To paint or not to paint?

Hello there,
I have a '59 Lincoln Premier and it is in darn near mint condition, however, over the winter the frost crept up into what tiny paint flaws it had and turned them into big flaws. The paint now has some fairly large bubbles and chipping. The car also has some rub marks from a tarp on the sides of it.

I am going to college in the fall and would really like to have it painted before I leave. I want to keep the car a suede finish and probably the original color.

I'll hopefully be doing all the work myself and would like to know good products to use that will help me feel really good about the job I did and make my car look even better! I have never tackled a project like this and am concerned I might be getting in over my head?

Any advice is appriciated.

Thanks!
Laura  

Your best and cheapest bet would be to do all the sanding and prep work and have a local shop do the painting. If you want to do it yourself you would need to find a compressor, paint guns, find a decent place to paint it(sorta clean and sanitary) and deal with the materials.  With good prep a MAACO or Earl Scheib paint job will look good. But with a little work and some rattle cans on the rust spots you could wind up with a patina that would be passable.