[BritishGreen68]

Yep i would take it out of the shop ASAP, just for the guy being an asshole. I would never let a prick like that work on my car i dont car how good of a deal it seems. I work at a bodyshop, and we never charge a customer storage on a resto type job, that's just retarded. I would be mad just about that let alone the work on the car. Get the car in your hands, and do a little research if you don't want to finish it yourself and get it to a good shop to finish it. Hopefully the guy just didn't finish the work, and didn't hack the work he did do (remember repop parts dont fit). If he has done an ok job up to this point you should be fine. $5K doesn't go real far in the restoration world so i wouldn't say you lost too much.. we just got $13K to paint a car with no sheetmetal replacement, just did a couple little patches, body work and paint inside and out, and its a white car that was already white. If you want to start replacing all the sheetmetal your talking time and money.. I would NOT pay his storage fees, and i would only pay for labor and time he can prove based on the original deal. If he has no documentation there is nothing he can do about it anyway... of course its the same on your end when it comes time for legal action..
-Funny story actually, we had a roof put on a house we own, and the roofers did a terrible job on the front fascia, so my mom who is in charge of the finances, took 15% percent off the bill when when she paid, and they couldn't do a damn thing about it because the work they did and the agreement was not documented well, and obviously it did look bad. The company came out and just looked at the roof when it was done and pretty much said ok fine. Same kinda deal, you could probably just take your car without paying him anything more and he wouldn't have a leg to stand on because he has no proof of what he did. Bring the sheriff, get your car. Roof doesn't leak though lol...