Pinkee's may eventually figure out a couple reasons for why they lost this project....
#1 - When you provide detailed billings, and every single item - page after page of work items - they're all "magically" 10 hours per item....
Funny.... Some of these guys must think the customer was born last night. I've personally done ALL of the work to build a car - many times over - in the last 40 years.... and have had 3 high end cars professionally built. No work - ever - takes exactly 10 hours. End of story. I don't care what the explanation could be.
****** Just so people understand***** a builder is never BILLING ME..... they are always working off of a cash deposit that is paid IN ADVANCE -- usually 20 to 25 grand at a time (more if the project is just getting started - so they can order stuff and have it ready to go). I understand the needs of small business... cash is king... I expect my projects to become "important" to the builder. I'm the kind of customer any shop should want to have. I understand the process... I know exactly what I want to have built.... and I pay up front. What more is there a guy could do?
#2 - Once again billing issues.... Funny that all the "freight" items are in even dollars. Never a $197.65 --- nope! $200..... Not a $10.95..... that turns into a $20
Well of course it did. LOL
#3 - All that metalwork -- and there's still patch panels left to do in the cab area? WTF.... That seems real efficient - floors are out - firewall is out - corners of the cab are cut and replaced.... and the cab is mounted on the chassis - fenders mounted - doors mounted - hood mounted - bed mounted - and there's still holes in the cab..... YEAH NO! Just stupid.
I've learned a few things when dealing with these shops.... #1 -- when you become suspicious or just plain unhappy with the work - or the speed of the project etc -- MOVE IT!! I should have pulled the Frisbee '32 project about 2 months after starting it. I disliked the guy and his shop manager from the start - not pulling it was a big mistake.
The best builder in the universe so far? Brizio. They tell you "about" what the job is going to be - they were so close..... Quote was "$250 to $275+ depending on all the choices" - actual $283. Car was virtually perfection. There were many upgrades that weren't included in the initial cost discussions (which were broad brush stroke discussions). The car was finished in MONTHS (18ish) not years.....
I didn't have him build this truck - because I didn't want a "300k" daily driver pickup truck. Pinkees labor rate is $50 an hour - Roy's is $105 - (one is in expensive SF bay area - one is in Colorado)..... when you just factor the hours to build stuff like this ----- 1500 ish ----- that labor rate is a big swing factor. But I've said it here before, many times. If the "expensive guy" bills you one hour for something and the "cheap guy" bills you 4 or 5 hours for the same thing.... now who is "expensive"? I remember looking at the labor billing for the exhaust system on the '33 (Brizio)... it was $800 TOTAL.... I've paid that and more for "exhaust shop" work on normal cars! Pinkees billing might have looked more like -- 10 hours for exhaust tips -- 10 hours for cutting exhaust -- 10 hours for welding exhaust tips -- 10 hours for mounting exhaust -- 10 hours for removing and checking exhaust clearances.....
We'll see how this next shop does. So far - the conversations with the shop foreman have been spot on! The ideas of what should be done from here - right on the money. We'll see if performance is on par with the "talk". After building these cars all my life - I'm pretty hard to BS. The work "flow" --- What it takes -- yeah.... I understand all that really well. The talk and the fact - that's where we get down to the nitty gritty.