Hi Frank,
Your experience is very typical. My last rusty bare shell rebuild (a Lancia
Montecarlo) took about 1,000 hours, but that was my third, and it was
probably not as thorough as yours. Professionals take about the same time.
They work faster and sometimes do a better job (than me, anyhow!). At GBP
30/hour, a labour alone cost of 30,000 means that rebuilds of anything but
historically significant cars is never profitable.
There are rich people who will pay for a rebuild: for example a friend is
rebuilding a humble TR4 into a works replica rally car, and the customer is
paying GBP 30,000 for the car. There won't be much profit in it for my
friend, I wouldn't think, and the car will only be worth GBP 12,000 tops in
the UK.
My excuse is that I love doing the work, and resurrecting lost causes - even
more than enjoying the result. I hope you are the same - 5X the value sounds
about right!
I am coming to the conclusion that the only money in classic cars is in
dealing: buying cheap and selling on, without touching them, or in breaking
(parting out, in N America) them, which is a shame.
I'll carry on rebuilding, though!
Paul
> Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 00:09:44 -0700
> From: "Frank Marrone" <itswonderful@comcast.net>
> Subject: Restoration Ruminations
>
> Hi, I'm getting really close to the end of my Tiger
> restoration and am
> starting to reflect on the whole ordeal. The first thing to jump out
> and strike me is the amazing amount of effort, hours and money I have
> put into this endeavor. The hours are mind boggling. I know
> I'm a rank
> armature with respect to auto restoration and in addition this is my
> first Sunbeam restoration but it still is incredible how much time has
> gone into this project. I'd estimate I've invested between 2500 and
> 3000 hours in the restoration. This does not include the time spent
> researching component configurations, parts hunting and
> attending Tiger
> related events. Am I really slow? Maybe I'm just sort of slow and a
> little too anal. Am I nuts? I must be, If I applied a reasonable
> valuation to my time and add what I spent on the original purchase of
> the car and all the 10's of thousands spent on parts and
> bodywork I must
> have about 5X more invested in this car than I'll ever be able to sell
> it for, which is no big thing because I'll hopefully never
> sell it. On
> the other hand it has kept me off the streets.
>
> Frank
> B9471116
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