--Resending to the healey list, email bounced cause it was too long--
Rich,
I wholeheartedly concur!
And the goal of this little calculator is really just to give a rough
order or magnitude estimate for the uninitiated. Why? Well, the
uninitiated are how I obtain 90% of the cars I restore. Someone had no
clue, and figured they could buy a wreck for $1000 dollars and restore
it into a highly valuable vehicle for another $1000 dollars and a
little sweat equity. Time passes, money gets spent, and I get given a
barn/storage unit/garage full of parts just so that the person can get
rid of them. I presently have a 4 car backlog to get through because
of these "donations to someone who can actually do it." I shudder to
think of the ones that get pitched without being passed on to a more
knowledgable restorer.
But, I also get emails on a weekly basis from folks asking me how much
it would take to restore some car. And, without seeing the person and
the car I can't make a honest assessment. But, interestingly enough, I
can look at a car, and give a *highly* accurate assessment of how much
it'd cost me to restore it (with the primary variable for me being
parts cost on a make/model I've not done before). I think it's a knack
we gain from years of doing this sort of stuff.
So, what I did was take some of that gut knowledge I have, put some
maths around it and then threw the costs for my last few restorations
at the model. It came out to be approximately +/-20% accurate, which
was the basic target I set for myself on the model. I figured I could
take that model and turn it into a widget out on my website to point
people to when they want to get a rough idea of how much things tend
to cost.
Cheers!
Jody
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