Hot Rods where's the money?

If your freaking out at shop built car for $250,000, never look at what it costs to build a Ridler contending car. That's where the silly money is really spent. Your talking multi-millions on those cars. The "Renaissance Roadster" that Steve's Auto built and won the award back in 2017 cost around 11 million from what I heard talking to some of the guys who worked on it.

The labor is why my grandfather and I do all our own work and farming out as little as possible. Its the only way to have all the old cars. Plus its enjoyable and a great thing to do after working all day at a desk. It was that way with Taboo, people are usually surprised at how little we are actually in the car. Its kind of fun going to the indoor shows and beating those expensive shop built cars.

 

YEP!

 

Another one of these threads.
250k to build something isn’t odd or shocking.
Building cars isn’t charity work.
The guys that pay these prices demand a certain level and will pay to get it.
Some shops have the luxury to have customers that don’t ask how much, they ask can you build it.
A 250k price tag is an average price or lower end build for some shops.
250k isn’t gonna get you a Riddler contender unless maybe you provide all the labor and are very skilled and patient.
For instance. A customer asked my boss for an I-beam axle with a very deep drop. The drop desired only exists in a tube axle. The customer said I-beam. So, a tube axle with the drop was prototype along with an original heavy. Our CNC guy machined an I-beam axle with the drop specified by the customer. The axle had 60hours CNC time plus design, plus time in a manual mill for the kingpin cut, then chrome plating. The bill for that axle was over 11k. For an axle that did the same thing a much cheaper tube axle can do, except have the look the customer wanted.
The axle is dang near art by itself.
Money is relative.
These big money shops didn’t just decide one day to charge X. It took years of weekends, late nights, expensive equipment, $ losses and even monetary investments of their own in customers cars to reach the level they are at.
That being said, I’ll park my beater beside em and hang out with em.
It’s the same hobby no matter how much ya spend.

 

Last time I went to a lawyer to have a living trust drawn up, his hourly rate was $400.00. That was 10 years ago. If he wanted a hot rod built for $100.00 per hour, it wouldn't be that big a deal.

 

First, I've never been in that pay grade but I have complete respect for what Roy and his guys do, they have know doubt had to work hard for the reputation they've achieved.
My take on many high dollar builds (that don't appear to match the stated cost) to the average guy is that many times the high rollers that never turn a bolt, track down a part or even knick a fingernail will pay accordingly, many willingly, so it's no surprise when we see "outrageous" numbers attached to a lot of these cars.

 

That is the reason I never keep track of my builds. Exactly why.

 

A friend of mine learned to never swap labor with a lawyer. It’s a 4-5 : 1 ratio

 

When I worked at Jaguar I did all the old cars that came in. A lot of my customers wanted there engines “detailed” after years of lack lustre service they looked “ meh”

I would clean , paint , polish , replace hardware , fix up and rewrap harness and do a good clean up of the engine bay.

nothing concours, but a nice tidy mostly original look. I could spend 2 days at it . At 117 bucks an hour , 8 hours is almost 2 grand.

but they got a nice clean engine bay , or undercarriage or whatever they asked for . And they paid and would shake my hand buy my a bottle of whiskey or a case of beer as an additional thank you .


They had no clue how to do what I do and would gladly pay for it.

I do pretty much all my own home renovations.

my cousin is a partner in a law firm, makes ridiculous money , but is a great down to earth guy.

he renovated his house and got a well know kitchen designer to do his kitchen, the kitchen was almost $200,000 plus flooring and appliances !!!
He laughs about it that his kitchen is done by XXXX kitchen company . It should of cost 50,000 but the extra 150,000 is bragging rights.
It’s a extraordinary kitchen but I could not justify it, I also don’t make near what he makes in a year !!!! So it’s all relative .

ive never factored in my labour on my cars as it’s my hobby and I enjoy it. And I’m proud to say I’ve never lost money on one of my cars . I’m sure if a factored in labour I would of lost my shoes on every car I’ve owned !!’

 

Correct, which is lunacy, thus...

48 months

 

Another fellow Jag veteran.
Been there.

 

Not me. Every time the guys at work ask me what I'm going to do with the money when I work overtime I tell them I want a 3 million dollar funeral.

 

I got around 5.5k in my bus build.
I’ve installed wheels and tires that cost over twice that.
I’m happy
The guy the paid the $$$$ for the wheels and tires was happy.
It’s a win win

 

Absolutely right, and that's for just one person working on it, If it's two at the same time it's $300 - $ 350 or so per hr. not including parts, materials etc. Your right though they turn out some beautiful work.

 

Talk to em. You might be surprised.
I’ve built cars for folks that built plenty. They just have a business now that affords them the luxury to pay someone else. It’s cheaper to pay than them build it.

 

On particular customer built and raced Bush cars.
He’s forgotten more on chassis set up and engines than I’ll ever know.
He wrote the checks, I worked on the car.
Guy could weld, fab and machine. He didn’t have to anymore. I think he enjoyed paying us to work on his cars and just watch sometimes
I’ve had car owners that were/are as good a hot rod builder as you’d want. Sometimes health prevents them from doing the things they used to do. I’ve had “check writers” that I have learned much from and am better from working on their car.

 

I'd bet you could come up with close to a dozen off the top of your head in no time at all. We can debate if we'd rather have a $10 million car or ten $1 million cars but there are folks who can just say they'd take them all.

