Realistic paint cost

[FredG]

This discussion comes up every so often. Factory 5 builders are the group who are always looking for painters as their cars are unfinished. They have found there are select painters throughout the country who specialize in painting these cars, give the best prices and have the best finished prices. What they also have found is that many painters will give purposely high estimates because they don't want to be bothered.

[Chicagowil]

Part of the problem you ay be experiencing is that the EPA controls for painters in A have added a lot of costs to owning a paint booth. You ay want to look at shipping the car to another state to get it painted.

In SE Wisconsin I have a painter that has estimated my paint at $6k!

Thom

[kitcarbp]

These are tough to answer but I have first hand personal experience. In 2015 my car was painted and included a hard top and stripes. This included sanding the whole car down past prior primer application in the 90’s. My Cobra body was molded in the 80’s. I had so many other items done on the car due to my own project scope creep. But just body work and paint was about $18k including the hard top which really blew my budget. My guess is the reshaping ( cutting and glassing )and prep and paint for hardtop alone was over $2k. And the target was a “driver” not a show car paint job.
The job was performed by a Vette specialist who has painted hundreds of cars.