Paint better than when new or similar to when new?

First im gonna preface this by saying that my intention is kinda a Day Two build, as if someone purchased this car in the late seventies and did the period type of mods you would normally see done into the eighties.

So I chose to spray the car in single stage paint and leave some of the orange peel in the finish, I did do a light wetsanding removed the flaws/mistakes but left it with "some meat" in the paint to have the choice later to cut and polish it again down the road.

I built it to be a driver and intend to drive it quite a bit, but I have had quite a few people say I should have wetsanded further and make the finish better.

I am having some thoughts that maybe they are right. any thoughts?

Depends on how raw you left the paint. A picture or two would be a great help.

Any of those people gonna help you wet sand?

Looks good! Nothing wrong with a good single stage paint job.

Leave it. Looks great and I like the look of a 70's style repaint on the car. Great build BTW.

If you can see orange peel in the sun then I'd sand it more... but if just inside in fluorescent lighting, then I wouldn't worry about it.

Looks good from those pics.

Little bit of orange peel is how all my factory mopars have had. Nothing wrong with that. I have a friend that restores all makes and paints base/clear so good, he can roll it right out the building, but he cannot bring himself to do that. They all have to be smooth as you know what. Sanding and buffing are the norm.

Looking at the pics of the base car you started with and the condition id consider just doing as you stated, a driver and drive it and have fun.

I dont think your gonna have a car thats gonna last 20 years as the deterioration of the unreplaced metal is going to continue.

With your considerable skills and if you had started off with a much more rust free base car I could see going further, but id just drive and enjoy it if it were mine.

A little orange peel is not necessarily a bad thing. I personally think 'cut and buff' is overrestoring a finish. I'd leave it alone.

My goal on my AAR, is after it is painted, someone looks at it & has to really challenge themself to determine if the car is original paint, or a repaint. Meaning, it will be straight & level as OE, but it will have OE-looking orange peel! THAT is more of a challenge than the sucked glass look.

A few OEM resto guys might get it, The other 99% of people will think the paint is second rate in my experience.

Agree 100%

I prefer the orange peel deep paint look versus the glossy wet look of too much clear.

As to the OP - looks good so finish it.

Finish is personal taste. Myself I cant stand the OE paint look. Back in the day we all complained about the amount of orange peel in the paint. Never understood why anyone would want to spend all the money to restore a car and not make the finish as nice as possible.

I understand the driver part but all the shops I ever used wouldn't let a car out of the shop unless the finish was smooth, flat and straight. Not ragging on the car just an opinion. Enjoy the car how you want.