Well I got it fixed. Found an old school hot rod body man a friend recommended and he repaired it. Although, it was way more damaged than we thought and broke on him in a couple more places. Looking back, I would have been better off buying a new one after all. Oh well. He did a real nice job.
The paint is about 99% match, but he did the best he could given my 43 year old thin faded original paint that actually is not even the same across the car anymore. I had never noticed, it's just "yellow", but when he started showing me where it was greener here and redder there and whiter there, I could really see it. In some light it's perfect, in other light you can see a bit of a difference. Shoot, it's so much better than it was, I ain't complaining one little bit.
I rubbed it a little with rubbing compound to bust the gloss of the clear coat to match the sheen of my original paint better and that helped a lot too. You can see some swirl marks when the sunlight hits it just right, but it's not bad enough to bother me. It'll get dirty soon enough and then they won't show at all.
He gave me about a half pint of the paint and I touched up most of the dings & chips all over the car too. The car has never looked so good. For the first time since I bought it 13 years ago, I'm not embarrassed by the paint job. It's about a 15 footer now which is good enough for me.
I even finally installed my black wire mesh grills that I had been wanting to do for years but there was no point when the bumper looked so crappy.
I like it. I'm happy.
(And actually, the color difference this picture shows is more extreme than in real life)
In fact, it looks so different now, I had to write down my license plate number so I could find it in the parking lot
