i inherited my uncles 70 challenger and i am going to need to do the same things your doing in this series. my question is, i can figure out what the parts roughly are going to cost to replace the metal from a source like year one. how much for the media blasting? what does a shop that does restorations like this charge for their labor and how much do you think it would cost in labor and parts to get as far as you guys have got in the dec 08 issue?  

TK, Media blasting could vary, but roughly speaking, I would guess between $700 - $1,200 depending on how "clean" you want everything. As far as resto shop labor costs, again it varies. I would guess that a good resto shop would cost roughly $75.00 - $90.00 an hour. I really wish I could give you a ballpark figure about what it would cost to get as far as our Big Challenge (affectionately dubbed Project Tetanus Shot at the office) is in the December issue, but after I got started, I really didn't WANT to keep track of the hours involved.  

lets say worst case, 90.00 an hour. do you think your at 3 weeks (40hrs./week) yet? if so, then thats 10 grand without paint yet. i better hit the lotto or learn how to weld. unless you have some better news???  

TK, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I can say that we are definitely at three weeks--if not a little more.