To Paint or not to Paint

[Corey'sgotachev]

We got our 70 K10 recently. While looking at many beautiful show-quality trucks, I am inspired to go crazy with body work and paint.
Our truck is not a good candidate for a resto project as it was born a CamperSpecial/20.

The trim was removed and lower trim holes were filled. I don't like having seemingly huge holes in the body panels and would like to get them filled. PO has completed replacing rusty cab corners and rockers etc. so it would seem the truck is ready for paint, except trim holes and it needs a lot of block sanding.

I have been reading a lot about paint and to get quality work done, it's gonna cost $7k on up which isn't realistic at the moment.

I don't mind the primer look and it seems to attract a lot of people. We get many nods and thumbs up when driving it around.

My question is How many rock their Chevys with a primer look? Let's see them please! Also, does the primer protect the metal like paint does?