So I thought it would be a good idea to start a thread about cost involved with building our cars. What I was thinking was a spot that we can all send people to when they ask about what something cost like how much was it to lower your car, get it painted, get the chop done, the lights frenched, etc. I get ideas of things I want to do to my car and think "oh this Fenton and Offenhauser setup is only 400. bucks I could swing that." then I realize I have to get my exhaust reworked, carbs, linkage, now I'm in it alot more. I hope every one gets what I'm wanting to do. Even if you want, how much you paid for your car when you found it. I know its different for all of us but it would be cool to get a general idea of what you are about to get yourself into when you have that car you are about to tear down in your driveway and find out paint cost alot more than it does for your living room lol. I think in time this would be a helpful thread.
To start I bought my 50 chevy coupe for 2800. Short list I know lol. I haven't got the chance to do anything out of pocket on it yet.
I like the enthusiasm and the idea... however with hotrods there is a major flaw: there are no standards. Every different thing is such a large variable and then the variables have their own variables. Perhaps making sure that each and every cost/action included a specific description of the vehicle, model, design, etc... then at least you could get it down to a better estimate. a chop on a model t is a bit different than one on a 55 chevy. the one thing i have found to work with cost estimates is as follows: think of the highest cost it could possibly be in the worst case scenario, and double it. should get you in the ball park. or at least across the street from backfield.
Mine started with 125 for the frame i got the body free from afriend of mine and another one gave me the rear end ive bought about another 100 in shop supplies so so far i guess 225 but i do have a long way to go lol....
way to many variables to be able to lock down any pricing. Every car is different and every situation is different.
very subjective to quality, time frame and area.....but i'll play Cost me: $350 to get my caddy pinstripped $900 for all new exhaust with two hushpower stainless mufflers and chrome pea shooter tips $200 to sandblast and powdercoat my wheels red
That been my classic car building moto since my first build in high school. It was fun and educational, but damn it was expensive and slow!!
Exactly why a list will never be the same or an accurate gauge... $100 to have my '55 Caddy pinstriped (in two colors) $385 to have a complete exhaust (from the headers back) put under my '55 Caddy, including Flowmasters and 2 1/2" pipe $50.00 to sandblast six wheels (I painted mine). It all depends on location and local pricing. R-
It costs 2.00 per hole to louver a hood, not including brace removal and replacement. How many do you want?!
Exactly. I got my car upholstered when I was in high school by dating the upholsterer's daughter. Now 40 years later I got the seats done for the one in the garage for right @ a month's wages. That was a year ago and you could either half or double that price today; depending on where you go and what you want done. I've seen paint go for three or four hundred bucks at MACO or upwards of eight or nine K. Again depends on where you go and what you want done. I built an engine for a friend of mine for parts and burgers a couple of years ago. I probably won't build one for the average Joe and if I do I want your first born. Do you catch my drift? Ah hell just to add to the drama, I have a moderately desirable coupe in the garage. I have more invested in the carbs than in the coupe and I traded for the carbs. There is no set price. But just to give everyone a fair idea of cost unless you are a senator on the take its going to cost more than you have.
Some people have a hard time telling people what they paid like its a big secret and think its rude to ask. I have no problem telling anyone what I pay for things as it helps people know what things are going for and that there are really good deals still out there. I know a guy that asked me to come up to his house to see his new blasting cabinet. It was really nice and he was saying what a killer deal it was and then asked me what I thought he paid for it. I shot out a number and he said no that wasn't it . So I asked him what he paid. He said, I really don't like talking prices!!!!!!! That was a total set up. He also resored a car and had every receipt for it in a binder with all the pictures. The funnyest thing was that every original receipt had the prices either cut off or blacked out 100%. Now that is totally foolish if you ask me. Some people are real funny with divulging prices. Like I said, to me its just knowledge for someone. People always ask, "I hope you dont mind me asking but what did you pay for your barn. I have no problem letting them know how much or who built it. Or if I bought a car, same thing. If and when it's sold, I put an asking price and if the person doesn't want it for that price he doesn't have to buy it. Simple.
This one is easy to answer.... The cost to build a hot rod/kustom/cruiser/etc etc etc (and these are in no particular order): 1. Blood 2. Sweat 3. Tears (see # 1) 4. Divorce 5. About 6 cases of beer 6. Time 7. Money...how much...who cares...if you aint got it to spend without sacraficing quality of life then perhaps you shouldn't be building a car...be happy with what ya got till you can.... See...easy....
R W I for the most part don't care if anyone knows what I paid for something. Sometimes you have to read between the lines to figure it out but that's just my nature. Most of the time I don't pay retail, sometimes its because I get the friends price and others is because I just because I get lucky. If I have a friend that is in business and he cuts me one helluva deal I may not tell you what I really paid because I don't want to hurt my friends business. More often than not if you haven't been doing this for quite awhile its going to cost you way more than someone who has been trading favors for awhile. For instance one of the fellas walked up to me at the HAMB drags a couple of years back and said "Look in the back of my wagon. Do you see anything in there you like?" He had a wood wheel that I liked and it was priced real well so I said I like that wheel. I now have the wheel, price, nada. If I post that my steering wheel didn't cost me anything someone is going to think that wood wheels are free. If I post what the fella wanted for it they are going to think they are really cheap. Either way it wouldn't be vlose to what it is probably going to cost them.
every car has been different but I'll give some of the specs on my '68 Caddy I recently built and sold Car Price: $2,500 Complete Air Ride Suspension: $2,000 Paint: $350 Fatmat: $130 Dual Flowmaster Exhaust Set Up: $400 Misc Materials (parts, tools, accessories):$1,000
Sometimes talking about how much you paid for something could lead you down the road to knowing someone that has the part cheaper or found a way to do it differently...
