Twelve specialists’ invoices taught us this sheet. A restoration quote is not a price, it is a set of assumptions — and the gap between the two cheapest quotes on our desk was £11,400 for the same car, driven almost entirely by what each shop assumed the other one would do.
Read the metalwork line first. “Weld as required” is where budgets go to die; insist on hours or panels, not adjectives. Then the paint: a quote that prices spraying without strip-down is quoting a different job. Parts should be split into supply and fit, with a markup percentage printed rather than implied — 10 and 25 per cent are both normal, and they are not the same quote.
Finally, the payment schedule is the honesty test. Front-loaded quotes — half before the car is in the shop — put all the risk on you. The pattern the trade respects is a deposit, then staged payments against agreed milestones, with the photographic record included. A specialist who resists that structure has told you something useful before picking up a wrench.
