Need a little advice

[Baby John]

I know I'm not gonna be able to make this a short story so y'all bear with me on this.

Last year I bought my son a '72 GMC Stepside and managed to get him all syked up about this father son restoration we were gonna do and convinced him that he'd be driving the coolest truck at his school. He's only 12 yrs old so he's got a few years to go before he's actually driving it. He was really excited to begin with but now he's sort of having 2nd thoughts. His buddies are talking about their first vehicles and most of them are leaning towards 4X4's of some sort. He's thinking now that he'll be driving an old 2WD truck that he won't be able to play in the mud with his buddies.

So, here's the dilema. I'm convinced the old '72 will be a cooler ride once it's fixed up and may also keep him outta trouble some by keeping him outta the mud. I've told him to just ride in the mud with his buddies in their trucks and let them spend all day Saturday washing it off.

I'm wanting to do something to the old truck to rekindle his interest in it. I was thinking about dropping it off at a local body shop for a new paint job. But, I'm sorta hung up on the fact that just dropping it off at a P&B shop is just gonna get an outside paint job with not much attention to detail.

I was thinking that I could get a fresh coat of paint on it and then later on, do the detailing. I've restored an old jeep this way once and regretted it because I was constantly worrying about the paint. From a kids viewpoint though, I can't see him getting involved in remedial repairs like replacing weather seals and trim and what have you on an old truck that doesn't shine.

So what do you think? Should we get the new paint on and then work on the little things?