Paint

It Depends.

Single stage or multi-stage color?

What color ? (Black always costs more because it takes more surface prep).

How many color coats?  Each coat costs $$$

Wet sand between color coats?  Each takes a day and $$$

Clear Coat?  How many coats?  Each coat costs $$$

So given all that, I got a full surface prep that took a little over four days of sanding and leveling, then I have three coats of cream white base, followed, when the last color coat was wet, with a pearlescent metallic overspray on top of that (it sunk into the last coat a bit), then with three layers of a clearcoat the next day over all that.  

Plan on $5K - $8K, depending on who does it.

Maaco is cheapest!  Ya gotta say what you are looking for.  Since CMC assume still in factory gel coat.  Dark colors take much more prep so bigger bucks.  Prep is big driver - could take over a week to prime and block sand before even applying paint.  If gel coat just faded - try restoring it with color sanding and buffing.

I have been down this road a few dozen times, post what you have and I'll steer you in the right direction.... 

Gordon Nichols posted:

 

Plan on $5K - $8K, depending on who does it.

This is a good ballpark number, assuming you aren't Al Merklin.

Yeah, Merklin has this guy who works for Beer or sumthin......

We ALL need guys like that.

Randy Fortne in St. Thomas PA. ( 1 hour south of Carlisle)  has painted a couple dozen of my projects to date , he does fantastic work at a very reasonable, cash in fist price. 

My guess is price to paint a car in CAlif - especially Monterey is going to be steep.

Surprisingly Maaco can do a very decent paint job. Don't expect anything but shiny color on their basic promotional jobs but telling them what you are expecting  you'll walk out of there for $1200 +- ( plus any body work) Years back I had all my Beetle restos done at Maaco  as well as a Miata .  I would go talk to the painter before he got to my car giving him a $50 tip in advance , it worked every time

I have the red gel coat with minor damage going to stick with the color.

I just spent $900 on paint. Just the paint, 2-part clear coat, hardener and not enough primer. In cans. It's expensive material to screw up. And like they said above, the elbow grease to get the car ready to paint is not free either.

Back in the 60's and 70's I used to go to McIntyre Paint in Worcester, MA, for paint for my Dad's school buses:  $20/gal for Diamond Black (for the  trim) and $45/gal for "School Bus Yellow Chrome", mostly for touch-up but I used either a pressure gun or airbrush for the touchup work.

Not any more.  

When I painted my Speedster in 1998, the Base coat was well over $200/gal and the 3-different-color Pearlescent mix was something over $100 per QUART! and mixed with clear coat to apply.  So Ed's material figure just for paint and supplies is right on.  It was amazing, to me, how much paint it took to paint such a small car (gallons, when done right) but what'chagonnado?  The stuff's been on there for 20 years and still looks fresh.  

I'm sure you can get a decent paint job from a place like Maaco, but in the end it all comes down to who did the surface prep and how well, and then who sprays the car (often two different people).  I asked around through my Hot Rod buddies and went to where they told me.  It always pays to use good references.

Having a little experience with a range of automotive products (3? complete car repaints, 3 offroad race buggies with 3/4 color graphics, and a fiberglass buggy and numerous underbody and suspension parts in any thing from automotive enamel to Endura or other 2 component plastic/urethane) I can tell you that prep work is the time consumer, and is everything! A person can save a lot of money on a repaint by doing as much as he can himself. That said, if you take it on, don't hand the car over to the painter, saying "it's ready, just paint it". Let him check it over and tell you how long it will take to get it to the level you expect. It will make all the difference. 

First car I prepped and repainted was sanded by hand (1959 AH Bugeyed Sprite).  After 5 gallons of bondo was applied, I used a bucket of sudsy water and WD sand paper and my fingers.  I thought the sanding looked great - rust and peeling of all paint gone.  When I painted it you could see finger indents and sanding scratches (too rough paper).  I leaned to use a rubber sanding block in future to prevent this.  The bigger the block the better.  It is slower with a sanding block but you get a smooth flat surface.  Also all edges have to roughed up for paint to get a tooth and stick.  Be careful of sanding through the gel coat too.  High build epoxy primer (costly) is your friend. 3x the effort is used for dark colors like black and dark blue.

The last car I personally painted was my '46 Ford coupe, the day I got married, January 1974.  It was a 10-15 footer.  Been letting people who actually know how to paint do them ever since.  Any job larger than what I can do with a can of Krylon is better done by somebody else.

Paint is so over rated...Just drive it!

When I restored my 67 Bus back in the early 80's,  the paint (Fire engine Yellow) cost $500.00 and $200.00 for the painter friend of mine. It looked great and I then became paranoid about every place I parked it. 10 years later it was ready for another repaint after my neighbor backed out of their driveway while I was accelerating to work.

Insurance wrote it off cut me a check and I bought it back. Grafted a new front end on it and gave it to the local high school auto shop to paint. Once prepped, primed and ready to paint, hurricane Iniki hit...

I'll paint the speedster when it comes time to sell!