What goes into a show car paint job?

Ernie Mccracken

Ernie Mccracken

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I hear people throw around crazy numbers for show car paint jobs. $30k+ price, months and months of waiting, crazy amount of prep work, etc.

So how does the process work? How many man hours are typically involved? And why do they all seem to choose only candy colors?
 
Pretty sure $30k would include a RESTORATION not just laying down paint. I am no painter and Im not positive you are on the right board to get that answer. Some may know about painting a car but most here know about caring for paint once it is laid down.
 
I'm not quite sure.

Hopefully lots and lots of prep and attention to detail.

My neighbor paid about that much to have his GTX tribute car painted and it has to be one of the best paint jobs I've ever seen. I've looked for flaws but have yet to find any. Body panels straight as fresh off the assembly line if not even better. No orange peel, or sanding marks remaining from removing it.

Perfection takes time.

Oh, and was not "candy coated" but a stock color.

Like above, I believe it also included restoration too.
 
It's a lot of panel gapping, bodywork, sanding, priming, sanding, priming, sanding, priming etc. There is a massive difference between a typical show car paint job and a best of show concourse paint job. A full resto w/paint for $30k would typical mediocre job and not show worthy. The place I work at part time...restorations can cost anywhere from $300k to $1.2M. Heck, the car we are working on now has about $200k just in chrome.
 
It's been about 20 years since I've done any serious painting but my process went something like this...

- Remove all moldings and trim
- Strip old finish to bare metal
- Perform necessary body repairs
- Chemically treat metal surfaces
- Apply maximum corrosion resistance primer, i.e., epoxy, self-etching, etc.
- Apply primer surfacer
- Block sand (and I use that term loosely... whatever tool is necessary to achieve a perfect surface and it's not always a block)
- Repeat the primer surfacer and block sanding steps (typically at least three cycles) (different shades of primer can be used to help highlight imperfections)
- Apply Sealer
- Apply the color coats
- Sand between coats when appropriate (this is dictated by the type of finish being applied) (do not sand the final color coat especially if it's a metallic color)
- Apply the clear coats
- Like the color coats, sand between when appropriate
- Allow the paint to fully harden (typically 60 days minimum)
- Sand and polish to perfection

Note that all finish sanding, whether body repairs, primer surfacer, color or clear coats are done by hand as that is the most accurate method. In fact when I read about colorsanding/wetsanding with a DA it makes me cringe. Although with today's grits, i.e., 3000, 5000, etc. machine sanding might be feasible, hand sanding is still the most accurate method to the perfect panel in my opinion.

This is just a quick synopsis off the top of my head... It's been a while. There are many more steps sometimes performed. An example could be completely disassembling the vehicle after the body fit has been established to paint the car in pieces. That is the best way to ensure the jambs are as perfect as the exterior and to minimize any unwanted overspray where it shouldn't be and also to eliminate any paint build-up in panel-to-panel seams.

I never did any $30,000 paint jobs... but I did do $10,000 jobs back in the 1970's through 1990's. The man-hours involved where in the hundreds... 200-300 hours or more were not uncommon.
 
I cannot honestly say I don't know too much about the paint laying process itself but I do believe that alot of well done prep work makes a difference to the outcome.

A few moons ago I built a 73 Mazda RX-3 Coupe. Now I only intended to build a nice street car, & like most Kiwi folk - I drove it, & drove it hard. Not having an unlimited budget, almost all the work on the Mazda (apart from the sparaying of the paint & the chrome plating) I done myself, with the help of family & friends. That being said, & me being me, most things that could've been "good enough" received more & more attention.

The engine bay, & underside of the bonnet (hood) had well over 15 hours of sanding work alone, & to be brutally honest the sanding work put into that car made me hate sanding. I throw up in my mouth a little when I see a long board, & the sound of sanding gives me chills . . .

Anyhow - back on track. All the prep work on the RX-3 & some nicely applied paint from a skilled painter & it looked incredible. It never had anything other than a coat of wax EVER. I drove this car to many of New Zealands top car shows & won many many trophies, & total cost of the entire build was a shade under $6k NZ. (around $4k US) I don't know how much the excessive prep work had to do with the outcome, or whether my painter was just awesome on that day, & to be fair - even if the paint was as peely as an orange, with enough clearcoat to work with - it still would've been made to look as good as it did.

I guess, even a $100k paint job can be ruined in no time at all if whomever is going to touch the paint hasn't a clue.

Aaryn NZ. :xyxthumbs:
 
Ernie Mccracken said:
I hear people throw around crazy numbers for show car paint jobs. $30k+ price, months and months of waiting, crazy amount of prep work, etc.

So how does the process work? How many man hours are typically involved? And why do they all seem to choose only candy colors?
Click to expand...


Here's a car we recently worked on where the owner told me it had a $15,000.00 paint job.

1955 Chevy Bel Air with a $15,000.00 Custom Paint Job - How to remove water spots


And it did have a very nice paint job and it was a high dollar build.

watermark.php



I've personally worked on a lot of very expensive paint job. The largest portion of the cost is in both the prep work and the paint work. Lot of hours go into perfecting the sheet metal before any paint is ever sprayed. Then when the paint is sprayed, lots of time goes into the painting process and quality paint isn't cheap.


