I'm currently in the process of replacing a good deal of sheet metal on my firebird. The best of which is a Formula hood with a really cool custom firebird painted on the hood. The new parts have great paint (aside from a few scratches from transport).

The rest of my car needs some rust dealt with, and the paint is faded enough to tell the difference between it and the new parts. As I see it, I have 3 options:

1)Have someone paint the whole car. Keep in mind, I don't have a ton of money, and can't afford a really expensive paint job. I also don't want to paint over the Firebird on the hood.

2)Have someone paint old/original parts of the car. Might this be cheaper? Would they be able to match the paint on the newer parts?

3)Paint all/part of the car myself. I've never painted anything more than a bumper before, and that was just a rattle can job. While the paint job doesn't have to be show quality, I also don't want a ton of runs and streaks.

I intend to at least get the rust taken care of myself, so that a painter would only have to worry about the paint job and not body repair. Any ideas/opinions?

 

Trust me if your looking for a quality job don't paint it your self. Are you sure that the stuff on the hood is paint and not a sticker? I do custom paint for a living and if you want everything to match when you are finished. If the pic on our hood is paint and you wanna save it , you will have to paint the whole car and then have it blended into the hood, otherwise when you paint the rest of the car and leave the hood alone the colar will not match up correctly. If you have any questions on the work hit me up and I will help you out with it.

 

The other rule of thumb in painting is, “you get what you pay for”.
If you go to the place that offers really low costs, you will more than likely regret it later.

When most people look at getting their car painted for the first time they expect to pay a few hundred, when in reality it can easily be a few thousand.

I kind of like to call this my factor of 10 rule. A lot of time when people come to me wanting a custom paint job, and tell me what they expect it to look like, and then tell me what they expect to pay, I usually find they are off by about a factor of 10 and most of my cost is simple the cost of materials.

My suggestion to most people is, go visit the automotive paint stores in your area. Talk to the guys there because many of them know of some painters that do painting on the side. This process might take a bit to find someone you trust, but it is time well spent, because many times you might be able to get a professional quality job, for a much better price.

Let us know how it turns out.

 

To answer you guys, yes the firebird on the hood is painted for sure. It looks like its under a rather thick layer of clear coat actually.

And I'm not looking for a paint job that's really custom or anything, I just want the car to be in matching black (original color of all parts) while preserving that bird on the hood.

Once I get her back together in one piece, I guess I'll start patrolling body shops and paint stores and seeing if I can get any idea of what its gonna cost.

Any one know a good paint guy in central IL?

 

Sorry I don't know any one around there. I used to live in northern IL but now I'm down in fla...