There's a shoe box wagon running around here that has a $500 macco paint job on it that would knock your socks off!! The owner did all his own prep work, had the base coat shot, took it home air brushed the flames on in his garage and took it back for the clear coat... It's been published in several mags and gets lots of attention where ever it's parked.
Micky touches on it with restoration vrs rebuild but there is so much more too it. The orig question was "frame off" restoration so that means (IMO) the car taken apart and every piece cleaned, plated, polished or painted as well as making sure it's structurally like new. Every piece and part or as someone said already one old unrestored part mixed in with a bunch of like new ones will stand out like a sore thumb. Mind you, you will pay 3 times for the end results, once to take the part off the car, once to restor or bring it back to new and the third time to put it back on the car...
All that said if you are mechanically inclined you can see how you can reduce the overall costs by quite a bit... This being the supercar site that it is most of the time we are talking about high end collector cars and to spend $40,000 on a car worth $100000 or more doesn't shock and isn't out of place... To take your typical $10000 camaro project car and pour $30000 into a frame off there is going to be some sticker shock... There are much less spendy ways to have a very respectible, showable car... [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/
[/img]