How to Paint Muscle Cars & Show Cars Like a Pro. Tony Thacker
weekends and the odd evening and you’re working alone, this project is going to take half a year or more, maybe a year. Be prepared for the investment of time as well as money.
I know, you’ve seen the TV shows where the car is painted in a day. So it can’t take as long as I’m saying, and perhaps the actual spraying could take as little as a day but usually it takes about 30 working hours to properly apply paint. TV shows are not reality; the work is shown in a compressed time frame to make the work of many hands fit into a one-hour time slot. Do not believe what you see on TV. It is not reality.
If spraying only takes 30 hours, where is the rest of the time going, you ask. Prep work is where all the time goes. Without the requisite prep work, you will not enjoy the fruits of your labors. The paintwork will not be as good as you’d hoped for and you might have to start over. Consequently, figure you’re going to invest 1,000 hours, probably more if you get the car down to bare metal and find that it is far worse than you anticipated and you have a lot of repair work ahead of you.
How Much Space Will I Need?
For the most part, muscle cars are big. Our GTO project measures 17 × 6.3 feet. Even a pony car such as a Mustang measures almost 16 feet long and 6 feet wide. You are going to need a good-sized garage in which to work around the car. A 20 × 10 is really too small. Mick’s Paint’s booth measures 30 × 15. Of course, you can do the prep work outside if that’s your only option, but be thoughtful of the mess that tearing apart, stripping, and sanding a car makes. Rubbing down water makes a mess that is not easy to clean up from a driveway unless you have a power washer.
You’re going to need a fair amount of working space to accommodate a muscle car. Ideally, you need room to open the doors, accommodate the removed parts, and allow one or two guys to move around the space. Mick’s Paint’s booth measures 30 × 15 feet.
Besides the space to work on the car, you’re also going to need space in which to store and prepare parts. For example, if you remove the hood, decklid, doors, or the front fenders, you need a place for them to be spread out. A good-sized workspace is therefore a must.
It’s important, in Mick’s opinion, to remember that in a professional environment the spray booth is for just that, spraying. It shouldn’t really be used for anything else because of potential contamination. Treat it like an operating theater and keep it clean.
Where Will I Paint It?
Good question. Where will you paint it and, just as importantly, who will paint it? If you want a really good job done, you’re going to need to paint in a booth. And if you have no experience, you’re going to need a painter.
You have, I hope, a circle of friends who can give you some direction about who to trust in your area. A lot will depend on where you live and the network you have in the surrounding locale. While working on some projects in Portland, Oregon, I found only a limited number of resources for auto restoration, builds, upholstery, paint, etc. It was quite different from a big city such as Los Angeles, where there appears to be an endless supply of shops.
When there are many shops to choose from, it is important to do your homework. Not all shops are to be trusted, and you really need to get some references from past customers. Talk to those customers at car shows and other gatherings. Get their opinions, especially a year after the work was performed. Ask how it is holding up, but remember that there are always three sides to every story: their side, the other side, and the truth. All opinions have to be taken with a pinch of salt. Somebody who disses a paint shop may have run out of money or balked at the price and that could be the reason for the falling out, not a bad paint job.
Caveat emptor, “buyer beware,” is always the watchword. You’re about to spend a lot of hard-earned money on this project, so now is not the time to make a hasty wrong decision.
If you’re planning to tackle this project in a friend’s shop or garage, be very aware of the time factor. Many years ago, I was invited to take my car to Keith Baker’s body and paint shop, thinking my project would only take six months. Two years later I was still futzing with it. Thankfully, we didn’t really fall out and we are still friends but two years is a long time in somebody’s shop where they could be earning money with the space you are occupying.
In large cities, such as Los Angeles or Detroit, you can rent a booth. Prices vary across the country, of course; however, during my research I found that prices ranged from as little as $150 a day at Rent-A-Paint Booth in Gresham, Oregon, to $300 a day in Detroit. Rent-A-Paint Booth will also allow you to leave your car overnight to dry and pick it up the next day. And, while they don’t have a painter on site, they can recommend one.
My local Earl Scheib painted this 1966 Mustang coupe for a reasonable $2,500. However, the owner had to strip or mask the trim. The owner had a choice of color and Scheib warranties the work for three years.
Inflatable paint booths such as this one from Carcoon America can provide a space where you can paint your project.
An unanticipated expense might be the cost of renting an enclosed trailer to move your vehicle to and from the paint shop. Trailering a masked or freshly painted car on an open trailer is not recommended.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that you’re going to paint your car in only one day and will only have to pay for one day’s rental. You’re not Earl Scheib. Typically, a competent masking job will take most of a day. You could do the masking somewhere else but unless you transport the car in an enclosed trailer the car and the masking is going to get dusty and that dust can ruin your expensive paint. Remember, it’s $1,000 a gallon. Transport is another cost to factor in, especially if you don’t own a truck and trailer and have to rent one.
It’s going to then take you at least a day, but more likely two days, to paint your car. It’s a big job, there’s a lot of paint to apply, and you probably will not be able to paint it all at once. Mick’s Paint usually paints the roof first, if there’s a convenient split such as a piece of trim, as there are on 1960s cars. However, later cars such as Camaros and Mustangs have no convenient break and the car has to be painted in one go. Then there are those panels you removed that need color on both sides. There’s no way that those can be done in one day. Keep in mind that you might not be able to fit the car and the panels in the booth all at the same time. To be on the safe side, Mick recommends that you rent the booth for four to five days minimum, preferably a week to be on the safe side. Add that to your budget.
Unfortunately, after calling dozens of listed rental operations, I found that many no longer offered booth rental services. They quoted customer abuse of the facility and equipment as their reason for terminating the services.
Another option, assuming you have or can find the space, is an inflatable booth from companies such as Carcoon America in Jacksonville, Florida. Carcoon manufactures inflatable workstations in a variety of sizes that are like bounce houses with windows. You can use one of these to work on your vehicle. They come in a variety of sizes, are EPA Certified, and also meet and exceed OSHA ventilation and NFPA combustible material requirements. It’s certainly an option.
Who Will Paint It?
Who will paint it is another question you should ask yourself early on in the planning stage. If you have no experience whatsoever, it’s probably advisable to come to terms with the fact that you’re not a painter and you’re going to need help. My dad owned a construction company and always instilled in me that a person could do anything if he or she put his