I have $9000 into my car and hundreds of hours of time. It was all worth it. If you start with a very clean and rust free body that is straight as an arrow, you will save yourself about a hundred hours right there! I paid $600 for my car and it needed 1/4's, outer wheel houses and trunk to 1/4 filler panels. it also needed two new fenders and doors, cuz it had been previously repainted and there was filler all over! I was lucky that the floor boards and trunk were good. I did my frame off the hard way, I used a grinder with a wire wheel on the underside of the car and on the entire frame! that all took 50 hrs of work right there. I would suggest using a sandblaster to clean the frame and to do the firewall and underside of the car. I would also suggest buying all the bolt kits that you can, cuz I spent about 30-40 hours just cleaning the original bolts and some are still in rough shape. I got a deal on my paint job. A friend and I did all the body work and priming and blocksanding ourselves. Then I used enamel on the door jams, window frames, under the trunk lid and all the areas that are not exposed to the outside. Then I called the local Chrysler dealership and they painted it with base/clear for $650!! That included materials and it was sprayed in their nice down draft booth! Or up draft, I can't remember the direction of the air flow. But, if you take it to someone like that and they have to take the doors off to paint the jams and they have to do sanding, then you will spend $1500-2500! The finish is show quality, but I had them put on exta layers of clear, so now it is time to ultra-fine it to a mirror finish! There really is no other way to go. The paint job really is the biggest decision on the car, so don't cut yourself short and put a cheap paint job on a nice frame off restored car.