what sort of blemishes are you seeing, Adam? If it's rust, you'll need more
than a repaint. I'd suggest taking the car to Mike's Autobody, in Malden. He
gets his price, but knows what he's doing and has an excellent reputation in
the Boston area.

regards,
--
Mark Hald
'77 Carrera 3.0L
http://members.rennlist.com/hald

If the body is straight, there is no rust, and you are doing a partial
disassembly, then $8000 would get you an excellent paint job.
This is with windows, lights, trim, etc removed.  If you want the while body
shell done plan on $12-14K.  Also, make sure that any shop has
worked with Porsches, and knows what a Porsche owner expects.  Of course all
of this depends on the area in which you live,
whether you want bare metal respray, and many other factors.  There are some
really high profile shops where I live that won't
touch a Porsche because the owners a notoriously picky, myself included.  I
have seen some 3-5k paint jobs that were nice 20 footers.

    If you're getting a same-color repaint with no body issues (rust or
accident damage), anywhere from $2500+ is feasible. I'm getting a
respray done for under three grand in the same Guards Red. If you're
still using the car as a driver, and mine's a daily driver for 6-7
months a year, I can't see spending 60-80% of the car's value on a
paint job. That kind of money is for garage queens and concourse
competitors.
    Emanuel

If you want to get it done dirt-cheap, Maaco can actually be very good.
The quality depends a lot on the specific store, though.  I wouldn't
trust them to do the prep work, but if you take the emblems off and sand
it down, or just pay someone else to do it, Maaco can do a very good job
on the painting part.  Any shop you consider, I'd recommend stopping
there in the morning to see some "before" cars, and then stop back later
when the cars are done and see if you like the quality.

Heck, my brother had an old '70 VW Ghia, and another VW guy saw it and
said he just couldn't let it drive around with the original faded
paint.  So he painted it candy-apple red for like $150, and while not
being up to perfectionist standards, I was pretty impressed with such a
"cheap" paint job.  Getting right up to it you could see where the prep
work was lacking, but the painting itself looked great, and still looked
great years later after being parked outside the entire time.

So, the prep work is the key to an above-average paint job.  The
painting itself, pretty much anyone can do that.  A typical "good" shop
should have no trouble doing the whole deal for around $1500.