Hot Rods where's the money?

Stumpy n Lumpy were walking by a fish market. The sign said crabs $18 each. "Stumpy, you're standing next to a millionaire."

Perspective...

 

Hell, I'd do it for half that!

 

Yep. the $60 example is used was the 15 year ago around here shop rate.
I was offered or asked if I was interested in a position located in Palo Alto Ca
Quite a bit of difference on what’s needed per hour there than here in Bama.
Good looking area over there.

 

I'll bet the 12000 miles took approaching 20 years to do, therefore making the car possibly a 20 year old build, and the $250k 20 year ago dollars! Maybe!

Chris

 

Talked to a former client who now owns a rod shop. They do street rod and muscle car type builds, but can build anything a person wants. The fella who owns the shop made tens of millions in his main career.
Many of his friends are his clients. Multi-multi millionaire types who want what they want. And he gives it to them. Sure there is a sprinkling of partial builds for regular folks but full tilt checkbook builds are generally not for most of us. He described one top shelf build and said the interior was $40,000. And that was 8 or 10 years ago. Gotta be a lot more now.
If a guy is worth $10,000,000 and spends $250k on a car, it's not a big deal. That guy who had Kindig build the Pantera is worth many times that. His home was featured in the Wall Street Journal a couple months ago. He lives in a 30,000sf house and runs a billion dollar company.
They are out there.

 

Any day now, there be a short-lived thread here about who is the richest person on the HAMB? While it's up, if you have a roof over your head, food on the table, clothes to wear, a career that you like, hobbies you enjoy and someone who loves you, it's you.

 

the 34 was built by former Brizio employee Dan Aquirre in 1998. the add for the sale of the 34 today says if Brizio would build a car like this today it would probably cost 250000 to build.

 

this thread has strayed a bit from the original subject but…

Something to keep in mind…what is being paid per hour in labor is not going into the shop owners pocket. It is a business after all and the expenses are no joke. The employee doing the work (and it depends on the level of work and what type, be it simple general mechanic stuff, or tedious wiring, or custom sheetmetal work) is going to be earning maybe a third of that. That is certainly the case if the shop offers benefits like insurance or a company match 401k, offers vacation days and sick time just like the company you work for probably does). Often times if the shop is big enough there is another employee who is the foreman or manager, just like any other automotive business. He is the one scheduling the work, ordering the parts, picking up the phone when you call, keeping projects on track, making the invoices, keeping the shop running smoothly etc. and that guy has to get paid too. We have a guy who’s job is to keep the place cleaned up, take care of machine maintenance, run errands, wash the customer cars, clean the bathroom, be an extra hand when someone needs it, and he isn’t working for free.

Welders, air compressors, and lights use a lot of electricity. Shop tools which are used for your project wear out and need fixing or upgrades which will make the work faster and quality better. There are expenses like fresh water for the employees, a monitored security system for the shop that your car is inside of, insurance to cover any major issues that might arise, paying the company that picks up the trash dumpster, blah blah blah…and of course, rent!

And after all that, if the shop owner isn’t making a profit, then it’s time to shut the doors.

 

I'll bitch about my overhead but the fact is I can't imagine a business with more capital expenditure than an auto restoration shop. All of the equipment is soooooooooooo expensive, so large, so cumbersome, which drives up the amount of square footage a shop needs to function, which drives up rent/mortgage, etc. It's a wonder any of them stay in business.

IMHO, as someone totally on the outside, for those reasons, I can foresee a trend into the future where builds are more managed by a general contractor like builder, and each system is then subcontracted out to other independent shops. This way no one shop has to be equipped to handle every process of metal fabrication, body/paint, mechanical/engine build, upholstery, etc.

 

It is sort of like that now. There are some shops that can do it all in house but I think they are few and far between, and getting fewer all the time. Generally you would have two guys on paint and body, and one on interior but if any single one of those guys takes off you're screwed. You'd have to almost double the size of any shop for a body shop with a quality spray booth, and another area for upholstery.

