Hi guys. I was a little bored today and I decided to price up what it would cost to build a 53 F100. I started this little project only with a second hand cab because know one has a reproduction Ford Cab on the market yet. Everything else will be purchased brand new. I used LMC trucks for all of my panels, bed and odds and ends. I used Fatman Fab for the reproduction chassis ( a complete roller ). The final price will include the truck to be painted by oneself ( not a panel shop ) and the motor and transmission and tyres and rims will not be included. I know you can source reproduction parts cheaper at other venders. But the excercise was easier to do from one major supplier. Here is the total cost of the brand new truck. $20,560.00USD. Our hobby is getting expensive these days. Cheers

 

Wow, actually I would have guessed much higher buying all the parts new...??
That's neat.

 

If you switched to a '56 you could buy a fiberglass cab from Pro's Pick for $6600.00.



Fiberglass Cabs

The cost for reproduction parts isn't bad at all if you compare prices to the same parts for our daily drivers. For example I had a '96 Dodge truck ten year ago. I broke the back taillight and a new one from the dealer cost $65, it was just a piece of plastic that took two minutes to make, nothing to it, just a few pieces of injected plastic. Just before I bought the light my wife bought reproduction taillights for my panel truck. These are made of four pieces of cast metal, which are chrome plated along with some small sheet metal pieces and included a glass lens, light bulb and socket. They cost $65 apiece. There's a lot more that went into the panel truck's lights than the Dodge's but they cost the same. Go to the junkyard to price a fender for your daily driver, without even blinking they'll tell you $300 "for a good one" or go to a dealer for a new one, I'll bet you won't pay less than $400. You can buy a reproduction fender for your '53-56 for $400, sure kind of pricy but it has twice the metal and more complex stampings than the little piece of tin that's call a fender on your daily driver. You also have to remember that your daily driver will probably need a half dozen other parts for the parts which will add another 25-50% to the cost.

 

You also have to remember that most of the parts available to "make" a repro truck are definitely not OEM quality. I'm also surprised it's that cheap, would have guessed $30k+

 

Ross,

Although the repro parts aren't OEM quality I would rather have a nice clean metal that I have to work a little than a piece of rust junk that I have to patch together. It would have been nice if I could have bought repro fenders for my trucks instead of working on the rusty junk I had.

I have also seen parts from dealers that weren't all that good of quality either.

 

If you consider your time is worth anything, our trucks that we are building would likely cost nearly the same amount "all in".

Here's a video I posted the link to a while back. It's about building a new '56 Ford truck.

YouTube - 1956 Ford F100 Pickup "Mail Order F100"

 

The experiment included all brand new reproduction sheet metal. LMC even have a hood now at $999.95. Though suprisingly they didn't have a bed package, so you had to buy the bed all in pieces, it even included a oak bed floor in the price. New Glass for the front and rear. The Fatman chassis was $7,700 for the complete roller, it had a mustang 11 front on it and a 9" rear. I thought it wasn't a bad price, though when it comes to engine & transmission and tyres and rims it could blow the price of the 30K mark. Anyway cheers

 

Aw, c'mon, Bob!! You wouldn't have bought repops if they were a buck!! Here's what you said in my "patch panel" thread...

We all know you, you can't fool us!!



R

 

Aussie 53 , there is a guy in australia that is reproducing 53 - 55 cabs in fiberglass ,if you need one i'll pass on his info.

 

You have to add in your time it takes to build the truck!

 

Yep...dont forget what labor costs if you hve to pay anyone for some or all of your build...add up the time you spend doing it yourself and pretend to pay yourself a MODEST $50.00\hour....now what kind of money are you talking about?!
Ed

 

Our project are not cheep, and will cost more down the road

 

The calculated cost for the build is for the owner to do all the work himself. So we do not have to out source work for the pickup. If we had to send the truck to various tradespeople then the cost would certainly rise. I think it would be feasible to build a truck with all brand new goodies for 30KUSD. That would be a complete turn key F100.