For what it's worth, I went over the photos with my Hagerty insurance agent today and got an email response from the dealer. As I figured, they are asking $25K for the car. Hagerty says they wouldn't insure it for more than $15K declared value and that it is worth around $12K largely due to the chassis/suspension/engine/trans/undercarriage being so rough and needing blasting and paint, the door and trunk jambs needing painting, and the engine compartment needing painting. It would be a great foundation for me to restore since I'm looking for one, but nowhere near $25K.

Here's a photo of the undercarriage:

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Hagerty appraised it as a Savoy, not as a Belvedere. I approach the valuation from a different perspective, although your points about the engine/trans are certainly valid. Paint and body are far more expensive than engine and tranmission. While I worked in an autobody shop doing body work and moving up to painting, so I can do the work myself, paying a shop take the chassis, suspension, engine/trans, and body underside down to paintable metal, paint, and reinstall going through the suspension would be an easy $15K in many parts of the country at current labor and material rates. Then there's the cost of having the shop jamb the car and repaint the engine compartment, so tack on a couple more grand. An engine and transmission rebuild won't cost anywhere near as much as addressing the chassis/suspension/paint.

56D500boy - 2022-01-25 12:33 AM

Powerflite - 2022-01-24 11:35 AM I think it looks a lot better than having someone bomb it with a spray can, which is what most of them look like.

Sometimes (but not that Savoy), people don't want to spend the $15K to get a paint job done, so they spray bomb every panel on the car and eventually wet sand and polish it. Just sayin' (But the Savoy in question is has an excellent (appearing)) paint job) Example car (work in progress - every panel spray bombed but not yet wet sanded and polished):

That isn't anywhere near an "excellent" $15K paint job. Just looking at it from ten feet away, it is a blow-and-go paint job that I would question the prep. Up close is probably rough. They didn't jamb the car which is an immediate give-away of a cheaper job. They didn't remove the fenders, hood, and decklid and shoot them individually to ensure edge coverage, evident from the rubber bumpers and inner fender panels with overspary. From the overspary and lack of care, they likely didn't remove all the trim and instead masked around some of it such as door handles, grille, taillights, etc. Worst of all, and this is a cardinal sin of auto paint a first-week apprentice learns, they didn't finish the body paint into the bottom of the rockers and simply stopped where the rocker starts to radius horizontal. The rockers will begin flaking quickly with road use. It's likely a $6K single-stage paint job slapped on and new seat covers to ask the $25K trying to fool people into thinking it's a $15K base-coat clear-coat paint job and quality restoration. Their plan is evidently working, so good for them.

As for the photo you posted of the blue car claiming it is a spray can job, that looks to me like at least the blues have a flattening agent added to the clear to make satin--a common technique for suede paint jobs that I've done many times for customers. The white top looks a little glossier, but that could be the lighting or they used gloss clear on the top for differing texture. I see no streaks, changing value or texture, uneven pattern, runs, etc. that suggest it is spray can. It actually looks like a clean satin base-coat clear-coat paint job from that one photo.

WOW!  I've heard of rattle can paint jobs before, but never seen one this good.  AMAZING!  And congratulations!  That ought to inspire folks with time on their hands to try it.

Your garage looks like mine - 15 sizes too small.   

First, your paint job looks like a suede base-coat clear-coat from the one original photo, and this is coming from a painter, so nice job on the rattle-can job being uniform. I read your post in a more negative light since we were discussing the Savoy like you were saying at least this Savoy paint job doesn’t look like this rattle-can job. Once you have your paint sanded and buffed, it may very well be a higher quality job than the Savoy, especially if you shot everything off the car; I assume you at least prepped and painted the underside of the rockers.

I do see the thread as trashing the $25K Savoy. As I said, I think it's a great baseline for a more thorough restoration, but not at the asking price. I'm taking away from the thread hearing how other people determine value, discuss what to look out for when purchasing a car, and maybe some people may take away some points I've made. The consensus in the thread from those discussing the car is that this car is heavily overpriced, and people have been discussing why. That's not trashing the car but beneficial discussion as far as I’m concerned.