Duster Dennis
Active Member
Was wondering what AMD charges to install their sheetmetal. Anyone know why A-body isn't listed on their drop down menu, only E-B body?
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i don't know for sure, but i suspect AMD doesn't want to do A body restorations any longer. i shipped my 69 M-Code Cuda down to them in 2015 to install a complete underbody floor pan from the firewall back to the trunk along with two complete quarter panels. i also sent a complete body shell part's car to them for many of the unique parts they didn't have. they had my car for a little over a year and the final costs were a little over $11,000.00. i will say, however, that they did an absolute perfect and professional job on my car and the repairs cannot be told from factory original construction. since 2016, AMD has cut back on a number of A-body parts that they used to sell. there are a number of factors right now that are working to destroy the collector car hobby. just a few factors are: the covid madness; the election madness; overall U.S. economic uncertainty and unemployment; disruption of the parts supply chain from China and the general downturn of the muscle car sales/auction market. if you have been watching any Mecum or Barrett-Jackson auctions lately you will see that muscle car values have dropped substantially from where they were 5 years ago. and private sellers are selling their cars also for much less. a month ago, there was a beautiful, fully restored lime-light green 70 Cuda, 440 six pack, 4 speed that was almost as nice as anything Graveyard Carz produces. that car was on the Facebook Marketplace listed in Pittsburgh, PA for $40,000! you could NOT recreate that car for anything close to that amount of money! and that was one of those "holy grail" 70 Cuda E body's that everyone raves about! i talked to AMD's shop Manager a number of times when they were working on my car and if he's still there, he was a decent guy. i would call them and just ask if they are not working on A body cars any longer. tell them they were spoke highly of by Jim Coster of Pittsburgh, PA who had the M-Code 69 yellow Cuda fastback that they rebuilt. i'm sure they will remember my car, and probably me. over the course of our dealing, they found out i was a lawyer. but who knows, if you mention my name, maybe they will immediately hang up on you!
Did that $11,000 include the price of all of the panels and how much of the car did you have to gut for them to do those? repairs?
AMD and A body metal? All I know is that I was told by one of their long time distributors, that they build a new warehouse, only to find it was again not big enough. They choose to get rid of the last of some Mopar models metal that move slow and IF the dist. get enough orders for a certain panel (with deposit) when they get enough orders they would repop some more. He aid, AMD needs 100 orders before making a run of a certain part #. Just what I am told.
Funny but I keep getting emails from AMD shouting about a new Ford panel they just released.
I agree with Mr. Harvard, the price Mopar and musclecars in general have been way down especially at the major auctions. This has been a trend well before the China bug and the falling employment.
Funny but I keep getting emails from AMD shouting about a new Ford panel they just released.
I agree with Mr. Harvard, the price Mopar and musclecars in general have been way down especially at the major auctions. This has been a trend well before the China bug and the falling employment.
Duster Dennis
Active Member
My thinking was with AMD's singular focus on sheetmetal work, they should have it down to a science by now which would expedite the process and I would not have to endure taking it to a standard shop where your car sits for 4-6-12 months and collects dust. However with 12 month lead time this blows that theory out of the water. I still have a very attractive car with very minimal rust that was addressed in 1993 with period patch panels and repaint. My thinking was to get the back half replaced, quarters, trunk extension, trunk floor, wheel houses without taking my car down till I find a body shop that meets my expectations to perform the "standard" paint and body work stuff.
With that said replacing these panels on a A-body is essentially the same as other Mopar products and fundamental the same as F-body GM cars, with the $200 AMD black Friday coupon I was going to take advantage on some savings.
Your Cuda looks beautiful. But as i grow older I lose patients with shops that fiddle fart around since we are paying them good money. (I do not price shop) I have been involved with multiply restorations over the past 25 years and and my patients are in decline since I would rather enjoy my toy than have an empty garage bay for 12 months lol, which means I will look for additional toys during the process ;)
I can tell you I was at the Turkey Run that's held at Daytona Motor speedway every year the weekend proceeding Thanksgiving, I didn't see much of what looked a fire sale or reduction in pricing, I saw a mid-eighties K car (gross) for $4900 and 318 Barracudas and Challenger mascaraing as $80+ cars
I will call them tomorrow and see if i can speak with someone.
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Duster Dennis
Active Member
I have heard most of this before ^
Out of all the items in my cart only the quarters are out of stock, states they will not charge my CC till they are ready to ship so no deposit.
yes, the $11k was for everything, parts, labor, taxes, etc. but remember, that was in late 2016 i believe. the total work was: AMD driver and passenger floor pan; AMD 4 sp trans floor hump; install two complete AMD quarter panels; remove floor pan from donor car from under front buckets clear back to trunk floor section and weld into my M car. this included keeping all the rear section floor pan items in place like all seat and interior trim panels attachments, the inner wheel wells, and the vertical metal structure for the rear window crank mechanism; install a new AMD rear duel exhaust lower valance. i sent a completely bare body shell to AMD. here's a few pics of the donor car sent to AMD. the M car had a full drag car floor with large tubs. below the donor car pics is what they removed from the M car.
View attachment 1715640226
one thing i do want to say - i had a very hard time sending the blue car shell to AMD just to be cut up! that car came from Arizona and there was NO rust on it anywhere! just a little surface rust here and there. you almost could have hit that car with a little sandpaper, primed it and painted it the way it was. i kind of loved that blue car because it was so nice and if if it wasn't "giving its life" to save one of the very rare M-Code Cudas, i would have NEVER sent that Arizona car to be cut up! i have 4 of these cars and treat all of them and all the parts i have with a great deal of "respect."
Thanks Jim, I have many of AMD's A body panels for my '69 cuda except for the right rear quarter panel which they sold out of (lol, almost enough to build a complete car) that I was fortunate enough to grab before they stopped offering some things. I also have NOS front fenders, inner fenders as well as doors and most recently the rear dual exhaust splash pan. I'm not a body man so I have entertained the thought of bringing the car to AMD or whatever their facility name is but was unsure of how far down I need to disassemble the car. By the way, I know about your M code car which the previous owner(s) literally trashed before you purchased it. Sad you had to destroy that other car but it was for a good cause.
one thing that might persuade AMD to work on your car (as a "hated" A-body) is if you tell them that you do have all the parts to do the project. one of the things that i noted when my car started to take more time was that they were waiting for some parts - ironically, one of the quarter panels! naturally, AMD doesn't want a vehicle sitting in the shop taking up space and tools for a long time - they want to get these cars in and out quickly. like so many businesses, in the body shop world, time is money. you might also be aware that AMD isn't making the A-body front fender inner splash shields any longer. these come up now and again on the internet, but i don't think you can get reproduction versions from AMD any longer.
as to my M-code, i would love to hear the "back-story" on the car on a private message if you care to share. my involvement with the car was rather involved. i did 23 years in the Marines and then 2 in the Army finishing with a combat tour in Iraq 2005-06. when i got home, i was pretty messed up in the head and needed a "hobby" to focus on to get me "back to Earth." so i started my Barracuda collection. around 2011, the M car shows up on Ebay in its yellow paint and drag build offered by a guy living in Boston. the car has a 426 hemi in it and is an active drag car. i didn't want a drag car but a OEM street car and tried to buy the car without the hemi and all the other drag race prep. the guy had no interest in selling the car like that as just a stripped roller. so i lost the deal. fast forward 4 years and the same car shows up again on Ebay - this time it's in Bartlesville, Oklahoma owned by a guy that has a mopar race car shop. now the car has a 440 in it. i get in touch with this guy and offer the same "i just want to buy a roller with all the drag stuff removed" and he says "sure, no problem!" we come to a price that i think is reasonable for the value of the car and i do the deal. there were some additional complications that i won't go into, but we managed to finally get everything worked out. i then had the rolling car sent down to AMD in Georgia and they started working on it. so i've been "involved" with this car in one way or another over the last 8 years at least!
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