70 S, RHD, Signal Orange, UK->Australia->UK

[210bhp]

Lovely work as usual and a bonus keeping those original wings.


Regards
Mike

[inaglasshouse]

Gapping and Visit

I'm not sure what to say about gapping. It seems to be a painstaking 3D jigsaw puzzle, where getting one piece in place sometimes dislodges another.

Anyway after various iterations and a lot of patience, my shell was looking pretty good. I had a chance to visit in person and take a few photos of the nearly finished shell. (Rear bumper quarters and number plate panel are not the final ones).
See what you think:













Few more pics here:
https://www.safetycolours.com/porsche-9 ... -and-visit

[inaglasshouse]

And it's Goodnight from Barry - Shell Complete

So that's the shell done. Next stop paint.

[inaglasshouse]

Thanks Barry

First I should say: horticulturalists will notice the spring blossom in this photo:


Which is proof, if proof were needed, that Barry works a lot faster than I post. That photo was taken on 6 April. He's done another entire shell since then!

Second - I wrote the following email to Barry after seeing the finished shell. I wouldn't usually make such things public, but he asked if I would share it, so here it is:

Hi Barry,

Many thanks for the photos, especially the outside shots. It’s great to see the finished shell in natural light.

As I hope you have understood, I’m absolutely delighted with the shell.

As discussed, having seen your previous work it never entered my head that you would fail to make it perfect. So there was not much sense of jeopardy. But living through it in real time (rather like staying up all night watching the Le Mans 24h at the circuit, which I did once), did give me some idea of the required persistence and stamina. To get the whole thing finished to the same high standard, every last detail, is not just a question of skill and the need to earn a living. I think you have to really want it to be that good.

The other thing I’d like to mention is that I have hugely enjoyed working with you. The updates have been great, the chats and visits have always been a pleasure, and of course I’ve never had any doubts about your integrity and professionalism. I don’t begrudge a penny of the (fairly large sum of) money involved. I think you found it slightly awkward when things were expensively not as they seemed post-blasting, and my car was probably one of the more surprising you’ve had (in a bad way). But I do fully understand that an estimate can be only that - an estimate - until the car has been properly evaluated. I appreciate you sticking to the revised estimate even though it meant you were working for free at the end.

Anyway these are just fine words. Proof of the pudding is in the repeat business. Looking forward to the next one (SWB). More on that in due course - a deal is in progress but not yet concluded.

Speak soon, best wishes,
Richard.

So that's the long winded testimonial. The short version comes in photographic form:







I like the gaps.

Thanks for reading this far.
Cheers, Richard.

[911hillclimber]

Just fabulous as usual!
Barry's shells must be a painter's dream.

[911GP]

Absolutely superb, Richard.
Kind regards
Gitesh

[inaglasshouse]

Thanks Graham, thanks Gitesh.

A couple of notes, now the shell is complete.

Note 1:
As mentioned above, in April I wrote to Barry saying:
Anyway these are just fine words. Proof of the pudding is in the repeat business. Looking forward to the next one (SWB). More on that in due course - a deal is in progress but not yet concluded.
Since then a deal has been concluded, so Barry will be doing the shell of my absolute dream car and forever keeper, a '65 911.
Good news on that front is that Barry's waiting list is down to about a year. I don't regret waiting 2+ years to start on the orange car, but a year is much better.

Note 2:
Cost to get to this point (including all panels etc but not including initial purchase of the car):
£31,691

[yoda]

Interesting note 2 - does that include stripping the shell and getting to a finished shell stage i.e. No paint or paint prep?

[inaglasshouse]

Interesting note 2 - does that include stripping the shell and getting to a finished shell stage i.e. No paint or paint prep?

Hi Feroz,

That includes:
1) Dismantling the car. Mostly done by previous owner, but I took the rest apart myself. I cost my own time at zero...
2) Stripping of paint and remaining bits of underseal. A combination of blasting and by hand. I paid for this, not DIY.
3) All Barry's work and consumables, as seen on this thread.
4) All panels. Nearly all Porsche, a couple of Restoration Design repair panels, and a lightweight front bumper from Fenn Lane.

As you say, no paint, no paint prep. Just the costs to get to the stage you see in these "finished shell" pics.
Cheers, Richard.

[yoda]

Well, it looks great! I am very much looking forward to seeing it in paint as I think it is hard to beat the aesthetic quality of a freshly restored, particularly in orange!

Sadly, I might never do my own as the costs seem to be only going one way. Great work thought and lovely to see that craftsmanship like that still exists.

Regards

Feroz

[dragonfly]

Wow, that looks great. It must be fantastic to watch your car coming back to life like this.

[911hillclimber]

Thank you for showing us the real cost to do the shell.
A sobering thought for those on a budget less than that, and informative to those who cannot DIY this work and choose to use a pro shop.
A Barry Shell is a massive plus on the value sheet if you sell.
A DIY she'll (like mine) so much less so....

Looking forward to the paint.

[inaglasshouse]

Thanks for the comments.

Please excuse the vulgar mention of money. I'm not trying to put anyone off, but I think a dose of realism can be helpful.
You'll have seen the posts where the newbie (me, before this project) asks about restoration costs and just can't believe the numbers. Others may think I've been profligate / a bit chequebook resto - I know it would be possible to spend less and that my skills are pretty limited - but these are real numbers at least.

A Barry Shell is a massive plus on the value sheet if you sell.

Could be true. But I'm not selling...

[Barry]

Just dropped in to say thanks to Richard, A) for letting me part of his project, and B) updating the thread and including the message he sent to me. As you can appreciate, it's this sort of feedback that makes it all worthwhile at my end.

