Paint & Body Tips & Tech in the April 2017 Issue of Muscle Car Review

The April 2017 issue of Muscle Car Review, with a 1970 Ford Torino GT on the cover, asked three respected restorers, Bob Perkins, Jason White, and Ken Maisano of MASCAR Classics, how to hire a painter and keep a project out of paint shop purgatory. Their advice covers vetting a shop, getting timelines in writing, sorting parts before the car arrives, and what owners owe the shop in return. Read on to find out how the finishers work.

Every muscle car owner knows someone whose car went into a paint shop and simply never came out, at least not in the same year. The deposit clears, the car disappears under a cover in the corner, and every phone call brings a new reason why the primer is not on yet. The April 2017 issue of Muscle Car Review, with a 1970 Ford Torino GT on the cover, went after that problem directly by asking three restorers who actually finish cars how an owner should pick a painter and manage the job. Their answers were blunt, practical, and in a few places not what most people expect. What do the shops that hit deadlines do differently?

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Three Restorers, No Sales Pitch

The magazine interviewed Bob Perkins of Bob Perkins Restorations, Jason White of Jason White Restorations, and Ken Maisano of MASCAR Classics. These are not random body shop owners looking for a mention. Each runs a restoration business with a reputation built on finished, judged cars, and each has spent decades watching owners make the same avoidable mistakes when handing over a project. The value of the interview is that it comes from the shop side of the counter, where the reasons cars stall are visible long before the customer notices.

Why Cars Enter Paint Shop Purgatory

The horror stories nearly always trace back to the same causes. A shop takes on more work than it can schedule, a deposit gets spent on other jobs, an owner keeps changing the scope, or the car turns out to need far more metalwork than anyone estimated when it was covered in old paint. None of those are exotic problems, which is exactly why the restorers’ advice focuses on the conversation before the car arrives. A clear agreement about what is being done, in what order, and when, prevents most of the misery that follows.

Hire the Painter, Not the Price

A recurring theme from restorers is that the lowest quote is the most expensive one if the car never gets done. A painter with a long waiting list and a higher rate is usually busy because the work holds up. Owners are urged to look at cars the shop finished several years ago, not just the fresh ones on the website, since the real test of a paint job is how it looks after a few summers. A shop proud of its older work will happily point you to the owners, and one that dodges the question has told you what you need to know.

Visit While a Car Is in Progress

Glossy photos of a finished car prove almost nothing about process. The better move is to visit the shop and ask to see a car currently in bodywork or primer. That is where the standards show: whether panels are blocked straight, whether gaps are being fitted before paint rather than after, and whether the car is protected from dust and damage while it waits. A shop that keeps a clean, organized floor with cars visibly moving through stages is a shop that will keep yours moving too.

Get the Timeline in Writing

The single most repeated piece of advice from restoration professionals is to get a schedule and payment structure on paper before any money changes hands. Progress payments tied to completed stages, such as metalwork, primer, color, and reassembly, keep both sides honest. The owner is not funding someone else’s project, and the shop is not waiting on a customer who vanished. When the agreement spells out what happens if the car needs more repair than expected, the inevitable surprise under the old paint becomes a conversation rather than a standoff.

Ask About the Backlog

A good shop has a queue, and an honest one will tell you how long it is. What matters is whether the estimate matches reality. If a shop says three months and its lot has a dozen cars waiting, the math does not work. Restorers suggest asking how many cars are in the building, how many people work on them, and which stage the shop is strongest at. Some shops excel at metal and struggle with final assembly, and knowing that up front lets an owner plan to move the car rather than watch it sit.

Parts Sourcing Is Part of Paint

Paint jobs stall for reasons that have nothing to do with paint. A missing trim clip, a back-ordered reproduction panel, or a decision about whether to hunt NOS parts can idle a car for months. The restorers’ advice is to settle the parts strategy before the car goes in: what will be reused, what will be replaced with reproduction, and what the owner is willing to wait for in original form. On a Torino GT or any car with thinner aftermarket support than a Camaro or Mustang, that planning is the difference between a smooth job and a stalled one.

The Owner’s Side of the Bargain

Shops have their own horror stories, and most involve customers. Owners who change the color mid-job, who show up with a new list of upgrades every visit, or who stop paying when the car is half done are the reason many painters demand deposits and refuse open-ended projects. The advice cuts both ways: decide what you want before the car leaves your garage, communicate through one person, and pay on schedule. A shop that trusts its customer will prioritize that car when a scheduling conflict comes up, and that trust is earned.

Why Muscle Car Paint Is Its Own Discipline

Restoring a 1970 Torino, Chevelle, or Charger to a high standard involves details that a general collision shop does not deal with: factory-correct color matching, period-correct overspray patterns for judged cars, stripe placement to factory dimensions, and understanding how the original assembly plant applied paint in the first place. That knowledge is why owners seek out specialists like the three interviewed. A shop that has painted a dozen cars from the same era already knows the traps a first-timer will fall into on your car.

Six Months Versus Two Years

The difference between a muscle car back on the road in six months and one still buried in a corner two years later almost never comes down to talent. It comes down to the questions asked before the car was dropped off, the agreement that governed the work, and whether both sides held up their end. Muscle Car Review’s April 2017 feature is worth tracking down for that reason alone. The three restorers laid out a process, and any owner who follows it has a far better chance of seeing their car finished than one who picks a shop on a handshake.

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