Last year called,and said it wants its thread back!......lol .I think this is one of the very first threads that I posted on.Thats funny!

I think the first thread I posted in was maaco vs at home paintjob, and that thread never disappears. Some topics just won't die on here.

Lol.. I didn't realize this was so old, it was on the hope page.. lol..

you all forgot about "john deere blitz black"!! how much crap could there be to talk about on flat black tractor paint. holy craaaaap!!

I vaguely recall the original post. I certainly see where most of you guys are coming from, with the cost of your facility and the cost of your help, and
everything else. Probably if we lop a 0 off the end of the figure, it would bring the cost back to understandable numbers for many of us. Take 0 off the price of a $25,000 car, and you come up with $2,500- the price of a new 57 Chevy, back in 57. Few if any of us could imagine $2,500 as real money in 1957, let alone be able to borrow it, but the point is valid.
I do not recall if the guy wanted much more paint job than he was willing to pay for, or if he got more paint job than he wanted.
I paint my cars in my barn. My cars end up as 25 footers. They look great at 25 feet, and even a lot closer, if you are more interested in jawboning, and enjoying life, rather than looking for something I should have done better. That is what I intend them to be. I live down a gravel road, off a tar and chip road, and back when the kids were still home, we'd all get in the toy, the wife, the kids, the dog, and occasionally a cat, and go somewhere. I never had a 40 Ford Coupe or Convertible, and don't have any 57 Chevys around, either. I have 50s cars, and I generally try not to have much over $5,000 in them, when finished, mainly because unless you make a killer #1 car out of it, it isn't worth much more than $5,000 anyway. Sort of makes the idea of paying $4,500 just for a paint job a bad idea, doesn't it?
You guys can do that kind of work, which is far better than the factories ever intended to do, because we are richer now. NOt only just US, but the nation is richer, so we can indulge ourselves.
Don't forget the origin of hot rods was cheap transportation. WE used to drag home non-running cars, and move parts around util we had something we could use. I was out of college before I ever paid more than $50 for a car. I had lots of cars I built up from 3 or 4 cars I got for single digit money--like under $10, sold parts to my friends that paid for my cars, and scrapped the hulks to make spending money for a couple weeks. Sure wish I had some of those bodies I sent to the bone yard back 50 years ago, now.
With my luck, they'd probably still be worth what I gave for them--nothing.

Pontiac Power, I can relate to that as I graduated from high school in 63 like you, and if you wanted a hot rod that is what you did! But then of course you could have your 34 5window coupe painted at the corner Signal gas station for a mer $45.00 and it was all the same color and a 50 footer, but it was painted and it was yours. Your are right if you want them up close and take a shot at your work put the most expensive paint job you can afford!!

be glad it's not a vette. going price to restore the body is around 15k.

Back in the 60s, Earl Schieb used to advertise "I'll paint any car, any color, for $29.95". Good ole Diamond Luster paint. They did know how to lay on a shine. If you wern't planning on getting rid of the car soon, you always wanted to get the matching paint because what they did was go to paint factories, and buy the over runs, and mix it together for a "custom color". No two batches came out the same. You could go to the auto paint store and get a gallon of synthetic enamel for $10. I think it was DULUX. Red would cost you another buck or so.
Back in '63, the national median family income was $4,400, which comes up to $84 a week. This was the average Joe, who was supporting a wife and a couple kids, making house payments, and car payments, too. $45 doesn't sound like much, but it was more than half his gross pay. Don't forget, he had taxes, FICA, insurance and other stuff taken out before he ever saw it, just like we do now. I can recall using the spray attachment on my mother's Electrolux vacuum cleaner to spray a car. Then I used Dupont's white polishing compound to rub it out. Worked pretty good. $10 worth of paint, a couple bucks worth of reducer, 4-new recaps at about $8 each, and I effectively trippled the original cost of my car, which was running and drivable when I brought it home.

in the late 70's early 80's the cost of a nice paint job was 2500 . 25 years later i still get folks wanting a 2500 paint job. go figure.