[Ron Sutton]

Originally Posted by GregWeld

I didn't read every post here so I may be redundant.... but I have now had THREE cars professionally built. All three are at high end nationally recognized shops. So perhaps I can lend some "thoughts" to the question.

#1 - Thing that I've become aware of is having customers that can actually AFFORD to build what they're building. Why is this important? Because the shop can order parts - stay on the build - get paid on time.

#2 - Project creep. This is fine if #1 is met. Otherwise - it leads to too many "oh sh!t" moments by customer and shop. Project creep is inevitable. Your buddies stop by and say - hey! You know what would really be cool.... or the way something was supposed to look, doesn't work right... and that leads to brainstorming which leads to more work.

#3 - Working with customers based on upfront "price" for the work. This is IMPOSSIBLE. These projects always take more time and cost more money.. why? Because it's custom. Custom hasn't been done before - or often - and thus nobody really knows what it's going to take to pull off.


Here's my own REAL WORLD experince:



SAR experience.... Now -- this is not about "ME" -- I'm just using my own experience. The SAR build started as a rear end and tranny swap... and finding out what was wrong with the motor. Once the body was off the chassis ---- it turned in to a full on build. I never asked what it was going to cost. I know that I can afford to do the job whatever that is. This is certainly not true for most people.... even if they have plenty of money - they didn't get their money by just throwing it around. Sometimes the guys with the most money are also the most demanding and difficult! Think about this scenario.... the car goes into the shop... a very small scope of work... which turned into a $200K plus build. This happens more often than not. Did the shop have the time and people in place to take this on --- or is it going to sit and wait for available time?


BRIZIO experience.... This was a discussion which began in a hotel lobby. A stop at the shop and some more detailed discussion. A basic plan was put on to paper and a general discussion about cost to completion. A "quote" which was just a casual discussion was "somewhere around $225 to $300K depending on how custom you want to go. Here's my point here. If a guy can't afford to discuss these kinds of numbers. He has no business even starting a project. BRIZIO has a waiting list to get a build done... he doesn't need to quote some BS number to get a customer hooked into the shop. Many shops under-estimate on purpose. They don't really know what their costs are going to be and they don't want to scare off a potential customer. THEY need a customer because they have rent and salaries due next week. The problems start when both the customer and the shop are BS'ing each other!! The shop says -- $125K and the real deal is far closer to $250K or more! The stupid customer is fine with the $125K because he's also BS'ing himself into thinking it can be done for that. If he went home and added up the "hard costs" - body - motor/trans - wheels - upholstery/paint... he'd know he has $100k in just hard parts ----- no way it's built for $25K in labor. DOH! That isn't going to end well.


Pinkee's Rod Shop experience.... This build started with me trying to buy Eric's personal '40 Ford pickup. HE did a comparo of building out his truck including the purchase price - vs - buying a clapped out truck and starting new. While it was closer than you'd think - it made more sense to buy a body somewhere. Just the labor wasted on taking something apart has to be included in the "build". This is a rather straight forward simple build. Body - some mods - frame - motor/trans - paint - upholstery - tires and wheels. A "number" was discussed - and that number is a good starting point because it was a REAL number. Around $150K+ to start. NOW -- the other day I email him and ask if he has some "ideas" for some "Pinkee's" style to be done on the truck... and here ya go.... what is that - does it require a re-do of work already done? Where does that lead... how much time did it just add? What does changing one thing do to something else? NOBODY KNOWS.


In the end -- the point of my long winded ramble is that it all depends on the type of customer you can attract and KEEP... and you're not going to attract a "me" when you're just starting out. Nobody is going to walk in and have you build a car for them when there's The Roadster Shop - or Brizio's - or Trepanier - or Jessie Greening.... So you're going to start off with the BS builds where you don't know what the cost is going to be and you really don't know if the customer can pay the freight.

Now -- let's add the "small shop" syndrome. You're just starting out - you can't define who you are - or what is coming thru the door. You might have a remodel of a '32 Ford -- or it might be a full on custom '70 Ford. YOU are going to have to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to find parts suppliers. Learning what works and what doesn't... AND waiting for the parts to arrive... and you can't do X without Y being on hand... Fine if you have half a dozen cars going at any given time... but what if you only have 2 and you don't have the parts to go forward on either of them. Or you get the parts and they're shipped wrong - or don't fit....

A shop like Brizio's builds the same "style" of cars over and over - they have suppliers that will bust their butts to keep them happy. They'll get the last set of headers on the shelf before some guy they've never heard of before gets them.... They've built the same stuff so many times they know what is going to work and what combo doesn't. They have customers that are experienced and they trust the shop to make adjustments as they come up. When I needed a replacement water pump and nobody had one - they made a call deep inside to a supplier -- all the way to the Dyno room at that supplier and got one. Normal shops don't have those connections. Many times it's not what you know it's WHO you know.


IMHO -- many of the "bad" experiences start with a customer that is a dumbass... who has chosen a shop based on an unrealistic quote/cost basis that suits what he thinks it should be done for. The shop is all to happy to take on the work = maybe honestly or maybe just because they need that work right now. Many times that shop might be a body shop and now you're asking them to be a mechanical shop and a suspension shop. Many times that shop is used to doing spot paint and the occasional whole car paint job... and you're expecting SEMA quality paint and bodywork.... on a body shop quote.

In the end -- it's a MESSY BUSINESS.... period. I don't know that anyone is capable of making it a simple well run machine - because you're dealing with people and I think it's the people that are the messy part - not just the cars. If that makes sense.

This is so accurate it's not even funny. Well ... it's a little funny.

When we did Greg's 65 Mustang Track Car "Make over" ... Greg (the customer) made it easy on us (the builders). I had a very comprehensive plan & cost estimates. Greg said, "Do it right, the way you think it needs to be done ... and here's the money." So we were able to basically rebuild everything in the entire powertain, suspension, wheels & brakes in 8 weeks. (The body, interior & cage stayed the same)

And like Greg said, there was scope creep ... 20-30% I think. I hate scope creep. I had laid out a plan that was very comprehensive up front. But when you find things you weren't expecting ... what do you do? Your choices are to leave them alone ... to the detriment of the car ... or fix/improve them & add cost. When we got in there, I saw things I didn't like & Greg said to make them right. We found some things that needed rebuilt & we found some things we could improve.

In a full muscle car rebuild ... where you don't really know what the body work needs until you get into it ... whew! Or if you don't know what the customer really wants ... or they don't know ... that's impossible to know exactly how much work it will take. This is where I think planning & quoting a range is the best strategy. Like Brizzio ... here is the price range. If you can't afford that, then this isn't going to end well. I hate to see good guys have a falling out over a car build ... but it happens all the time ... because of the flaws in this process.