Quote:
Originally Posted by rotorwrench
I've had occasion to hear some of the goings on at local restoration shops so I know how things work for them. It can be a slow process mostly due to the money situation. They bill as they go until a customer runs short of funds then it goes on the back burner till the funds come back. Some customers get a few bills and find that they will have to pull the project till they can come up with more funds or find a cheaper way to do things.
If a customers funds are unlimited then the project can go all the way through to completion. I have done some restorations on the helicopters and they can take around 2 to 3-months unless the shop is short handed on experienced help. A one man shop is going to take longer and possibly a lot longer. It always depends on the condition of the project when you start on it too. If a person is going to have a restoration performed by a shop, it pays to get a project that is in as good a shape as they can find to start with. It saves a lot of time & money.
To get a car up into driver condition without a full restoration costs a lot less and takes a lot less time than a down to the nut and bolt restoration job. The only way to save any money at all is do as much as you can by yourself and find the best parts you can but that can take more time than the restoration. In most cases, finding parts can be the part that takes 7-years.
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I was taught many years ago that to restore a car to 90% (900 points) cost 1X. To restore a car to 100% (1000 points) it's double that : 2X.
That last ten percent is what separates the "nice" cars from basically works of art. In reality there are very few true #1 cars.
From my experience, that formula I was taught more than 35 years ago was nearly spot on then and remains spot on today.