Tbh mate it only actually cost about £300 but that would have been the charge to the public,not that anyone actually pays that!!!time we stripped three doors down and edged them up,arches,sunroof,de locked the boot,removed the side trims,sorted loads of dings,rustproofed,etc etc I make it a good two weeks near enough constant with rebuild,polishing,cleaning etc.that would include a refurb of my oz superleggerras as well but they were quite mint!!!

1200 to do outside plus arches is a fair price,you did well on that.mine is metallic though so a bit more work/cost but not extreme.

I'll keep an eye on the rot situation then,never seen one myself but that dosent mean their not out there.

One thing I will say about imports is a lot of the japs aren't fussy about paintmatches are they!!I've seen loads of poorly repaired cars coming in,and their total bitches to match too!!!!