LOTS of Porsche Painting Q's - '74 Targa

lifeon2whls · 10-02-2014, 02:26 PM

So I inherited my father's '74 T after he passed last year and I've had a love affair with the car ever since I was a little kid. He owned since '79 and when I grew up the two of us would work on it together. He did spend a lot of time on here, so thank you to anyone who helped him out. It still runs well, but time has taken its toll on the paint.

Here is a recent shot of my wife and I in the canyons

As you can see the car is in desperate need of a paint job. I spoke to one shop who told me that their starting price to paint a Targa, glass out/single stage would be $12.5k which included new seals. That doesn't include body work, etc and they havent seen the car yet so I expect that price to go up accordingly.

So that said, I don't have the equipment to do the job myself nor do I think I could do a good enough job to be satisfied with it. I would however like to try and get some of the prep work done and do some things that will reduce the amount spent.

So here are my questions:
- What are the best things that I can do to help reduce the cost of the paint job?
- How difficult/time consuming is it to strip the car down?
- Is there a point at which I am better off allowing the "Pros" to take over where the money I pay them will out weigh the time I spend trying to do something myself?
- I dont like to be without my Porsche so when all is said and done, how long does it typically take to get a car painted and back together?

drcoastline · 10-04-2014, 02:53 AM

Hi lifeon2whls welcome from a fellow 74 targa owner. Sorry about the passing of your father but it is great to hear you and he had a bond and he left you something you both enjoyed to remember him by.

First we don't know what abilities you have so it is hard to say how much you can do to help reduce the cost. That being said anything you can do should help reduce the cost. By far the largest cost in a good-great repaint is labor. A great paint job is all in the preparation. Removing parts vs. taping them off, fairing the panels, fixing rust spots, etc. Some show cars can take hundreds even thousands of man hours to prep for paint. The actual painting and cost of the paint is minimal in comparison to the labor to prep the car for paint.

You could easily strip the car down yourself. Remove the seals, glass, handles, trim, latches, etc. Removing the parts is easy, putting everything back is the hard part. It is just going to be time consuming and maybe a little costly putting things back. Inevitably you will need to buy some new things like top seals, gaskets, etc. Some parts just can not be reused as the removal process will destroy them. Others will be worn beyond being able to be reused or accidentally damaged while being removed. Some things you are going to say just look bad up against that shiny new paint like the targa bar to top seal.

Only you can determine the weight of your time vs. paying someone to do it. The one factor you can not measure is the satisfaction you get of doing it yourself.

962porsche · 10-04-2014, 04:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drcoastline

Hi lifeon2whls welcome from a fellow 74 targa owner. Sorry about the passing of your father but it is great to hear you and he had a bond and he left you something you both enjoyed to remember him by.

First we don't know what abilities you have so it is hard to say how much you can do to help reduce the cost. That being said anything you can do should help reduce the cost. By far the largest cost in a good-great repaint is labor. A great paint job is all in the preparation. Removing parts vs. taping them off, fairing the panels, fixing rust spots, etc. Some show cars can take hundreds even thousands of man hours to prep for paint. The actual painting and cost of the paint is minimal in comparison to the labor to prep the car for paint.

You could easily strip the car down yourself. Remove the seals, glass, handles, trim, latches, etc. Removing the parts is easy, putting everything back is the hard part. It is just going to be time consuming and maybe a little costly putting things back. Inevitably you will need to buy some new things like top seals, gaskets, etc. Some parts just can not be reused as the removal process will destroy them. Others will be worn beyond being able to be reused or accidentally damaged while being removed. Some things you are going to say just look bad up against that shiny new paint like the targa bar to top seal.

Only you can determine the weight of your time vs. paying someone to do it. The one factor you can not measure is the satisfaction you get of doing it yourself.

LOL FAIRING I know your a boater but now every one else also knows it too using the word fairing . nothing wrong with it just funny

drcoastline · 10-04-2014, 04:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 962porsche

LOL FAIRING I know your a boater but now every one else also knows it too using the word fairing . nothing wrong with it just funny

LOL- Didn't even realized I used it.

962porsche · 10-04-2014, 04:49 AM

sorry I'm hijacking the post for a minute .
this is a boat we are building it's a 33FT trimaran all out of carbon fiber .
some are dry layups and some of it is resin infused carbon . as it sits right now 4 of us can pick the boat up kind of easily .
for the last year the boat has been bouncing between the my body shop and my personal race shop (photos) .

drcoastline · 10-04-2014, 04:53 AM

WOW- that is awesome. Is that a custom build?

