While I'm not quite in the "old geezer" category, I'm getting there. By no means am I an expert, but I've learned a lot over the years. So, please allow me to offer some polite suggestions based on experience with vintage Mustangs and a 1969 Cougar that was my daily driver for over 12 years:
- Likely, you won't have the $10,000 for the sheet metal work for a long time, if ever. If you suddenly did have $10,000 cash in hand, you might suddenly decide you want to do something else with it
- Save up a few thousand dollars and buy an old Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla. Use THAT car as your daily driver while you work on your Mustang. Those cars are almost indestructible and, since there are millions of them on the road, parts are cheap and readily available on the shelves of any local parts store. They're also good on gas and you won't care about chips and dings in parking lots. Believe me, such a daily driver can be a very liberating experience.
- Buy a good welder, something like a Miller/Hobart Handler WITH gas. Read, watch videos and practice on scrap metal. Sure, you can look into taking some welding classes, but be aware they almost never include welding sheet metal. The point is, you can learn to plug weld and stitch weld yourself and that's all you need for panel repair. Buy the Kevin Tetz "Paintucation" DVD series. It's $100 well spent.
- Strip your car down and replace any and all bad sheet metal. As you go, clean everything thoroughly and shoot on two coats of epoxy primer. That will keep it nice and protected while you're working and for many years thereafter.
- Once you're done replacing sheet metal, then you can decide if you want to have the car professionally painted or if you want to paint it yourself. Be aware the vast majority of shops won't do "custom work". They only do insurance work. The shops that will do custom work often take many months, or even years, to get the job done; if ever. The work they do might be first rate, but it could also be something worse than if you'd handed your car over to a cub scout troupe for restoration. Be very, VERY, careful about where you take your Mustang for paint and body work! I've seen and heard many, many horror stories.
If the shop you're talking to is honest, reliable and does good work, great. Consider yourself lucky. I wish I had a local shop where I could get people like Pete and Rusty to work on my car. I don't, so I'm doing almost everything myself. It's taking me many years, but that sure beats paying tens of thousands of dollars for shoddy work that requires tens of thousands more dollars to fix or losing my car for many months, or even years, with no progress. Or, even worse, going to check on my car and finding the shop is out of business and my car has disappeared!
Do a lot of research. Be sure no matter what you're doing, you're going into it with eyes wide open and a familiarity about what's going on. Sure, it's possible to do the "rolling resto" thing. But be aware this isn't 1982. If all you're doing is replacing and refreshing, a rolling resto isn't so hard. But replacing sheet metal is a whole different story. Whether your Mustang is in your garage or a pro shop, it's going to be out of commission for many months. That doesn't work well with a daily driver.
And have fun!