Currently we do chassis fabrication, all sheetmetal work, chassis plumbing, wiring, pre-assembly, final assembly, getting a car running and driving, mechanical work and tuning in house. We are equipped for CNC machining, 3d scanning and 3d printing. But we still have to leave bodywork, paint, and upholstery to outside shops. Engines are almost always crate engines and they need to be. We have a car that came in with a 348/409 that needed a rebuild...shipped the long block to a "specialist", it came back, we got it running to break in the cam and had multiple lifter failure. Not the fault of the builder necessarily but it still meant pulling the engine back out and sending it back and waiting again. It would be far more cohesive and efficient to coordinate everything under one roof, but the expense to make that step is pretty large.

 

5window, "if you have a roof over your head, food on the table, clothes to wear, a career that you like, hobbies you enjoy and someone who loves yo, it's you" - this is the truest quote in the thread Mate.

 

Either you didn’t

Do you recall in the early 2000’s maybe late ‘90’s some governor, what ever from somewhere saying “we don’t need to benefit those in Californians living their 250k mansions.”
Lol.
In ‘95 I bought a 1107 square foot house in Fremont for 192k.
I guess I should have stepped up with another 50k and got the mansion!

 

Thank you. You just described my last 20 hours on my project. But the process is all the fun, isn’t it?

 

To me it's not the 250k comment. Recently a nice all steel 34 Ford sold here for less than they are asking for the kit car shown here. There is a really nice historical 34 Ford listed for close to the same money.

It's not what this car would cost for someone else to build but why would you spend the money they want for a glass car when you can get a real nice real car for the same money.

 

Going into my last year of high school back in 1968, I pick up a 1955 Chevy two door sedan for a 100 bucks, 6 cylinder, 3 speed. The two front caps were rusted out and secured by duck tape of some sort. I got new caps and really took my time to rivet them on. Took the car to a body shop just to have them welded them on, no body work. 100 bucks a cap was the price I was given. Everyone at the gas station, including some customers figured I was a big spender. Went to the Chevy garage for something for the gas station and just happen to asked if they still stock front fenders for a 1955 Chevy. Did not stock them but could get them for 60 bucks each. So I order a set. Now I was in the upper league of big spenders, buying 120 dollars worth of fenders for a 100 buck old car. My work mates and customers were now asking the boss if he was paying me to much. End of the story is that I sold my old front fenders to the body shop were I got the first estimate for welding on the caps but ended up putting 4K into that 100 dollar Chevy before it was completed. I say let them spend their money, who knows maybe they will drop by your garage and offer you 10K for your 100 dollar car.

 

especially after reading all the posts, I'm so glad I'm not a perfectionist...these "perfect" builds are too nice to ever put them on the street, true works of art...gotta go now, gotta polish my tires.

thanks for all the posts, very interesting.

 

There was a local guy that owned a pretty large tune up/general repair shop that had a couple of cars. The Deuce Tudor was very nice but at the Nats, or even a local event a family member or two was always stationed nearby to watch the car. The car was purchased, not that there’s anything wrong with that, in fact I bought my Fordor. Anyway, to me it’s too much of a bother and no fun to have to stand guard.
The next car he bought was a big time West coast show winner. A rod shop used to have gatherings at the shop on Saturday mornings so he asked this guy to bring the roadster over.
Uh, I don’t drive it on the street. OK, trailer it, unload at the far end of the industrial area and drive on in, nobody will know. Can’t, your drive way is kinda steep, I’m not sure I could get in.
Different strokes…. Who are we to judge what someone else does, it’s their money.