962porsche · 10-04-2014, 05:23 AM

sorry for the hijack !
some times when a person tries to save money trying to tear down there own car and putting it back together it will end up costing you more then saving you money .
at times I have been asked how much is it if the customer takes the car apart and then want us to put the car back together . this will never save you money and often costs more in money and time .
as for how long will it take that always depends on the job and the customer more then the shop.
we have done 911 resto's in the mater of a couple of months to years . again it has to do with the customer .
how I work it for my shop is the customer give us 1/2 down to get started . then when the car goes into it's primer we get another part of the agreed payment . at times the customer will get tight on funds this will slow the resto getting finished down as we then stop working on the job .
you have to remember it's a estimate the word tells it all not a set price so many times you will find other things that need to be repaired when your there working on the car .
a couple of year after I opened my shop I found that when a customer started getting there hands on the job trying to do work them selfs that the job turned into a headache so I stopped taking any jobs a customer wanted to do any of there own body work on . so other then a customer doing the tear down and reinstall of things like handles , molding and such we just did not take the job on .
so how much time it take and how hard is it to tear down a car and reinstall the parts ? that all depends on you the owner and how knowledgeable you are with working on cars .
the 1st thing to do is go around to shops and get pricing . for a car like your with the amount of work call the shops 1st and ask then when a good time to stop in would be . it takes time or should to go over a big job . this is to find out just what type of job your looking for and what your budget is . the funny thing is people tend to be on guard about there budget and what they want to spend but it's very important for the shop to know .
find a shop that knows 911's not just a shop that has worked on some before . this is a hand build car the panels are stamped out but the cars are fitted and put together by hand .

962porsche · 05:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drcoastline

WOW- that is awesome. Is that a custom build?

it's getting built from plans with some changes to them .
we did not do things like add seacocks just to much drag on the hull so the hull is smooth as hell .
the funny thing is I grew up on the water as my grand dad was a old salt and had water front property but I don't do boating any more and don't plan to go out on this one .
things a person will do for friends and family ! I got roped into this because in my race shop we made/make composite panels and bodies for cars .

today I should be out side setting up the other car port and closing it all in for the spray booth but it's raining so I will do that tomorrow .
what a way to retire! it seams I'm still working if you ask me .

Sebscst · 10-05-2014, 07:30 AM

962 i really respect your knowledge and helpful advice but i have a question. Like the op i too am getting ready to paint my 911 and am on a "budget". I live in florida so maybe the pricing is regional. But can some one please justify how just a paint job costs $12000 without body work. I have been quoted $4500 for a glass out body panels removed job. The car is already to be shot. I have seen the shops work they are not a specialized porsche or exotic car shop. They have done many $100g and up cars that i have seen along with $2g dodge neons. I am by far no expert and could not tell the differance in quality.some one like yourself i am sure can spot differances. The cost includes wet sand and buffing. I just want to know if there is something differant that some shops do as apposed to others. This is kind of a vague question but think many p car owners pay a premium as soon as we mention that we have a porsche.

lifeon2whls · 10-05-2014, 02:28 PM

Thanks guys, as far as my mechanical aptitude, I typically do most if not all of my of mechanical work. The only things I can't stand to do are valves on motorcycles

I'm currently trying to figure out the CIS system on the car. I helped my father re-build a 930/16 engine for this car and it needs to be tuned and checked for vacuum leaks, etc.

So far from what I am reading, unless I am going to paint the car myself, I'd rather have someone do all the work start to finish. That said, I am finding something interesting. As soon as you mention "Porsche" the price for paint shoots up. I understand there are some unique things to consider with this car but I need to find the balance with a shop who knows how to work with Porsche's and doesn't over-charge. I'm willing to pay for good work but not overpay.

962porsche · 10-05-2014, 07:10 PM

i'm 100% sure the shop that is doing a glass out job for a 4500 dollar price is not doing quality work nor using top grade materials .
they work on cars and the tech will say to him self working on your car that's good enough !

if your a person that can't tell quality then shops like that are fine for you .

if your the type of person that thinks because you own a Porsche the price goes up . then your mistaken !
i'm working on a MGB right now that is a 60K resto . the car when finished will never be worth that much but they are getting a new MGB when the car is finished .
if you had a MGB that is never been touched you will find the welds are just as they are from MG and every part is just as it was from MG when new .
in fact the cars tend to get a little over restored .

cheap jobs the tech will find a little rust spot and give it a quick sanding (maybe) slop some primer on over it and again that's good enough !
a high end shop will sand blast the spot and make sure it will not come back . simply because good enough is just not good enough !

then lets talk about the under coats they will uses ? again maybe ! we will etch or epoxy primer over any and all bare metal . crap jobs they just spray the filler primer over bare metals . wil it last HELL NO !
it will shrink in later on and from not using a quality under coat the top coat will chip and peal much easier .

