paint usually doesn't shine like a quality product, nor does it last as long. No problem. Just purchase expensive paint and let the budget shop shoot the car with it. Well, there is an inherent problem with this method as well. The more experience a painter has with a certain product, the more adept he or she will become at using that product. Different paints require different techniques to apply, so the painter at a budget shop may not have the experience necessary to get the best quality from high-end paint. This is another reason to let a shop that does collision work perform the work on your car. The quality materials they use may cost a little more, but the end result will be a paint job that not only looks great, but lasts as well.
J.D. recommended BASF Diamont paint as a good choice for our car. This paint is not the most expensive on the market, but is certainly at the high end of the spectrum in terms of quality and is a great value for the money. The Diamont colors are brilliant, and the clearcoat offers great UV protection and fantastic luster. Never heard of Diamont? Just watch the next episode of Overhaulin'; it's the same paint that Chip Foose uses for his work. Since J.D.'s shop also uses quality fillers and primers, we were assured our paint job would be of the same quality as the standards set for new car repair, and certainly far better than when it was new.
Now that we've done our part by removing items from the car, finding the parts, and picking the right shop to perform the work, all that's left is the actual process of performing the bodywork and painting the car.
The End Result
Needless to say, we were very happy with the results of our paint job. This wasn't a budget paint job nor was it a high-end rotisserie restoration job either. We felt that for the dollars we spent, we got a great quality paint job that looks better than the car did when it was new. Sure, we spent considerable time prepping the car ourselves and had to wait while our painter fit the job into his schedule of insurance and collision work. But with a little time and a lot of patience, we ended up with a paint job that looks far better than the money we spent on it. It's hard to find an imperfection in our paint job no matter what the angle. By following our plan, you too can end up with a car that looks better than new!
