That's a pretty wide open question. A restored collector car should last pretty much forever if it's cared for. Is the car stored indoors? How often is it used? Where do you live (is there a lot of hot sun that will bake and fade the finish?) How careful are you when parking in parking lots, to avoid door scratches and dings? What kind of paint was used? What color is it? Etc., etc.
Painted the Chevy in my Avatar in 1997 BCC Acme ( Sherwin Williams now ) Drove it for 13 years over 100K miles afterwards (at least 7 times to B'ville) It wasn't a garage or trailer Queen and spent most nites when home in a carport Sold it and besides the few bug or rock dings it was still looking and adhering good First time ever shooting BCC... ( shocker as the box of tinted primer, reducer, catalyst, and paint was $ 1,000 bux )
My 40 ford was painted with enamel in 1965 and while not perfect, it looks damned good for 60 year old paint. always kept indoors and at least for as long as I have owned it (almost 20 years) not used in the rain and waxed every spring
My impala was painted Urethane BCCC in 1995 and I have put about 60,000 miles on it since then. it has just 2 tiny chips and I have taken it on a bunch of 1000 mile trips. 30 year old paint and still looks fantastic. I have never driven it on a gravel road and I wouldn't drive any of my cars on the salt at bonneville if you held a gun to my head
I bought my 57 Thunderbird in 1996 with a nice paint job. I tracked down the guy who did the paint and body work and he told me he did it in 1984. While I had the car, it was garage kept, but I drove it every chance I got. I sold it in 2023 and saw it at a car show a year later. It still looked good.
Depends on; Indoor or outdoor storage, Miles driven, Weather (acid rain, hail, 110 agree sun, etc), Paint quality, Body work quality, Care and maintenance, Etc how long is a string?
As others said there are a lot of factors including what is under the paint. Most paint that I have seen fail tends to go back to miss matched materials, improper paint prep or issues when it was applied. A friend of mine who was an excellent painter painted one local guy s "restored" car 3 times over a 30 year period simply because the guy wore the pain through polishing it. John said he told the guy time and time again that he didn't have to polish the car but once or so a year but he would polish it every other week and then wax it just because he liked to polish it. The same brand an type of paint that he put on another local car around the same time as that one still looked great 30 years later but that car did stay indoors all the time and was a special occasion car that was in the local parade a number of times and would get driven on some short trips. I don't remember what the owner's daily driver was but he would take the "classic" on day trips up to Mt Rainier national park or off to a few favorite day trip spots rather than the daily. Far as I know it was never entered in a car show when he owned it and it disappeared from the area 20 or so years ago. That one always looked as good as it did the day John painted it but may have been waxed once or twice a year and I don't think it spent many nights when it wasn't under cover.
To expand some: the paint materials are a large factor. Whether it's stored indoors is a large factor. When you ask "how long does it last", what are you referring to? If you drive them, pits and scratches will happen. There's a reason why people use good paint materials rather than the old alkyld enamel these days. And it should be added: the painter is a huge part of the equation. People that are particular and know what they are doing, do better work with better results. One thing about painting, even the best have days when everything goes wrong. Such is the life of painting.
I've seen them last six months stored indoors and 40 years outside driven often. Depends on prep, paint quality, and who does it. In my experience restoration shop paint jobs are usually about as dependable as a maaco paint job. Meaning they're not durable lol. I'm guessing most restoration shops assume they're fixing a car that won't be driven often and aren't worried as much about durability as they are looks. Usually a coat of filler over the entire car
I've heard that if a car is blasted with soda and not cleaned correctly, duct tape won't even stick to it. And primer and paint don't do much better. Did your paint fall off? Did your paint and primer fall off?
life span suggest there is a point in which it is "dead". "Dead" can be different for one person to another. Aged paint on some vehicles looks great. as mentioned storage and use are the big factor, Sears weather beater house paint would look like when it was applied for years if the car doesn't get used and stored correctly. The top of the line polyurethane could last minutes on an off road racer.
Cheapest paint I could find, $30 a gallon, parked outside all year around, waxed once a year, paint applied by a guy that knew nothing about painting a car, and driven 40,000 miles (spring, summer, & fall, parked during winter), the paint started chipping and fading after 3 years, by the 5th year it was looking pretty sad. Then another gallon of body work, another $30 gallon of paint, and another 5 years and 40,000 more miles (spring, summer, & fall, parked during the winter), showed pretty much the same result. Then another round of body work, acrylic enamel paint applied by a "professional", waxed once (maybe 2x) a year, parked outside all year around, but not driven nearly as much. Seven years later, the paint is fading, has some chips, the bad body work is starting to show up, but over all, the car still looks pretty good when its cleaned up. My average on this one car, 3-7 years.
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