Graveyardcarz is restoring a 71 Demon 340

LocuMob said

Noooo! It can't be!

Woman is an asshat, and reminds me of former bosses who thought they were the best. Anything he does is better than what I would do, I'll give him that. Some of the shops that are "high end" make mistakes or take shortcuts too. Have a friend that pulled his car out of Muscle Car Restorations because of the shoddy work they were doing. Too many bad/shaddy shops on all levels. Like you said, do your homework before you give them money or your car. I'm glad I don't have anything I'd ever want restored to the level of an OE gold, I get to enjoy cars without worry.

And I'll still watch the show, the dumbass drama level has gone down over the years and I like seeing Mopars get worked on, regardless of their significance.

Click to expand...

These are roughly $60K to $90K turn key restorations. The condition, completeness, model/motor are variables. That will probably not get you OE gold at Nationals with a turn key owner do nothing resto. Most likely not close. Just going through most every component of a car is very labor intensive.

The shops I listed don't all produce restos at the same level. And within each most will produce restorations and different levels due to customer budget.

$/hr doesn't really give you a great price comparison. A lot of resto shops are very slow. But others have additional real experience as regular paid mechanics that understand the efficiency element of the work. They can do the same job in less hours. And move onto the next project/customer.

And here's another thing that makes it tough to make judgement on a shop. Owner rarely will go out of there way to tell someone:
"I ran out of money so I told the shop not to restore the grilles"
"I wanted a driver level paint job to keep costs down"
"My budget got tight so I choose install the motor myself and put the scratches on the inner fenders"