Restoring

[BlueSS454]

From past cars I have restored, my 69 Chevelle cost me the least at less than $15K and I did a complete frame off on it.  My 70 Chevelle SS454 cost me over $30K over a period of 5 years.  My 69 Charger when all said and done will cost around the $15K mark total including the original purchase price.  I've been keeping tabs with a spreadsheet.
The Charger began as a complete rust bucket/basket case in need of exensive metal work.  I am doing all the work myself including the mud work & paint.  It's starts getting very expensive when you need to depend on other people to do the work for you.

[Silver R/T]

also depends on quality you will be doing yourself. your paint job can be anywhere from $1000 to $3-5K depending how good you do paint.bodywork

[HeavyFuel]

I did some rough math on mine just a couple nights ago.  I mentally went through the car one part at a time, and wrote down all of the expenses. They are mainly replacement parts and rebuilds, like the engine, tranny, power booster, etc.  Also body work and paint.  I am doing all of the disassembly and assembly myself, and the refurbishing of parts and simple mechanical pieces.

I have only the original cost of the car, the engine rebuild, rechromed bumpers and tail light assys, and exhaust into it now. That is $11K.

The future stuff came to about $18K.  That about freaked me out, so I went thru it again, and tried to weed out some of the stuff that can wait, like a new carb, etc.  I got it down to about $15K.

So all said and done, the resto will be between $25-30K, including the purhase price.  And my car was/is a pretty easy resto, according to most folks that see the car, not a real basket case.  Low miles, nice complete car.  But when stuff is old, its old, and needs to be replaced.

Now I'm just trying to figure out a way to tell my wife.  I'm probably going to have to sell my truck to help finance this nightmare, how bad is that?