Body Shop revisited

[Lattimer]

Well, I talked to a guy this week who had a different local shop paint his 66 Impala. So I stopped by there to get a quote.

Pulling in the parking lot was immediately encouraging. There was a fiberglass nose that looked like it might be a Willy's or something sitting on a wooden frame outside the door. Place does bodywork on everything right up to motorhomes.

Guy looked my truck over, crawled under on the ground, got down and looked at the doors, checked everything over real good. After discussing what I am looking for, he said if I provide all of the patch panels and other parts (replacement emblems, door handles, window gasket), and put new bolts in the bed so he doesn't have to fight them off, he'd do the paint and body work for $5000. He basically said he doesn't want to spend time hunting down parts that his regular suppliers probably don't list.

I guess I must have had a surprised look on my face after the "$10k and I don't want to do it anyways" quote I got from another place. He looked at me and asked "what, you want to pay more?"

Seemed like a good guy and he understood what I am looking for. Shop was nice and seemed fairly busy. He stated he would want to disassemble the whole front clip, remove the doors and bed and cowl, and take the vast majority of the old paint at least down to the original primer, if not bare metal. The more he talked the better I felt. he did state it would be a fill in job for his guys, so I should expect 4-6 weeks for completion.

So, besides stuff I have already bought and have sitting here, I'd be in another $400 or so in parts. Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

I'm going to talk to a few more places, but at least this sounds like a viable option.