Workshop costs for restoration?
Discussion
I need to find somewhere new to complete the rebuild of my Rochdale Olympic.
I'm looking to ideally find a one stop shop for body prep and paint, rewiring, mechanical e.g. Prop shaft making, and final assembly.
Finding somewhere that is of good enough quality, wants to take on the work, and is able, is obviously the first challenge. The deal breaker then can be the labour costs.
What are peoples expectation for an hourly labour charge for a professional restoration these days?
I'm looking to ideally find a one stop shop for body prep and paint, rewiring, mechanical e.g. Prop shaft making, and final assembly.
Finding somewhere that is of good enough quality, wants to take on the work, and is able, is obviously the first challenge. The deal breaker then can be the labour costs.
What are peoples expectation for an hourly labour charge for a professional restoration these days?
The industry average figure for labour is now £74+vat! Average...
I have done many restorations of cars and bikes over the years (look at my Kougar thread) - all restorations usually end up costing double in parts and 3X in labour.
Another point is that we as traders never make our headline rate on long term jobs like this. We might like to think in terms of £50 per hour, but rarely make £20 with all the extras and fettling. So it pays to use someone who has a realistic idea of how these things go. Don't be too fixed on "one stop". I get my painting done outside, which means I can get on with mechanical stuff meanwhile. Helps to speed things along a little.
Do consider the fact that the job WILL exceed the value of the car. But having said that, it is a brilliant car to have done. My uncle built one in the 60's.
Please email if you need further advice.
Paul
I have done many restorations of cars and bikes over the years (look at my Kougar thread) - all restorations usually end up costing double in parts and 3X in labour.
Another point is that we as traders never make our headline rate on long term jobs like this. We might like to think in terms of £50 per hour, but rarely make £20 with all the extras and fettling. So it pays to use someone who has a realistic idea of how these things go. Don't be too fixed on "one stop". I get my painting done outside, which means I can get on with mechanical stuff meanwhile. Helps to speed things along a little.
Do consider the fact that the job WILL exceed the value of the car. But having said that, it is a brilliant car to have done. My uncle built one in the 60's.
Please email if you need further advice.
Paul
Most places will farm out lots of work with paint being a major one, if you want someone to do all of this running around and be responsible for the quality of all work done by others then you will be paying a large premium for this.
It is hard to put a price on something like this as things will always pop up which have not been accounted for at an early stage but the only guarantee is it will cost much more than you expect or are quoted for, I would not like an upfront fixed price as this will lead a professional restorer to compromise quality of work to still make some profit.
Unfortunately as has been said the restoration costs can soon outweigh the value of the finished car.
I have just completed my own DIY restoration paying for professional welding, paintwork and a trimmer as I could not hope to even make a half reasonable effort in these departments and my car has cost twice my original budget.
This is partly due to the fact that I went far deeper into this than first expected but as my labour was free the effects of this were kept to a minimum.
I kept a log of the hours spent working on the car after it had come back from paint as a bare rolling shell with all the steering and suspension rebuilt prior to paint and it took around 1000 hours to rebuild and I put about the same amount of time in before it went to paint stripping the car and cleaning all the old underseal and paint from the shell then prepping and painting everywhere that wasn't to be painted body colour also rebuilding the steering and suspension.
So 2000 of my free hours 40 days of welding and probably 2 to 3 weeks solid work on body prep and paint, around 3 weeks for the trimmer, a professional gearbox rebuild and 2 years of large monthly credit card bills for all the parts required and the end result is a huge grin and owning a car I could not afford unless I had done as much work myself as possible.
I have heard of a similar job to mine being carried out by marque experts and that car has cost more than 3 times what I have spent and I have had all the hardest jobs done professionally, but having gone throught is process I fully understand there price is correct and they are probably not making huge profits.
So my advice is even if you can't do any of the physical work yourself at least source parts and find the different trades to carry out different parts of the job why pay somebody to take your interior to the trimmer once it has been removed or parts to be polished and chromed. It is easy even for someone without any technical skills to get involved like this and save some money unless you have an unlimited budget.
It is hard to put a price on something like this as things will always pop up which have not been accounted for at an early stage but the only guarantee is it will cost much more than you expect or are quoted for, I would not like an upfront fixed price as this will lead a professional restorer to compromise quality of work to still make some profit.
Unfortunately as has been said the restoration costs can soon outweigh the value of the finished car.
