What is wrong with the quarter and hood? Hood's can be fixed and painted off the car, and quarters doesn't mean repaint the entire car. I've built plenty of "project" cars that needed $10k- $15k worth of sheetmetal work before paint.
I always advise our customers to start with the best car they can afford/budget. So if you buy a $5k car and need to put $10k in it then paint you'll almost be double what you owe on your car now. If you get yours fixed and painted for another $13k I would personally keep it. Do all the mechanical things first because fitting newer suspension, etc always leads to more sheetmetal changes than you realize.
Another thing about project car's is most of the time the car is in pieces and you don't get a chance to inventory all the "missing" parts. This can end up being a $2k - $10k bill replacing bad or missing parts. The more complete the car the better your budget will like you.
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