Sebscst · 10-06-2014, 02:28 PM

Life that is also what i have found. I have no problem with shops making a profit and and charging for services, but don't overcharge me because you think I'm some trust fund baby. And i don't want to hear i shouldn't have bought a car i cant afford. I can afford it just fine just don't want to get ripped off. Paint and interior reupholestry are a little different than mechanical knowledge. If you can apply a quality paint job the type of car shouldn't matter. I took seats in to a upholstery shop picked out material, got a quote then 2 days later got a call saying the price went up $400 because they were porsche seats! No thank you. 962 Thank you,that's what i want to know,i am no expert and can only read so much without getting more confused. If materials are top quality and prep work was also done correctly can the application method method vary that much by car. I didn't mean to rant but there are shops that will work with there customers and dont care what the car is. The op opening post was about how he could reduce the cost of his paint job. My advice look for shops that care about the quality of there paint jobs not by the cars that they'll paint. Btw the shop had 3 356 that were incredible ( and even if i dont know quality im sure their owners did there homework) and a 97 f150 and a mustang go figure. Im just saying $12500 keep looking.

962porsche · 10-06-2014, 03:12 PM

I still don't quite understand just what type of shops your dealing with the ever tell you it's more money because it's a Porsche rather then a ford F150 .
we just did a 1954 ford pickup and the resto was 57K on the truck .
that's about the same as many porsches and Ferraris we have done .
one of the things you are over looking is just the cost of the person you hire to work on high end cars .
do you think the guy in the every day cheap-o shop could ever get a job in a high end shop ?
the answer is not just no but HELL NO !
the quality of the people I hire cost me more an hour then the run of the mil shop get paid per hour from a insurance CO .
the bozo's in the run of the mil cheap-o shops can't even install a door skin with out having to use a body filler to fix all there screw-ups the high end shop can make there own door panels .
with them straightening a panel means filling the dent with filler . higher cost jobs straightening means just that you straighten the panel and try never to use body filler .

when it comes to painting that too has a cost .
there are sprayers and painters there is a big difference between the two . most every every day shop only will hire sprayers ! no matter how good you or them think they are they are only sprayers . can some lay down a good paint job . yes most of the time !
do they really know about paints and painting well no !

it's like this could the guy at town fair tire work on a F1 team changing tires ?
no and the reason is the engineering behind every thing is what you pay for with high end shops and job .
if that not what you can afford then go to the shop that will give you the type of job your looking for .

bpu699 · 10-07-2014, 12:46 PM

It seems like a lot of this is matching price to expectations. If you need perfection, its costs.

For most of us, $13,000 for a porsche 911 paint job is more than we can reasonably afford. On a $30-$40,000 car, it just doesn't make sense.

I would hope that $4000 would get you a good to very good daily driver paint job? Figure $1000 for material, $3000 for labor? That assumes a solid shell, andnot rust repair though.

I have never painted a porsche or had one painted. But my other cars have had collision work done... because they have been in scrapes. And the costs were suprisingly reasonable.

My wife's Honda oddessey had a telephone pole land on it after a beer truck knocked it over... The Honda dealer replaced the top shell, windows, and painted the sides/doors/roof (blending). Total cost to insurance $6000. Paint held up for 120,000 miles, no issues.

BMW, some guy backed into it. Replaced front hood, 2 front fenders, bumper, paint and blend. $3000-4000. The parts were used, thats what the insurance paid for. Repairs still look great after 6 Wisconsin winters.

I do wonder, if many folks that need/want a 911 paint job would just be better of having their car "touched up" in areas that look bad, and blended. That could probably be done for a couple of grand... and be good enough?

I can see how a high end paint job would cost $10,000. But I suspect that most porsche guys would be happy with a lesser, yet quality, paint job...

47silver · 47silver's Garage

i had my 75 painted in 2004,,the guy works alone and is somewhat of a perfectonist, he even uses an english wheel to make parts. However he also does insurance work to pay the bills. So he worked on my car over the winter, took out the windows and removed the hoods, doors fenders,,took a couple months and i paid him over 6500 dollars...the car looks great but no concourse, but i have driven since the spring of 04 and have always received compliments..we did not do bare metal paint job as the original paint was on the car. he had at least 100 hours tied up in the job i would have guessed and i think he undercharged me.
a second example:
we are working on a 72 Targa. We removed everything ourselves had the fenders doors, hoods plastic media blasted and eprimed. This coming week we will have the rest of the car plastic blasted and eprimed..
we have at least 40 hours tied up in removing the parts and marking them.
the hoods and doors do not have rust but i would imagine 8 hours each for them = 32 hours... front fenders 16 hours, bumpers 16 hours, rear clips 16 hours, door sills 8 hours, front clip 16 hours add more time for a coupe.
paint 16 hours.
reinstall everything 100 hours, fittng doors, fenders hoods, has to take hours and hours of time.
total hours = 220 hours at 50 bucks raw labor an hour = 11000
paint and materials and tool cost 1500
total raw cost - 12500
20 % overheat= 2500
10% net profit. 1500
minimum price $15000 for something that is ok.
2500 over head is not much when you consider insurance, benefits, paint booth, heat costs, electricity cost wear and tear on machinery and 1500 bucks for the shop to manage 200 plus hours is chicken feed. 12500 is a bargain.
i dont have a shop...just my quick estimate.