Lol whatever. It really doesn't matter. How much was the paint? Some ridiculous sum for no reason. Honestly, that's ridiculous. I guess whatever floats your boat, but in the long run it doesn't matter...
One thing to keep in mind is that a 72 Trans Am is one of the rarest Trans Ams of all, and the HOs were the cream of the crop that year. Firebirds were only being built in Norwood, OH, and 1972 was a strike year. Very few customer orders were filled, and a great many cars that were "in process" on the assembly line were scrapped rather than being finished when the strike was over. Why crush a new car with 0 miles on the odometer? Because they didn't meet the 1973 model year emissions and DOT crash regulations, so GM wasn't permitted to sell them. The line reopened too late to make the cutoff for the 1972 model year, so every last one of the in-process cars were crushed.
Bottom line is that this isn't a run-of-the-mill Trans Am restoration -- this is a painstaking recreation of one of the rarest cars built by Pontiac during the run of the gen 2 body style from 1970-81. It's essentially a rolling museum piece that's part of history. That's why it warrants such close attention to detail. Late in the 70s Pontiac was cranking out Trans Ams from 2 plants -- Norwood and Van Nuys -- in great quantities, so those cars don't command the prices of the early cars and the 72s in particular.
