What's with auto body people? . . . .

One of my best friends is a body man and he'd probably laugh me out of his shop should I ask him to paint my Cuda. As already mentioned, reason is the insurance claims are far more lucrative. Not that he has not tried to service the car hobby, in fact he always has a project of his own going on, but to do a proper restoration almost always requires far more work than the customer imagines and if the results are not what the customer imagines as perfect, payment trouble is usually not far behind. Far too many people watch TV and expect their cars will be fully restored in two weeks. Rush jobs mean corners will be cut. I used to watch American Hot Rod and I swore I would never let Boyd Coddington, (rest his soul), touch one of my cars because he would always push his deadlines over quality of work. Same deal with the Barrett-Jackson auctions. Lovely cars, but those prices! I remember one over ambitious eBay auction where the seller was posting his Q/A's and someone accused him of having Barrett-Jackson syndrome. Hilarious stuff, pure entertainment.

Back in the real world, looks like you already have some good advice. Personally, I'd look for a better candidate than the brown car, green car should be easy, but depends on what shape the frame rails are in. Join local car clubs, find out who may tackle this sort of work and who you should avoid. Swap work you can perform for work you cannot. I can't paint to save my life and my bodywork has been known to cause seasickness, but I'll tackle any electrical work and that has often been enough to cut me some slack at ny buddy's body shop. He has a hatred of "snakes", (as he calls electrical wires). Finally, don't fixate on the final value of the car. Accept that you always will have more into the car than you could sell it for. I don't think you could buy a decent driver for $5K as suggested, but a finished car, even with a few flaws could bring $15K. Trouble is, you will have $25K into it.