You want to put down a quality epoxy paint direct to a properly prepared surface. By properly prepared I mean following the directions of the manufacturer.
A good paint job is as much the paint as it is the preparations.
I found the primers and filling primers from Southern Polyurethane (SPI) to work great and are not costly. The owner of the company is willing to spend time to answer questions too.
For top coat you have the options of going base coat clear coat or single stage. The problem with BC CC is they are just too glossy and do not look right (my opinion of course) on the A.
Single stage paints properly laid down can be too glossy too. What seems to give the best mix of the reliability and era look would be buffed out single stage. The buffing takes out the shine to be more like the buffed out lacquer.
Now the type of paints. A major name brand urethane paint will give you the best life. I have been using PPG Concept and find it works great and is not horrible to color sand and buff. But I will be honest to say I am not the best painter. Cheap paints are cheaper because they put in less solids and they do not cover well.
Now for any paint that you are putting a hardener in you must have proper protection. This means covering your skin and having a well fitting organic mask or MUCH better a positive pressure air fed mask. You also want to move a lot of air in the area you are painting to keep the vapor and overspray away.
The 2K paints (paints with isocyanate hardeners) which include the primers and top coats, have the big advantage in they set up rapidly and do not shrink over time. They have a chemical reaction that essentially makes the paint be one big molecule. Enamels oxidize to set over a longer time so you must let them set for weeks before you can buff them. Lacquers are just melted plastic and will always shrink. Rustolueum paint is oil based and like all oil based paints they are forever letting the oil come out and slowly shrinking. Shrinking means that the top layer shrinks faster as the oils come out quicker than lower levels. Paints like POR-15 work differently, I think by pulling oxygen from the surface, they create more of a impermeable shell that does not always bond as well as you might think.
I suggest you wander to
autobodystore.com and other auto finishing forums and read what others have to say. The autorbodystore site has some tutorials too.
In the end, you can make your car look nice in many different ways. In each case there are things you have to do if you want the paint to look nice for a long time. Some paints are going to last much longer then others.