im putting this here so i get quicker responses after i find out the bosses can remove....how much would it cost to paint a bonneville that needed no welding and no rust repair to do a full color change if the owner supplyed the paint and everything needed?

Full color change? Depends. Do you want the color change to exists throughout the car? Sometimes people will only do the outside and the inside of the door jambs. Basically, the common areas where people see the paint.

It also depends on the shop. Some places will allow you to strip everything down bring it to them, and then they will only charge you just to slap the paint on. Others not.

Paint supplies- I painted my car a couple years ago. Trying to remember what the materials cost. $60 for 1 gallon of clear coat, uh, $20 something for the hardener(clear coat) $25 1 gallon of reducer/thinner, $15? for primer, and I think it was around $50 for the white paint. The overall cost was around $250 just for paint. Your also going to need filters, stir sticks, mixing cups, etc. Sometimes all included with your paint. Mine was.
But your going to need more paint for a full car paint if you do it completley. Probably around $300 for paint now. And this is the basic cheap stuff. You get into your marble/metallic paints. Up the price mucho lot!

Did I miss anything you need?

Oh, costs, each shop has different labor rates for anything. Call around and ask to see what it would cost if you did most of the prep work etc. Again, some places won't touch a pre-prepped car.

I painted just my hood last year and it was about $150 for paint. To do a whole car is going to be between $500 and $1000 for paint depending on what you go with. To have a shop do it will be about that much again for labor. Do it your self and you will need a paint gun, $100+ A large air compressor, $500 or so, a closed shop, air filters, etc. About the same as the labor charges. But painting a car is not like painting a bicycle frame. You really have to know what your doing.

Changing the color is a huge additional prep/ labor issue. Typically during a paint job only the exterior is included. Add in the door jambs, under the hood, trunk, etc and the job costs multiplies huge. You may want to take a second look at changing color if costs are a factor.

Last year I was looking into re-painting my 2000 SSEi. For the same color, prep, sand, two coats of color, 3 clear coats, color sanding, re-coat and buff = $1900.

The most expensive was the prep work and color sanding.

Painting is the easy part for an experienced person to do.. it is the prep work and wet sanding etc.. that takes LOTS of time.

I do paint work every day on cars.. mostly fenders and bumpers, and I love when I get to the point of actually painting.. it takes 5-10 minutes to paint a bumper on a car (base coat..add another 5-10 for clear), but that is the easy part.. normally takes 1-2 hours to sand, prep, tape then prime, then sand again, prep again, clean etc... THEN base coat and clear coat finally go on and that is just a simple bumper with little or no damage! In order for paint to come out perfect the prep work has to be perfect. when it comes to prepping before paint, especially sanding, my general rule is if I think it is good enough, go over it again, because any and every imperfection will show up after you paint and clear whatever it is you are painting.

So color change on a whole car.. done the RIGHT way.. your looking at thousands $$$