With a $9990 Black Friday deal, MkVIII IRS, ~3-4k in options, 91' fox donor, selling off donor parts, wheels, tires, brake lines, mods, and a lot of blood/sweat... I'm at about 25k pre-paint. I started my build back in 2013, so even attempting that target may be hard to achieve now-a-day. No real point to this post other than to add another data point.
Yeah 9K is kind of hard to hide. It has to be in small orders across some time.
I have done what you said you are not going to do. I stripped the motor and transmission from my Vette for the Hot Rod. I am also pulling the rear end for my next project which is a 23 Model T. It is already set up for a Corvette IRS so I will get parts for two cars out of it.