So I guess the answer to your question is


Ernie McCracken said:
What goes into a show car paint job?
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Time, labor and materials. I'm sure skill and experience of the person or people doing the work is also a factor.


It will probably cost a lot more to have Dave Kindig prep and paint your car than the body shop down the road from us doesn't have a famous reputation or a TV show.


Good question...


:)
 
2black1s said:
Note that all finish sanding, whether body repairs, primer surfacer, color or clear coats are done by hand as that is the most accurate method.
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I agree with you. Doing the "finish" wet sanding by hand is very accurate but also incredibly time-consuming. And if the paint is hard and you are instilling tracers then buffing out 100% of your sanding marks is both time consuming and risky.


Just last week we hand sanded a 1967 Camaro. My fear was the paint would be hard and we would have tracers everywhere. We were LUCKY and there were zero tracers as the paint buffed easy. We also used the Griot's Finishing Papers and to my knowledge, these are the highest quality hand finishing (not hand sanding), papers money can buy. There might be higher quality finishing papers on the market that I don't know about so I that's why I typed, to my knowledge.



2black1s said:
In fact when I read about colorsanding/wetsanding with a DA it makes me cringe.
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It's just so much faster and requires less muscle. It still requires skill and most important... focusing on the task at hand.


2black1s said:
Although with today's grits, i.e., 3000, 5000, etc. machine sanding might be feasible, hand sanding is still the most accurate method to the perfect panel in my opinion.
Click to expand...

My take is that the best approach is to start by hand sanding and then finish out with the high grits like the #3000, #4000 and #5000 using a DA sander or DA polisher.

I have seen with some paint systems, an irregular looking appearance in the paint after machine sanding that I have not seen with hand sanding but I don't know what would cause this but it doesn't happen with all paint systems.


I love having guys on the forum with real world experience as painters to share their knowledge, so thank you for chiming in.


:dblthumb2
 
No orange peel, no dirt nibs, no tape lines, no fish eyes, no runs....not easy to do.
 
I don't know if this qualifies as "show car paintjob" but while I was checking the local classifieds the other day I came across this 2000 Cadillac Eldorado and the paint on this car immediately caught my eye. It stood way out from the rest of the adds and my 1st thought was that someone had done a good job polishing it out...

Turns out it has a $8,000 factory paint job. I know Cadillac offers a Tri Color option [I could be wrong on what they specifically call it] but 8k seems even beyond what it would cost? I dunno, all I know is this picture isn't enhanced and this paint looks pretty darn good, especially considering it's 17yrs. old factory original belonging to an average Joe. Lol.

c2a594f2ba50210e56eb3955c0b27828.jpg


a29e536b30fa4b827cd41ef73476f828.png
 
What goes into a show car paint job? Labor and Materials! There is alot more of both required for a show car job. A typical average respray on a vehicle is anywhere from $3000-8000- that is not including any bodywork or panel alignment- that is to, remove trim bumpers lights, sand, prime any burn throughs, mask, base coat, clear coat, reassemble, clean.
 
fightnews said:
wow, id like to see an example of a 1.2 million dollar job?
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Me too but I bet its more a matter of the vehicle that was painted/restored NOT the price of the paint being sprayed as I said before. The repair to prep for the paint is what costs. JUST paint isnt usually $30k.
 
No such thing as a *factory* $8,000 paint job.


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WRAPT C5Z06 said:
No such thing as a *factory* $8,000 paint job.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Yea you're right. I spoke to my source who's been a Cadillac dealer for 20+ yrs. and he said Cadillac custom paint costs $995.00 and that's the White Diamond or Crystal Red...
 
Eldorado2k said:
I don't know if this qualifies as "show car paintjob" but while I was checking the local classifieds the other day I came across this 2000 Cadillac Eldorado and the paint on this car immediately caught my eye. It stood way out from the rest of the adds and my 1st thought was that someone had done a good job polishing it out...

Turns out it has a $8,000 factory paint job. I know Cadillac offers a Tri Color option [I could be wrong on what they specifically call it] but 8k seems even beyond what it would cost? I dunno, all I know is this picture isn't enhanced and this paint looks pretty darn good, especially considering it's 17yrs. old factory original belonging to an average Joe. Lol.

c2a594f2ba50210e56eb3955c0b27828.jpg


a29e536b30fa4b827cd41ef73476f828.png
Click to expand...

what does an 8000 dollar factory paint job mean. To me, It sounds like he's saying the factory repainted it at some point for 8,000 dollars? If he's saying the original oem factory paint job that came with it cost 8000 how would he even know that information?
 
I wanted to get my front bumper and hood either repainted or blended to fix the road rash. I was hoping it would be like $5-600
 
fightnews said:
I'd offer him 750 bucks cash, tops
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For that Eldorado? Pssshh... Man that ride is clean. I'm kicking myself for having blown about 1k in the past month on other stuff. I could be seriously thinking of making an offer on that car. $2,000 - $2,200 for that Eldorado with paint already looking that good is something I could go for. I'm sick and tired of my boring metalic paint! Plus I've always loved Eldorados especially that last version of them. Those were my legit dreamcar for many years. I've owned two 92's that had that body style.
 
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