Don't know if you have any vocational/technical schools in your area that offer adult education auto body classes, but you could probably do a lot of the prep work and even the final coats under supervision of the instructor, who is generally an experienced body shop owner. I did my Healey this way and then had a pro shoot the color coats as I didn't want to chance tiger-striping the metallic ice blue after all the sweat equity I put into the prep work. It won't be a perfect $50k job, but there's a lot of satisfaction in doing so much of it yourself.
