Minimum value for a decent restoration.

A decent restoration will cost a fixed minimum amount of money. I will say $20,000 for paint, body, interior and mechanicals on a good clean car. This cost does not include a lot of personal effort. The CMS MG Midget is an example. If one plans to keep the car for 15 years, this is money well spent but, if you plan to sell it, then the market value of the restored car better be at least $20,000 or you will take a licking.

Cheers Ron

Ron:

You are pretty much on the money.

What is interesting is that restoration cost are pretty much vehicle/brand independent. If you think about it, all cars are assembled from pretty much the same vocabulary list of parts: engine, fenders door wiring harness transmission suspension brakes etc etc etc...

So if you are doing a restoration, you are pretty much doing the same laundry list for every car. What is also interesting is that the time is also pretty constant at about 1000 hours to go through all the systems. So what you are looking at if farming out a car at even $35/hour is a $35,000 plus parts MGB, or pretty much the same if it were a Healey 3000. The difference is that you will be able to recover more of the Healey money if you ever sell. Note that in both cases, the purchase price of the car give or take a few thousand is insignificant.

I can't disagree more.

This might apply to late 60s, early 70s British crocks, but anything else, and anything unique blows this formula up.

Take a simple '66 Porsche 912. Should be pretty simple, but farming out an engine rebuild is a $10k operation. Same goes for a 911 motor and it gets worse if your're looking at an Early 911s or one of the MFI motors.

Those 4-cam carrera motors are sick money too.

I don't recall exactly, but I had a friend spend many thousands on a Kugelfischer injection for a tii. Parts costs were high, as he wanted show level finish.

NOS parts for highly sought after cars are crazy expensive.

I think you're being optimistic and very budget minded when throwing out your numbers. Rarity and originality will drive your theory through the roof.

As to the high end exotics, you have to recall what WC Fields once said:

"If God did not want to have them fleeced, he would not of made them sheep!"

Tin on a super exotic is just tin (or alloy) A bolt is a bolt and a nut is a nut. The rest is just showmanship and business bling.

Speaking of nuts, those who pay people to restore these cars are kinda in the same category. They can't do the work themselves so as to give them some status with the heard, but by spending way more than what others caould afford, they can stake out a higher spot on the ego train by pointing it out to anyone who walks by (like kaptkaos friend just did).

I am glad to see that skilled individuals can make a good living of this hihg flying crowd since it shows that good work is rewarded.

You miss a very important point about the whole ecosystem of these things. If there weren't people out there spending ridiculous amounts of money on a restore, your rust bucket would never go up in value.

Also, the professional people that restore these cars become the experts and they often share that knowledge with us do-it-yourselfers so that we can maintain our own cars. Many marque specific forums have experts that chime in and help from time to time, and that enriches the community,

A Porsche 912 is no exotic. But since the engine is basically the same as the 356 engine, they command the same rebuild costs. 356 prices are through the roof.

Lastly, don't confuse rarity with value. A fiat 124 coupe is rare, but not terribly valuable. However, those few coupe specific parts that you happen to need for your restore have become very expensive.

Bottom line is that the generalizations from the OP don't hold water IMO.

KaptKaos wrote: Bottom line is that the generalizations from the OP don't hold water IMO.

Note that his original post listed a minimum cost...

I think it's fair to say that restoring any car, regardless of make or model, is going to cost at least X dollars (in my experience, $20k may not be enough) - certainly, something like a full Porsche engine rebuild will add to the price, but that wasn't the point.

His qualifying word "decent" is the important word in his post.

You can stick a VW type 1 motor in a 912 and it will run. You can drive it all day long. Would that be considered "decent"?

Paint is so objective, that its impossible to really get a price for "decent". To some, a $50 Rustoleum roller job is decent, to others, you're in the $15K+ range.

I'm sorry. I am not trying to be argumentative. I just think its nearly impossible to quantify a cost for a restoration that applies so broadly.

We're reading it two different ways...to me, the word "minimum" is the important one.

He's not saying a restoration will cost some specific value no matter what for any car, but that it will cost at least a certain amount of money to restore any car.

People tend to think that it's less expensive to restore a cheap or common car, but the material and labor costs are still going to be there no matter what kind of car it is.

To use your examples, take a VW and a Porsche. A person could spend $50 for a Rustoleum paint job on either one, or they could spend maybe $10k for an OEM quality paint job on either one, or they could spend maybe $25k for a show quality paint job on either one. In the end, for each case they spent the same amount of money on either car, but one is still a VW and the other is still a Porsche.