One thing that effects cost is, how much of a hurry you are in. You can do some realy neet stuff on the cheap but it may take time to round up all the parts. the other thing is your skill. I'm a el-cheap-o and do all my own paint/body work, upholstery also. lots of mistakes with the paint but I'mgetting better, you will too
At first I thought this thread was going to bomb, then I started reading it and I liked seeing what stuff costs around the country. I paid around $425 for 2 1/4" pipes with magnaflow super turbos over the axle out the back with H pipe I had to cut them to do suspension work at the s bend from the headers and it cost $80 to replace them. I think they wanted $200 or $250 for an X pipe I paid $450 to get the idler arm replaced when I first got my car and it pulled out of its bracket on the frame and I was stuck since I didn't have a place to work on it at the time. oh I also paid $400ish to a machine shop to r and r the kingpins and suspension bushings with the arms dropped off to them. I was in a time crunch using a buddies driveway and learned my lesson about machine shops and deadlines LOL I also paid $80 to an old school alignment shop to 'inspect' not align my car and lie to my face about the repairs needed(they wanted $950 to replace 3 bushings in the upper control arms because one was still good LOL and the slop was actually in the kingpin, you could easily see the free play) Oh and I paid $5 a crimp for A/C hose ends, and they got $50 per full custom hose. That's all I can think of, the rest are either catalog parts or junk off the classifieds and its all catch as catch can.
Yep. some guys seem build world class cars on a shoe string budget by doing almost all the work themselves and trading and doing serious price shopping on the rest. That often takes time, patience and perseverance to get done. On the other hand, we have guys who tend to have a lot of work done by others (not a bad deal, we have lots of members who make their living building cars for others) and tend to have to have the hot lick item of the moment no matter what the cost. I've got one car going together at the moment that has an extremely low budget and the tires will probably be the single most expensive part. everything else on the car is either fabricated, bought at a swapmeet at give away prices, donated (engine and trans) or dug out of one of my sheds because it was a leftover from another project. My 48 is starting to get expensive as I am buying some pieces rather than making do or building the piece my self. The A-V8 project will probably be the real money pit of the bunch simply because I will have to most likely have someone build my frame and have to fork over a fair sized handful of cash for the body. I already have the engine and trans but other pieces will eat up some cash . The main thing on buying parts and pieces is don't get caught up in the "gotta have it right now" syndrome and do some serious price shopping. When you go to a swap meet know what the going prices are for what you are hunting for. When bidding on Ebay don't get caught in a bidding war. Even when going to the parts house in town find the best deal and go online and check prices before going.
car I'm doing right now started when a friend 'gave' me a set of 36 ford spindles. As of right now, I've emptied my pockets and melted my charge card. I seem to pay way too much for parts, because my buddies tell me I could have gotten the parts twenty dollars cheaper if I'd have driven 500 miles one way to get same said parts. Somehow driving 1000 miles to save twenty bucks doesn't make a whole lot of economic sense to me. But if for some reason the part turns out to be something I can't use, same buddies remind me of that 1000 mile part when they're offering me money for the part. When somebody asks what I paid for work done, the price of some part or what I paid for the car, I just jack the price way up to stupid numbers. I've found that if I tell the truth they think I'm lieing. I'd rather be thought of as stupid than a liar any day.
Thats exactly what i tell the guys about building hot rods, you can sit down figure the cost of all the stuff, double it and you might be close.
From the above posts, some do it cheap and some pay a lot, its all about what you do and not so much about the money. I get a lot of good deals or I would be broke, some don't and are broke. All "my" money goes to my junk, I don't have money for tattoos or cheap vodka.(I only drink good Vodka) LOL NOTE: my "wife's" money goes to bling!!
Well, I agree with what many have said about cost and doubling it to get an accurate figure, but I can see the value of this thread if it helps a few folks either modify their expectations vs money on hand or prevents a classic from being junked because someone started a build with too little money and let it rust to dust behind the shed. So, I'll play... $2700 - Rebuild 53 straight 8 Pontiac $2300 - Running/driving 53 Pontiac needing no metal work, upholstery (paid too much but it didn't need body work and it was my first in 20 years) $800 - set of wide whites $100 - set of 53 Pontiac hubcaps from ebay $2200.01 - 55 Pontiac 4 door stationwagon (the one cent is what I won the auction by on ebay. I didn't really want the car but got caught playing) $500.00 - money spent so far on epoxy primer, 2k primer, bondo, sanding materials to prep it for paint $160.00 - cost of a used door to replace one too damaged to repair $300.00 - cost of a new, rare rear side glass $40.00 - cost of sheet metal to weld in new floors (fabbed by me) $1900 - cost of a rust free 1940 Plymouth businessman's coupe $50 - cost of a used plymouth fury rear end to replace original $300 - cost of 50,000 mile used 1970 cadillac 470 motor going in it (transmission is free, came out of another car I bought which will match up to the caddy motor) $60 - cost of exotic lumber to custom build the dash and console that's good for now...i've got lots more money spent on lots more cars...but we'll let it rest for now.