single stage vs base coat clear

I'm going single stage. It was good enough back then so good enough today.


This sounds logical to me, but is the single stage you get now the same as what they were using originally? A lot of these cars ( including mine) are metallic. So they used single stage metallic, yet many people recommend against it. I used it on the engine bay and it looked decent. Not trying to make a show car. Is there any reason todays single stage, even metalic would look any worse than the original? what happens if you sand/buff it? Also how does 'base' differ from 'single' stage? Could you sand the single stage and shoot clear over it?