I have to share a quick story here that is going to kill you guys. A good friend and co-worker of mine has a 77. The car is nothing really special, but most everything works and it is in good overall shape. He bought the car to have something to tinker with. He has no mechanical abilities or automotive know how.
The car was black. He decided he wanted to repaint it and asked me what to do. I went over his house one day after church and showed him how to wet sand the car, putty fill minor scratches, and what things to and not to pay extra attention to.
He is a very busy buiness professional, but found time of the next four or five weeks to sand a little each night. I then showed him how to spray primer and where in town to buy it. Over the next couple of weeks he spotted areas that needed extra attention and blocked them down.
He then picked out the new Corvette Yellow. He took off his own doors, cleaned, scuffed, and shot them by himself on a Saturday afternoon (this guy does not even change his own oil!).
We got together with a friend of mine that runs a body shop and borrowed a booth for the day. We shot the car in single stage ICI brand paint.
Total cost--less than $500. The value of his paint job-near $5,000 based on the post in this thread.
The car looks awesome. He took his time and carefully blocked and prepped the body. The prep is 9/10 of the final job. Plus, he yanked the mirrors, grilles, emblems, etc. etc. himself and had the joy of putting all that back together later.
If he can do this, anybody can. However, his time investment and bloody finger tips was quite significant.
On the other hand, my piece of scrap heap has so many problems, I have already spend nearly $1,000 on materials just to get the body back together (doing it all myself), and have another $1,000 to go before I can spary the final paint.