Hot Rods where's the money?

this car came up for sale on Craigslist, said it was built by Brizio at a cost of one quarter of a million, do these guys really get that kind of $ for their builds?

 

Not from me they dont !!!

 

Why wouldn't they? I can think of shops around here that would get that or more.

Let's do some simple math;

Total build price is $250,000.00. Typical high end shop rate is probably around $125-$150 per hour, but since this is Brizio, a noted and award-winning shop, I'd estimate shop rate is closer to the high end of that. 250,000 / 150 = 1,667 billable hours of shop time, or about 41 weeks of work, and that's not accounting for literally any parts. I'm sure there was no expense spared in terms of parts, so the idea that there are $50-75K in parts alone.

Point being, it's not hard at all to rack up a quarter of a million dollar bill for a high-end custom hot rod from a top shop.

 

By charging top rate for every minute spent thinking/talking/working on/storing it, mark up on catalog parts?

 

I don’t know what Brizio charges but he builds some snazzy rides .


I know Boyd coddington cars started at $125,000 when he was in business .

I suppose if you want a cool car with bragging right to who built it your paying for it .

 

I bet a lot of us are driving cars that would cost that much to get built, if we were charged for every hour at top rate.

 

And it's a glass car to boot?

 

This is why so many hot rodders build their own cars. I don't see how any middle class American could afford to pay someone to build them a car.

 

I spent at least $67,890.00 billable hours, laying under my custom, attempting to get the exhaust pipe to go over the axle .

Brought it to a local muffler shop. "Start here - go over the axle and come out here" $120 (includes a healthy tip for the guy that actually did the work) .

Russ

 

i wouldn't be bragging about spending 250.000 dollars on a fiberglass car unless i was trying to sell it. then i too would lie my ass off

 

what is the asking price

 

I am wondering what would be the build cost with parts and material if it was standard condition steel car, something that some of us could start off with?

 

Yea, I don't get spending that much on any of this old junk. But, I have several good friends that make a living doing this sort of stuff so am thankful that some people can afford it and don't mind spending that kind of money. The number of hours it takes to build some cars is nuts as we know. If we added up the hours we spend and multiply it times a shop rate as already mentioned, many of the cars we see here might be in that kind of range. Good thing that most of us work for free on our own junk. It is the only way I can afford to play this game.

 

Yup, labor and parts add up. Even almost 20 years ago I was getting sticker shock when I handed guys their weekly bill. And the irony is, those bills many times did not include v1,2 or 3 of a certain mod. A LOT of hours were absorbed by the shop since the boss did not charge for anything but the final work. We adjusted everything down to be fair to the customer. No reason for them to pay for the shop figuring out a process

 

250K

 

There is a custom bike shop here in Toronto that puts out some fantastic bikes .

a couple guys I know got custom choppers built by them snd the build quality was incredible .
The invoice is completely itemized as to parts snd labour spent on each specific task.
One bill had 17 hours to fit custom handle bars and the related stuff that goes with them .

At $100 bucks an hour is 1700 bucks plus tax . It adds up real fast .

 

Like most guys, if I had to pay for very much work to be done by others I'd not be able to own even a single hotrod. But by doing all the work myself, or in most cases 90% or more, I have enjoyed the hobby and not gone into debt or bankrupt at the same time.
I've never built a car that when I sold it I didn't at least double the investment I had in it. Of course my time was likely at $5 and hour, but I never keep track of hours for this hobby. More like just keeping track of months on a build, not hours.

 

We all assign value to different things, we all spend our money differently, and we all have different financial situations that color the financial decisions/purchases we make. No two situations are the same. Custom guys may think it's crazy to spend $30k on a powerful custom engine, and hot rod guys may think it's crazy to spend $30K on wild custom paint. A person might be able to justify one expense if they were single with no kids whereas that same purchase might be a bad decision if they had a family to support.

I, like I'm sure anyone else here, have my own criteria for deciding the cost/benefit analysis I do before I pull the trigger on a purchase.

There is also the inescapable fact that "expensive" is relative to the person making the purchase. There are people in this world who might look at that $250,000 car like I look at buying a cup of coffee in the morning. And I think that's great. Instead of sitting there in a huff (not that I'm saying anyone here is) and positing how it's crazy that someone could spend that much on a car, I take a more positive approach. I think of the velocity of money and how that build put food on the table of many skilled workers involved directly with the project, as well as vendors who supplied components for parts used in the build. I'm also personally inspired by the creativity and workmanship of a top-notch build to push myself to do better work on cars. But I'm also intrigued by the folks who are able to fund a project like that, and what type of business they're in, how they're making that money, what their lifestyle is like, and if there is anything I can learn from them to further myself personally or professionally.

 

I used to paint at a high end shop. I remember one of the fab guys built a custom fuel tank for a truck. 6k later the tank was done. This was 15 years ago so I'm sure it would be much more now. 6 grand for a gas tank, just ridiculous but not my money. There are lots of guys out there with deep pockets that like to brag about how much they paid someone to build their car

 

Put it into perspective. A new Jeep Grand Cherokee or high end pickup tops out over 80K these days . And you see them all the time.

 

I just can't see driving a flathead powered car with a glass body and gay radial wide whites in the wrong sizes no matter what it cost to build.

 

Even if ya could do 1 in 10 week, @ 40 hrs a week = 400 hrs
400 hrs @ 75 per = $30,000.00 Just in labor
Do the math guys

 

Only an 84-month term!

 

I think the cost would probably be even higher.

Brizio et al often start with repro Brookville steel bodies because that's less expensive in the long run, than paying a high-end body guy $100/hour to repair & straighten 90-year-old Ford rust.

 

Those are most likely purchased on credit by the common man/woman. Lot easier to get finance for mass produced transportation with a warranty than for the regular schmo to show up to his/her bank and ask for a $300K loan on a plastic 'hot rod' that resembles a 90+ year old car.
Risk vs reward. For a loan, a financial institute has to look at it and it has to make sense, monetarily.
Loan on a Brizio car would be considerably different from the one at the Nissan dealership.

First time I saw that in a paper I choked. Was positive it was just transposed, even then thought what poor bastard needs a 4 year car loan?.

 

$55,000 on Chicago craigslist

 

Not to mention the IFS

 

The joy is in building your car isn't it? That's what I always thought. I don't wanna drive somebody else's car. I guess it's the spoils of fame and fortune. Compensating.

 

That's what I am thinking........$250k is one thing. $250k for a kit car that isn't all that great to start with is another thing. Maybe that is what the customer wanted though.

 

Top notch, well known shops command a premium hourly rate, and if you combine that with a picky customer that wants to spare no expense, it's easy to see how a build could get 1500 hours in it at $150 per hour, plus parts, and then you end with that kind of total price. I worked in a body shop 20 years ago and we'd have restorations reach over the $100K mark and we sure weren't Brizio.

I toured a body shop once and looked over a car body that had just been cut and buffed. The bodywork was stunning, really a terrific job done, and on the inside of the floor you could tell they went to great lengths to save as much original sheetmetal as possible, with floor pans replaced is a crazy jigsaw pattern to only replace what was needed, when a whole pan would have been quicker.

I told the guy showing us around to tell whoever did the bodywork that they did a great job, he said there was 1000 hours of bodywork and paint in that body, and not a single bolt had been turned into it yet. They charged $70/hour for body and paintwork, so that was a $70,000 paint job, plus materials. A big chunk of that cost was for details that you'd never be able to see, but the customer wanted it just so.