I have just completed my own DIY restoration paying for professional welding, paintwork and a trimmer as I could not hope to even make a half reasonable effort in these departments and my car has cost twice my original budget.
This is partly due to the fact that I went far deeper into this than first expected but as my labour was free the effects of this were kept to a minimum.
I kept a log of the hours spent working on the car after it had come back from paint as a bare rolling shell with all the steering and suspension rebuilt prior to paint and it took around 1000 hours to rebuild and I put about the same amount of time in before it went to paint stripping the car and cleaning all the old underseal and paint from the shell then prepping and painting everywhere that wasn't to be painted body colour also rebuilding the steering and suspension.
So 2000 of my free hours 40 days of welding and probably 2 to 3 weeks solid work on body prep and paint, around 3 weeks for the trimmer, a professional gearbox rebuild and 2 years of large monthly credit card bills for all the parts required and the end result is a huge grin and owning a car I could not afford unless I had done as much work myself as possible.
I have heard of a similar job to mine being carried out by marque experts and that car has cost more than 3 times what I have spent and I have had all the hardest jobs done professionally, but having gone throught is process I fully understand there price is correct and they are probably not making huge profits.
So my advice is even if you can't do any of the physical work yourself at least source parts and find the different trades to carry out different parts of the job why pay somebody to take your interior to the trimmer once it has been removed or parts to be polished and chromed. It is easy even for someone without any technical skills to get involved like this and save some money unless you have an unlimited budget.
Most places will farm out lots of work with paint being a major one, if you want someone to do all of this running around and be responsible for the quality of all work done by others then you will be paying a large premium for this.
It is hard to put a price on something like this as things will always pop up which have not been accounted for at an early stage but the only guarantee is it will cost much more than you expect or are quoted for, I would not like an upfront fixed price as this will lead a professional restorer to compromise quality of work to still make some profit.
Unfortunately as has been said the restoration costs can soon outweigh the value of the finished car.
I have just completed my own DIY restoration paying for professional welding, paintwork and a trimmer as I could not hope to even make a half reasonable effort in these departments and my car has cost twice my original budget.
This is partly due to the fact that I went far deeper into this than first expected but as my labour was free the effects of this were kept to a minimum.
I kept a log of the hours spent working on the car after it had come back from paint as a bare rolling shell with all the steering and suspension rebuilt prior to paint and it took around 1000 hours to rebuild and I put about the same amount of time in before it went to paint stripping the car and cleaning all the old underseal and paint from the shell then prepping and painting everywhere that wasn't to be painted body colour also rebuilding the steering and suspension.
So 2000 of my free hours 40 days of welding and probably 2 to 3 weeks solid work on body prep and paint, around 3 weeks for the trimmer, a professional gearbox rebuild and 2 years of large monthly credit card bills for all the parts required and the end result is a huge grin and owning a car I could not afford unless I had done as much work myself as possible.
I have heard of a similar job to mine being carried out by marque experts and that car has cost more than 3 times what I have spent and I have had all the hardest jobs done professionally, but having gone throught is process I fully understand there price is correct and they are probably not making huge profits.
So my advice is even if you can't do any of the physical work yourself at least source parts and find the different trades to carry out different parts of the job why pay somebody to take your interior to the trimmer once it has been removed or parts to be polished and chromed. It is easy even for someone without any technical skills to get involved like this and save some money unless you have an unlimited budget.
It is hard to put a price on something like this as things will always pop up which have not been accounted for at an early stage but the only guarantee is it will cost much more than you expect or are quoted for, I would not like an upfront fixed price as this will lead a professional restorer to compromise quality of work to still make some profit.
Unfortunately as has been said the restoration costs can soon outweigh the value of the finished car.
I have just completed my own DIY restoration paying for professional welding, paintwork and a trimmer as I could not hope to even make a half reasonable effort in these departments and my car has cost twice my original budget.
This is partly due to the fact that I went far deeper into this than first expected but as my labour was free the effects of this were kept to a minimum.
I kept a log of the hours spent working on the car after it had come back from paint as a bare rolling shell with all the steering and suspension rebuilt prior to paint and it took around 1000 hours to rebuild and I put about the same amount of time in before it went to paint stripping the car and cleaning all the old underseal and paint from the shell then prepping and painting everywhere that wasn't to be painted body colour also rebuilding the steering and suspension.