 

Nope

 

the first line in the ad says "built in San Francisco by Roy Brizio Hot Rods at a cost of $250,000"

 

1934 FORD 3-Window “The American Baddass” Coupe

· Built by Award Winning Roy Brizio Hot Rods in San Francisco, California in 1998 by Brizio Employee Dan Aguirre. Brizio’s Shop has 3 Oakland Grand National Roadster Show and 3 Hot Rod Magazine Covers to his credit. Brizio has built cars for Eric Clapton. This particular car was originally constructed for Kid Rock to be used in his American Badass Video. Sold to Christopher Allen Edwards of Eureka California in 2005.

o $190,000+ no-expense spared build in 1998 ($250,000 to build today by Brizio)

 

City: Morris

State: Illinois
Price: 75000
1934 FORD 3-Window “The American Baddass” Coupe

· Built by Award Winning Roy Brizio Hot Rods in San Francisco, California in 1998 by Brizio Employee Dan Aguirre. Brizio’s Shop has 3 Oakland Grand National Roadster Show and 3 Hot Rod Magazine Covers to his credit. Brizio has built cars for Eric Clapton. This particular car was originally constructed for Kid Rock to be used in his American Badass Video. Sold to Christopher Allen Edwards of Eureka California in 2005.

o $190,000+ no-expense spared build in 1998 ($250,000 to build today by Brizio)

mikethewheelieking
ALLIANCE MEMBER
from USA

 

It's funny I was just showing photos of my build to the purchasing manager at work photos of my vintage stockcar build. (She wanted to know what I was doing with all the 1.75 D.O.M.)

She asked, "Why don't you build cars for a living?"

I told her "I have about five hours the steering arm and about fifteen hours in the spring mounts. At a $100.00 an hour that's $2,000. It is very difficult to get people to pay that kind of money for parts that don't make the car go up and down the road."

 

There just isn't any profit in it, unless you are lucky enough to have customers with unlimited funds, and operate where overhead is dirt cheap.

My shop is just B2B CNC now. I cater to just a small handful of car customers with deep pockets.

 

Lots of things here don't pass the smell test. Was it built by Brizio's shop or Aguirre? Shop-built cars aren't normally credited to an individual. All of the Brizio factoids appear to be added to reinforce a provenance it may not have.
I watched the Kid Rock video (four minutes I'll never get back...). The car doesn't appear in it and doesn't fit in the video, at least as it was produced. (They wreck an early 70s Cadillac convertible instead.)
A $190k shop bill in 1998 would be over $300k today. Oddly, the Kid Rock and Brizio connections are not mentioned in his RacingJunk ad. The HAMB ad appears to be a slightly edited cut & paste from a DuPont Registry ad. The car doesn't appear on Brizio's website, but that isn't surprising given a 1998 build date.
The Craigslist ad appears to be the source of the alleged $250k original price. Amusingly, the CL ad says "no help needed to sell"...
Looks like a Dolphin to me. (You had to watch TV in the mid-60s to get the reference...)

 

The racing junk ad says it was built in 2008 rather than 1998

1934 Ford "AMERICAN BADASS" Coupe. 24 Bolt Supercharged, fuel injected, C4 auto trans, AC, Power Windows, Red English leather seats, Suicide doors, rumble seat, Blue Tooth w/amp & sub. Lincoln Versailles rear with 2.70 gears. 4-Wheel disc brakes. Drive anywhere! Cost $190,000 to build in 2008 $ (now $250,000 to build). $90,000. Trades for road race, super cars or '70's muscle cars possible.

 

I was at the Riddler Show in 2002 when Foose Grand master won the Riddler. I asked the owner of the car if it really cost a million dollars to build and he said "no it only cost $850,000

 

Pocket change for some.

 

I know a guy who pays the builder of his car $100 an hour to pick up and take his car to shows around the country and show it. Of course, the owner goes along with.

 

I love capitalism

 

One point I haven’t seen mentioned is the big problem those rich guys have! That is taxes! Believe it or not if you make big bucks, it is a problem keeping your money! Income taxes for those guys are a BIG problem! They actually have to hire people to keep their money! ( wished I had that problem! ) . So you buy a $250,000 car, put it in shows as belonging to your corporation, for advertising! Bam, that car just cost you $125,000! Chump change!







Bones