Restoration Guide

Short answer: You can reach concours quality without shipping the whole car (and a blank check) to a big-name shop — the trick is to pay pros for what’s truly hard and do the research-driven parts yourself.

Below: how to plan the project, what it really costs, how to pick the shop for the work you hire out, and where to find the factory-correct details for the work you do yourself.

Plan Before You Wrench

Most stalled projects die in the planning stage, not the garage. Before the first bolt comes off, settle three things:

• Define your target. “Restored” means different things to different people — a reliable driver, a show car, or a concours-correct original are three different projects with three very different budgets. Write down which one you’re building and let every decision flow from that.
• Off-frame or rolling? A full off-frame (subframe-out) restoration gives the best result on a rusty or long-neglected car, but it multiplies cost, time, and the risk of a stalled project. A solid, running car is often better served by a rolling restoration done in stages — you keep driving it while you work.
• Budget a cushion. Plan on 10–20% beyond your estimate for what teardown reveals — hidden rust, missing hardware, and parts delays are the rule, not the exception (Coastline Restorations, 2026 cost guide).

The proven sequence: document everything with photos before and during disassembly → bag and label every fastener → structural metal and rust repair → body and paint → drivetrain and chassis → wiring and interior → final assembly and detailing. Fight the urge to jump ahead; paint before metal repair, or interior before wiring, means doing work twice.

What It Really Costs

Honest numbers, so nobody starts a project they can’t finish. As of 2026, restoration shops bill roughly $85–$150+ per hour, and typical full-restoration totals run about $20,000–$50,000 for a driver-quality build, $40,000–$120,000 for high-quality work, and $100,000+ for show-level, frame-off restorations (2026 industry figures). A professional concours restoration can absorb 4,000–5,000+ labor hours.

Two facts to internalize before you start (Hagerty):

• Unless the car is rare and high-value, you will probably not recoup a full professional restoration at sale time. Restore because you love the car.
• The DIY strategy on this page — you do the disassembly, research, and reassembly; professionals do metal and paint — is exactly where the big savings live, since labor is the largest line item.

Choosing a Body & Paint Shop

Since body and paint is the work you’ll hire out, picking the shop is the highest-stakes decision of the whole project. Distilled from Hagerty’s guides on choosing a shop and avoiding a rip-off:

• Find candidates by word of mouth — car club members, show judges, other Firebird owners (our forums are a good place to ask). Ask past customers whether the shop hit its timeline and estimate, and whether they’d go back.
• Visit the shop and look past the showroom. Organized parts storage, engaged employees, and in-house equipment are good signs. Dusty customer cars used as shelves, and parts from six projects mixed on one rack, are not.
• Get a written contract covering the exact work, quality standard, total price, payment schedule, start and completion dates, and confirmation the shop’s insurance covers your car while it’s there.
• Insist on itemized invoices (parts and labor, with descriptions — not just hour counts), and visit regularly. Never let more than a couple of weeks pass without seeing the car, and photograph progress every visit. Resistance to visits or vague billing are the two loudest red flags.

Getting the Details Right: Your Research Toolkit

Detailing is research, and these are the primary sources for 1967–69 Firebirds:

• PHS documentation for your VIN (PHS Automotive Services) — proves the car’s original equipment, so you restore what the car actually was.
• Factory literature: the Pontiac Service Manual, Fisher Body Service Manual, and Firebird Assembly Manual for your year — reprints from Firebird Central or National Parts Depot. The assembly manual’s line drawings answer most “how does this mount?” questions during reassembly.
• Club expertise: the Pontiac-Oakland Club International judges cars at its annual convention against factory-correct standards — judging sheets and members are a deep well of originality knowledge.
• Our own references: the year-specific technical pages, factory paint codes, and Body Tag Decoder on this site, plus unrestored original cars photographed at shows — the ultimate reference for factory-correct detail.

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