Restoration Cost
 

Hey there. I have a question for the guys who did a restoration on a first gen. How much did it cost and was it a full restoration or not. Thank you for veiwing my thread.

A full restoration could be anywhere from 10K to 60k. It all depends on the current condition of the car and how nice you want the finished car. (FYI: most guy that restore their cars themselves do so over a long time period and do not track real cost, if they did they would get sick.) Sure they can most likely tell you how much the paint job cost or the motor but it is all the little stuff the drives up the cost, I could write a book and call it "spending a fortune $100 at a time".

The term restoration can mean different things to different people. Some guys will say it is not a restoration unless you dip the body part and work your way up. Other guys will say you remove everything off the body and fix what needed and take it from there.

Since your here in PA you should know there are a lot of project cars floating around that are not worth the cost to fix right. Many of them would cost more to fix the body right then the car would be worth finished.

To give you an idea what I am talking about the finish Paint job (just leveling and shooting with no body work) can range from $1800 to 12K and even more if you want custom graphics. At 12K you should be able hold up a newspaper to your car and read the text in the finish and you could use a gage and check all the near perfect body gaps and the car should appear straight as an arrow. Your $1800 job will be shinny and almost as good as the factory paint the body lines would not be great and the finish would have some waves going down the side. AKA a 20 footer.

Example 2. You have a stock 327 with 80,000 miles on it. You send it to the machine shop, its in pretty good shape. They rebuild the whole motor for 3K. You have a factory shock new engine. But if you "build" 400hp motor You can easily hit 12k with someone else doing the work. The sky is the limit if you get into a turbo or supercharger plus now you need to "build" a trans and rear to handle the HP increase.


Large project can and do get out of hand very quickly. You really need a plan and try decide what you REALLY want out of your car. Write it down (that is important) Make sure you reread your starting goals when making decisions.

Very good advice above. First things first, decide what you want out of the car. Is it going to be a daily driver or a show car? Then you have to decide what kind of show car if that's your goal. Factory correct or resto mod? All can be quit expensive even if you're doing a lot of the work yourself. My brother did the paint and body work on mine and he gave me the "family discount" and it still cost me over $6K. (he usually charges over 10K just for the prep and paint w/o any body repairs i.e. quarters replaced etc.) I did all the other work on it over 5 years and it still cost me about 15K in parts and machine work plus the paint.
Decide what you want and stick to it or you can easily blow your budget out of the water. If all that scares you just send me your car. :) I'll even pick it up lol

Is alot considered an amount? I cant even recall how much my resto has cost me up till this point.

Not a chevy but did a 69 T/A,the paint job alone was 11K.Took it to bare metal,2 coats of primer and BC/CC.Everything else seem cheap compared to it.Tom

This. I'm almost embarrassed to say how much I've spent. Mine is on the high end of what Gorn said. I've rebuilt everything on my car though. Paint, body work, interior, engine, new transmission, suspension, radio, alarm, front and rear wiring harness, etc, etc, etc...

Real 69 TA? That is be worth every penny of a high end restore. Body must have been pretty solid. A lot of the cars here in PA need a good 8-10K worth a metal work before the paint job can start.

V8 TV did a 69 TA Clone, I never thought much about a first gen Firebird but man that car changed my views.

Yes,was a real 69 T/A,had a short deck SCCA RA V engine in it.Car became worth too much,sold it,paid off my house and built a exact like clone.Tom

That was a smart move, When you own a car like a 69 TA you are more its keeper and less its owner. It is worth to much to even think about touching. Every time you work on it all you can think about is not hurting the value. Clones are a lot more fun. If I see the right Firebird come along I may do the clone thing myself now that the part are aftermarket.

Deep pockets
 

Well, I've spent $22K on my parts alone for my 1968 so far. Will probably over $30K when I'm done.
I did almost all of the work myself. Been at it for 4 years, and probably still 2 years to go.

If I sold it when I'm done, I'd probably get less than I've paid in just parts. It's not for the feint of heart, or the light of wallet.

Steve