 

I’ve tried to write a few more replies to this but essentially it boils down to what has been said already….how a person got their money and what they choose to do with it is none of your concern. Unless they got it from starting an MLM company and tried to build their own private navy or something…


Side note, style is entirely irrelevant to what it costs to build a car.

 

Well said!

 

Good thing I work for cheap on my own stuff, I think I spent 4 hours with the tape measure trying to figure out why my front suspension measurements were not making sense. Oh yeah, jaguar lower ball joints turn with the wheel and aren't a fixed spot. You think I would of saw that by now after already installing half a dozen of them. Who wants to buy a buick for 250k?

 

Its only money! The more you make, the more you spend. Some occupations pay better then others, and those usually have a more difficult path to becoming part of the better half of the specific occupation. Often to achieve that goal of being in the upper end of a chosen field requires a more concentration and less distractions. The requirement of less distractions means you often don't have a chance to build any skills that are not involved directly with the chosen occupation. That often translates into the fact that if you want anything not connected within the chosen occupation, you have to pay someone to supply that object of desire. It is expected that the higher you expect the quality of that object to be, the more you expect to pay to get it, and the more you would seek out the best people in the field that produces the object you desire.
If that object happens to be a car, you seek out the best people in the field that build the style of car you like the best, and have them build a car for you, and you write the check for whatever it takes to buy the desired object.

Just because you wrote the check for your car, that doesn't mean you you don't love it as much as the guy that built his car in his own garage does, it simply means you have acquired that car by a different means. You may have just as much blood, sweat, and effort in your car as the guy that built his own car has, but your effort is in a different occupational field.

With car guys, there is often an attitude problem. Rather then looking at the car and considering the final outcome, too many want to compare how the car got built, and by whom, rather then about the car itself. There are also too many car guys that want to divide cars into a style, and then criticize it if it isn't built exactly to the style they like the best.
If we see something we like about a car, we expect the owner to tell us how it was built. If we find out he didn't build it himself, he is somehow not as good as we may think we are. The fact that he may be the Lawyer that just saved your right to license a car you just built, or was the Doctor that just saved a car hero's life, doesn't seem to matter. We exclude him from the car hobby because he didn't build it himself. We need to grow up! Gene

 

I wonder if any of the replies would differ, if the seller paid a photographer $500.00 to take descent photos?

 

250K may be a down payment on some pro builds. I casually watch a few of the car build TV shows and the high end shops seem to have no problem attracting clients. I've noticed some are repeat customer's. When they give the clients name on Kindig, I always pause, grab my phone and Google them. Most are very successful business men that own tech, software companies or fleets of car dealerships. Hell, I'm glad they're into cars and can entertain us by banking these builds.
Material wise, these cars don't get cheated, but when they get into custom designed parts that require casting, machining or tons of hands on metal work you get into some real labor. I remember Steve Strobe saying one tech had something like 40 or 50 hours in the rear bumper on the 57 Ford Wagon build.
Some of these shops roll in a full custom Alston chassis and crate engine for starters. An easy 50K before they've started any real work.
Even a casual go through restoration can get up there. I recently watched a Fantom Works episode where a guy had a 1940's (Plymouth?) restored (mechanicals, paint, etc). They usually wrap up by reviewing what was done to the car and mention the invoice cost of parts and how many labor hours were required-so you get an idea of the cost. For some reason the actually gave a quick view of the invoice; 170K, nearly 150K of it was labor.

 

I bet he never said to himself "I could have done it myself and saved 150K"

 

All of this reminds me of a line from a song by Rush: "We will pay the price, but we will not count the cost".

 

No. It's still a kit car with an IFS and those tires........

 

Nay Sayers never take into the effect of the person who is doing the work. He has to make a living. He has to pay his bills just like everybody else. Do you get paid overtime, vacation pay and medical insurance? Do you get pay raises every so often? Does your employer fund your retirement account? The employee has to feed his kids and pay for his wife`s shopping habits just like everybody else. Then if you are a good fabricator., you should get paid more than an average fabricator. Then the boss has to make money as well. Then there`s the building cost, taxes and insurance. Tools to get the job done and the supplies that are used to complete the job. All of this has to be in place before a project can even enter into the shop before work can even begin to take place.

 

I don’t think anyone was being a “naysayer “. That’s akin to someone saying a 250k build should have only been 50k because they should only charge 10 bucks an hour and parts.

I’d imagine there’s a construction website somewhere that people post up building their own homes over a course of time, and laugh at “ the fool who spent 300k to buy his house” while they did all the work and just have 50k in buying and trading for materials

Now their house is just as nice as the bought and paid for house. So they worked hard after their day job, gave up their weekends and had it ready in 3 or 4 years to live in.

Of course their labor was free

But if I have 300k and a plan, I can have a Contractor build the same house and I can enjoy my after work and weekend life.

I had a similar conversation with a HAMBr I bought and engine from a few months back. We were shooting the shit and I told him if I had the $$ to oversea a build it wouldn’t take me so many years to get something done, he said he enjoyed it too much that he’d do it anyways.

Sorry, rambling before bed

 

I used to build cats for rich assholes that expected a 'perfct" car . Wouldn't do it anymore for any amount.

 

Yep. No bigger A-hole than someone that pays you for your time, knowledge and skill.