Duplicolor or Summit paint?

I spent a lot of time looking at paint options and finally decided on giving the summit paint a try. I ended up going with their single stage paints. I have no painting experience and just tried to read as much as I could in books and my collection of magazine articles. I found examples of success with pretty much every brand. The real key to me seems to be the prep more than anything.

There is lots of speculation on who makes the summit paint, and I personally think it is from two different companies one for their single stage line and one for the base-clear line since none of the components interchange. It doesn't really matter to me.
I went the single stage route since I am painting everything and thought there might be some areas I might not want to bother with clear coating, but planned on clear coating everything. I also wanted to use the epoxy primer which was not part of the base-clear system and the single stage paints are cheaper.

A couple weeks ago I painted the underside and engine compartment of my Duster using 2 coats epoxy primer, 3 coats single stage plum pearl metallic, followed by 2 coats of the high solids clear. Considering I was painting in my garage and had never painted anything before, I was very pleased with the results and found the paints easy to use. I also used a Harbor Freight gun.

The only painting I had done previously was to use some PPG DP40LF epoxy to primer panels I had stripped. I figured I would never be able to afford to paint my whole car if I had to pay the high prices of the PPG paints. I really didn't notice any anything better about the PPG epoxy than the Summit.

The real test will be when I paint the outside, but based on my results so far I think I will be very pleased.