As for the shell, there were some real curve-balls with this one. When we evaluated it, on the face of things it looked very good and pretty straight in terms of accident damage evidence. Much of the previous work looked pretty competant, and for the first time ever on a 911, I was hopeful we could leave these recent, tidy repairs in place.

Sadly the reality was that post-blast the shell didn't look anywhere near as nice. Like that filler laden bonnet, the shell had been presented in matt grey primer (and possibly filler). With that removed, things went well backwards. The repairs we'd hoped to retain needed to come out, in turn these revealed issues within that had either been tackled poorly, or simply left to be covered by the new panels.

When I saw the shell, the rear screen was in, as were (I think) the trailing arms. The outside areas near the rear screen were perfect, but it later turned out that we needed to do work on the inner screen corners / flanges. Similarly, I ended up replacing the torque tube ends. The previous torque tube area repairs (Restoration Design panels) looked 'O.K.' on first inspection, but turned out to be in completely the wrong place as far as the jig was concerned. Then, the replacements from Restoration Design arrived with significant production errors (again, they've been wrong for years). More hours to correct.

The stand-out thing with this shell though was there were a very high % of small, fiddly and time consuming repairs compared to the big flashy panel replacements.

Since we've got the body costs out in the open, I'll open my files here as well, out of interest.

My hours were 440 at £40 ph, so £17.600.00p, (and I'm not VAT registered), or eleven full-time equivalent weeks. These hours included the fabrication of my own panels (inner wing areas, slam back-dates and so on). Consumables were around £300.

Since then there has been a supplementary invoice covering a whole host of fiddly stuff; oil cooler repairs, rescue the front under-pan, rear 1/4 bumper mods and rear number plate mods. None of these fall under the main restoration, as the car had already been built with stock items at this point. In other words, would be restorers of stock cars need not worry too much about this bit!

I've just finished Ash's 2.2, which on the face of it looked worse than Richards in many ways, but had pretty much been untouched, and his hours were roughly 125 less. Just shows that once you're dealing with other people's repairs, things have the potential to get tricky unless they are old and are being regarded in same light as a rusted area. In this case, they were effectively brand new, some DIY (which we knew we'd be removing), and some professional, which we thought we might retain.

Richard's 2.2S and Kieron's 2.4E are my terrible twins in terms of estimating. Both had travelled in from the other side of the world, neither looked too bad, both had seen recent previous work. Both were bent, and both took many more hours than hoped. Both, I think, have turned out fine as well, and their respective clocks reset for another few decades.

BTW, Richard mentioned bookings / timescales. I've certainly been able to work on my waiting list, and it's currently running around 15 months or so ahead. Quite a nice level I think.

Thanks again, Richard, I really can't wait to see this one as it gets it's colour!

[Barry]

Well, it looks great! I am very much looking forward to seeing it in paint as I think it is hard to beat the aesthetic quality of a freshly restored, particularly in orange!

Sadly, I might never do my own as the costs seem to be only going one way. Great work thought and lovely to see that craftsmanship like that still exists.

Regards

Feroz

The rising costs are from panels, which have gone up hugely in last couple of years. My own labour rate (£40, no VAT) has been the same for last four years, and if it does go up, it won't be by much. I'm not sure if others have been ramping their prices, probably not recently. Those on a budget can do quite well by dealing with much of the stripping themselves, sometimes using the panels like a savings scheme well in advance, keeping an eye on Euro's deals and eBay / For sale ads etc.

Having said about panels, the flip side is that more and more repair parts are hitting the market, which makes it more viable to save the originals. Also, from my own point of view, I retain my collection of around 70 special tools / hammerforms and whatnot for making panels. Therefore much can be done to retain an otherwise good original area.

If you are lucky enough to have good outer panels, roof included, I would venture that the resto costs from me for example are the same as in 2013 (last price rise) inner panel price differences excepted. The positive against that is there's currently more choice on floors. sills, kidney bowls etc.

I think it's also important to compare apples to apples, and not to pears. Body restoration hours on their own don't tell the full story. Someone can easily trim the hours a bit if they've asked for a huge number of new panels from the customer. Obviously if there has been work involved in saving a £1500 panel, there's likely to be a labour cost there. Seen in isolation, this added labour might look a lot. But, assuming you've been able to save two front inner wings (what, £1550 each), and two rear innner wings (NLA, but were over £1000 each), perhaps a couple of A-posts (another £300 each), front scuttle ends (£1800 for new scuttle saved) and so on, the benefits really tot up. A pub conversation might just touch on the labour (How much?!?), and then forget to mention the £'000's in panel savings.

Anyway, just my t'pennies worth. You often hear the labour bit, but it's only when taken with panel costs can you really assess the fairness or otherwise of a specialist's bill.

For all that, yes, this is not a cheap interest at all, and it's a significant commitment to take on. I do maintain though, that by making sensible choices, heeding experienced advice, use as much DIY as you can and spreading the work out, you can still keep things relatively sensible. I always say that it's sometimes a good idea to split things into two groups on a resto. 1) Stuff you really, really don't want to be revisiting, or will cause damage not to be done straight away, so body, paint, cavity waxing, loom, oil lines / coolers, brake and pipe lines, safety items (steering / suspension / brakes) and so on. 2) Mechanicals that can be back out within half a day, interior (headlining aside), lights, possibly instruments and so on. This way you can split the work into two major phases. Phase one gets the car solid, save, dry, drivable and pretty smart and a cracking, long lasting foundation. Phase two can be done on a rolling resto basis as budget and time dicate. It's how I would do it anyway.

The DIY'ers have never had it so good either. All of these new repair panels move more cars towards realistic DIY propositions, for those with the time, skills and dedication to keep the project moving forward.

So it's not all bad .