Chances are it will make more financial sense to spend the money on the Porsche - but that's if you're concerned about making a profit. I've restored a number of cars, trucks and motorcycles over the years so I know it's easy to sink more cash into a restoration than it's worth, but I was doing it because I wanted to fix up those particular vehicles and not because I thought I'd make money on the deal.

Having restored a few and having rebuilt a few others (same thing just different labor rates )

in a general term... things are the same... but its the details that cost you....

A good example of details... When I built my 428 SCJ for my 1970 Mach1(back in 1993), I could have spent $2500 on the emissions system(air pump and hardware) I chose not too, because the rest of the car was only a 90 point car anyway, it didn't need it to run, and the $2500 would not have added $2500 in value to MY car.

A counter example.... my current little hotrod, Surreptitious... is just @ the $20K level now... and I've just about addressed all she needs except a few small details. Is she worth $20k... I'd like to think so .... but then I wake up and realize that there is nothing similar for the money and pride invested

$10 k for a 356/912 engine rebuild. WTF! I used to own 356's back in the day and will stress that they are a very simple engine. What was it that P.T. Barnum said about suckers being born every minute.

This discussion is why some shops who do restoration jobs on their own cars during down time to keep the team busy would rather do a GTO than a Strato-Chief. One sells for a lot more at the end of similar work hours. Cheers Ron

TR8owner wrote: $10 k for a 356/912 engine rebuild. WTF! I used to own 356's back in the day and will stress that they are a very simple engine. What was it that P.T. Barnum said about suckers being born every minute.

Don't shoot the messenger. I'd bet parts prices are a large part of that.

Well its been more than a few years since I was into 356's so I'll admit to being a bit out of the loop. However, the first engine I ever rebuilt was a VW bug when a teenager. From what I remember of my 356's, the engine was about the same sophistication as the VW.

I just can't wrap my head around a 10K 356/bug rebuild.

Parts prices are a big chunk of the bill; depending on the quality, the barrels and pistons can be as much as $3500. The parts will run $2500 - $5000, then add in labor. It's been 25+ years since I've done a VW engine and seem to recall that was around 25hrs, the Porsche has a few more pieces and tighter clearances would be at least that. This doesn't include any machine work. So at a minimum figure $2500 in parts, $2500 labor and throw in $500 of machine work...........presto $5500.

Now back to the general topic: unlike most racers I keep every receipt because I want to know the total for the reasons the topic states. For my Datsun 1200 everything was used or pick a part, $250 car, $300 paint and supplies done in the garage (10 footer), A15 engine and 5 speed tranny $500, Machine shop bill $1000, engine parts $750, Keihin carbs $350, Header $100, upgraded cylinder head $300, LSD 4.11 rear end $700, wheels and tires $500, Steering wheel $75, suspension & brake upgrade $1200. The interior is now striped but when it was a street car we had installed a $200 set of Mustang GT seats and found a $50 rear seat at pick a part. The rest of the interior bits can be had for about $250............................$6000 for a Datsun 1200 and that doesn't include labor. The best one in the country, a twin carb JDM spec coupe went for $6500. Note I offset most of the cost on my car by selling off other parts I got with the various deals I did.

I too believe there is a set minimum price and I easily seeing it being 20K if you're paying for labor. Where it's cheaper to restore a common car is the labor, I can assemble a Datsun A-series motor in an afternoon, compare that to a Ferrari V12 or Cosworth DFV, the same would hold true body work on a Facel Vega vs a Chevy Vega.

If you were trying to make a living flipping Spridgets you'd need to carefully layout how things were done, which brings us back to enthusiasts. I also am into 70's Japanese bikes mostly Motocross, I've seen guys replacing everything and going over the top. If the engine is within spec leave is alone, the paint on these bikes was never that good, often the plastics can be refurbished. A perfect example would be the airbox on my YZ125C; one of the mounting pieces that you can only see when the air filter is out was broken, I used epoxy to fix it where as a friends bike got a new airbox...........to the tune of $150.00, I could go on even more but you get the idea.

Now if you love the car why worry about spending 20K of you;re disposable income on a car. Well I may be the only old car nut who thinks so but there is nothing worse than some hole of cash out in the garage that is worth a third of what you put into it, if it's value is near what's been spent friends and family are far less likely to give you grief..........and no matter how much people say I don't care what people say it does detract from the joy of ownership................a classic should never be a burden, they are meant to be a source of joy.

        Tom