Paint Your Used Mustang Or Other Classic Car on a Budget

How to Paint your Mustang or other Classic Car on a budget

Can you get a good paint job from a low buck paint shop? Yes! Professional paint pros and high dollar restorers may scoff, but it's very possible to get a good looking, long lasting paint job from a discount paint shop like Earl Scheib or Maaco. It's not appropriate for every car. I wouldn't hand them the keys to my Shelby GT500 or '53 Corvette, but for those on a budget it's a very good option. The key to a successful budget paint job is to prep the car yourself. Leave nothing to the shop except actually laying down the paint. (note: For purposes of discussion we'll use a classic Mustang as the example, but this process holds true to really any older car)

Analyze your existing paint

The first step before determining if a budget paint job will work on your Mustang is to assess the current condition of the paint. In many cases you can prep and paint directly over an existing paint job, but only if it's in solid shape.

Look for any signs of cracking, crazing, bubbling or peeling. This indicates that there's a problem with the existing paint and it's not adhering properly to the layer underneath. If this is the case you'll need to sand through any existing layers of paint, down to solid, stable paint or primer. In some cases you'll need to get all the way down to bare metal, but doing so increases your labor and costs.
Also, when checking the paint, be realistic and don't ignore areas just for the sake of convenience. It will cost you more in time and money later. Typically if one area of the paint is cracked or peeling, then the paint on the entire car is suspect. Maybe the rest of the car just hasn't quite reached that point of decay, but it will shortly. So if you only fix areas that look bad, you'll likely find that you wasted a paint job when the other areas start to crack or peel in a year or two.
On the other hand, in some cases there are legitimate reasons for one area to be bad even if the rest of the paint is solid. If poor body work or rust repair was done in the past then maybe just that section of paint will need to be removed.