So 2000 of my free hours 40 days of welding and probably 2 to 3 weeks solid work on body prep and paint, around 3 weeks for the trimmer, a professional gearbox rebuild and 2 years of large monthly credit card bills for all the parts required and the end result is a huge grin and owning a car I could not afford unless I had done as much work myself as possible.
I have heard of a similar job to mine being carried out by marque experts and that car has cost more than 3 times what I have spent and I have had all the hardest jobs done professionally, but having gone throught is process I fully understand there price is correct and they are probably not making huge profits.
So my advice is even if you can't do any of the physical work yourself at least source parts and find the different trades to carry out different parts of the job why pay somebody to take your interior to the trimmer once it has been removed or parts to be polished and chromed. It is easy even for someone without any technical skills to get involved like this and save some money unless you have an unlimited budget.
I really appreciate the replies. I think it is helping me starting to work things through in my head.
The irony is that I had the car rebuilt once, just poorly, so it has been stripped down, new suspension fitted, but now, I have to decide how to proceed without them.
I am no engineer, but am certainly able to do some of the simpler, time consuming work, like prepping the interior for paint, making interior templates to be trimmed (I have a trimmer sorted).
I think I will benefit from having the car in my garage, just spending time going over it, planning things, doing some stuff myself. The downside to this is the extra time it will take, and the fact that my other car will have to live elsewhere, but in some ways, it is the only logical thing to do. I can't afford hundreds of hours at anything like standard rates, so I need to get more involved, and ultimately I'm sure, get higher rewards by being more involved myself.
I'm slightly scared, but actually, pretty excited.
The irony is that I had the car rebuilt once, just poorly, so it has been stripped down, new suspension fitted, but now, I have to decide how to proceed without them.
I am no engineer, but am certainly able to do some of the simpler, time consuming work, like prepping the interior for paint, making interior templates to be trimmed (I have a trimmer sorted).
I think I will benefit from having the car in my garage, just spending time going over it, planning things, doing some stuff myself. The downside to this is the extra time it will take, and the fact that my other car will have to live elsewhere, but in some ways, it is the only logical thing to do. I can't afford hundreds of hours at anything like standard rates, so I need to get more involved, and ultimately I'm sure, get higher rewards by being more involved myself.
I'm slightly scared, but actually, pretty excited.
The cost's are pretty varied depending on where you go.
We charge £60p/h for restoration and we do everything in house bar paint, although that is about to change. The last resto we did we quoted 1700hrs and got it out in 1600.
I good friend on mine restores Jags, charge's £75p/h quote's minimum 2000 hrs for an E Type and parts and doner car are all on top! You can't get a slot with him until next April so go figure!!
It's horse's for course's and you don't always get what you pay for!
We charge £60p/h for restoration and we do everything in house bar paint, although that is about to change. The last resto we did we quoted 1700hrs and got it out in 1600.
I good friend on mine restores Jags, charge's £75p/h quote's minimum 2000 hrs for an E Type and parts and doner car are all on top! You can't get a slot with him until next April so go figure!!
It's horse's for course's and you don't always get what you pay for!
DanielRowbottom said:
The cost's are pretty varied depending on where you go.
We charge £60p/h for restoration and we do everything in house bar paint, although that is about to change. The last resto we did we quoted 1700hrs and got it out in 1600.
I good friend on mine restores Jags, charge's £75p/h quote's minimum 2000 hrs for an E Type and parts and doner car are all on top! You can't get a slot with him until next April so go figure!!
It's horse's for course's and you don't always get what you pay for!
Thanks. Those figures further confirm that I am going to tackle some of this myself and find specialists for specific work, rather than hand it over to a one stop shop for everything......We charge £60p/h for restoration and we do everything in house bar paint, although that is about to change. The last resto we did we quoted 1700hrs and got it out in 1600.
I good friend on mine restores Jags, charge's £75p/h quote's minimum 2000 hrs for an E Type and parts and doner car are all on top! You can't get a slot with him until next April so go figure!!
It's horse's for course's and you don't always get what you pay for!
V8 FOU said:
The industry average figure for labour is now £74+vat! Average...
Ahh, but restoration rates are nearer to insurance accident repair rates, so £35 - £48 per hour. I have a prototype E type here, a TR6, TVR Griffith, two Minis, an XK150, an Opel GT, a Viva HB, a Porsche 924S and a Tiger Cat. None would be here if I got silly with the rates.Gassing Station | Classic Cars and Yesterday's Heroes | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff