failing body shop schedule

Yours is a common story, when I redid the 83 D150 it was in body shop hell for almost 2 years. And I delivered to that shop the truck body on the frame that was 100% stripped. The owner got it about 1/2 done then quit working on it. That was a shop that specialized in car crash repair. The owner figured out he could make money quicker by fixing minor wrecks than by doing my longer term project. I ended up going in the body shop and paying his workers myself to finish it. That body shop owner was an ***. Poor communication skills, never followed through. The shop itself was an inefficient mess, stuff everywhere, no organization.
Got lucky on the shop I chose for the 68 Barracuda. It is a shop that does classic Car restorations only and is run like a real business. He got me scheduled in the work done and out. They did good work. The shop manager communicated well with me and from walking through the shop it was organized and they really looked efficient. My only complaint is that being my car I wanted to go in and see the progress periodically. The shop manager shut that down to once a month and then only for a few minutes. He said it slowed the workers down and he said ‘he had an interest like I had an interest in getting the car done, so it would be best to stay out of the way’. I could understand that, and I had looked at projects in that shop enough to believe they knew what they were doing.
So my advice is, keep looking, focus on shops that do restoration only and find a shop with a manager that is willing to communicate with you.