The body shop has it now

[philbar73]

It has taken a long time to weld up all the rusty parts and put the car together. I went to the body shop to see, Carl the owner works on and inspects all the work. I'm realy excited....Check out the other car in the picture. Thats a $125,000.00 Nissan GT-R.

Edited October 28, 2010 by philbar73

[JonnyRock]

Are you going the restored route, or resto-mod?

$125k is 45k above the GT-R's MSRP. Methinks he exaggerated the value to you. That one looks bone-stock.

[Frankensteinz2]

Did you have a professional do the welding and fix the panels or did you do it yourself?

[philbar73]

I cut and fit some of the metal but a professional did all the welding. I’m good at a lot of things but I'm not a body man. The car is mostly stock. I couldn't get the body panels to line up. They have it lined up straight as an arrow. The price of the GT-R could have been overstated .

I replaced all the rubber and cleaned and painted everything. It has been almost 4 years to rebuild the drive train and suspension and fix all the rust. There were allot of stuck rusty parts. There is no rust now… I did all the work my self except the welding and now the finnish body work.

I hope to have it on the road this spring.. I've had the car for over 30 years. I took it off the road in 1984 when I had my first Kid. It has been run once a year. The Kids are big now and I finaly have time and a little money for the old girl.

Edited October 28, 2010 by philbar73

[philbar73]

To give an idea where I started 4 years ago. Before and after

Edited October 29, 2010 by philbar73

[spitz17]

Keep up the work! He probably did not overstate the GT-R, just paid that crazy mark up amount when it was first released

[philbar73]

I went back and ask and that’s exactly what I was told. There were not many around so the dealers were getting whatever they wanted at that time.

[gogriz91]

I saw a Spec-V on a showroom floor in the UAE, twice the price of a stock GT-R, $125,000 must be the going rate?

[philbar73]

Today the car is going to get a coat of special primer "Rust Defender" Carl the owner of the body shop ask me to come down and help mask and block out the primer when its ready. The primer has a thick build so when you sand it out you can make it flat without a ton of plastic. It is also supposed to prevent rust from showing up later. I will post a picture or two from the paint booth.

[philbar73]

I don’t think I would have started to work on it without encouragement from Carl so I had to take a picture of Carl in front of his shop. We were able to get the primer on the hood, roof and hatch. He put almost a gallon of primer on, most will be sanded off. He didn't like the way the sides came out and is sending it back for more work, he’s a perfectionist... Looked good to me...thank you Carl. It will sit in the paint booth until Tuesday at an elevated temperature to cure the primer. I'm hoping the car will be ready for paint in a week or two. I drove it out of the front and around the back to the paint booth. They took off the muffler to clean up the bottom corner so it was loud. The only time I drove it (in the last 26 years) is when I moved it out of the tent on the side of the house where it has been being worked on for 4 years to the front of my house so they could take it to the body shop. That was 25 feet. The few hundred feet moving around at the body shop was a lot of fun. I’m smiling….

Edited October 30, 2010 by philbar73

[philbar73]

It is wet sanded.... Cant wait, should have paint soon....Carl the owner told me he normally will not take restorations and only helps preferred customers with this type of work. He told me he could fix a number of wrecks in the same time it takes to fix one old car so it’s hard to make money on restoration. I sent him a few people over the years so I’m a preferred customer. I guess I got lucky. I’m very happy.

[mlaw7]

It's a great feeling, enjoy the ride!!! And it will be so sweet when she's done!

It's now been almost one year since the restoration of my burgundy '78 coupe was completed, and the thrill is still there. Every day.

Driving her to work this morning with the windows down, heater cranked and radio rockin' was awesome. Can't think of a better way to start the day. It was worth every drop of blood, sweat and tears - not to mention every cent.

Something to look forward to.

Keep those pictures coming!