Finally an A body owner again.

If I had to do it over again, I would skip Florida completely and look for something from out west and tow it back. You'll ultimately save more time and money arranging for transport than you would trying to make an east coast project car work. Even a Florida car like mine that had been largely kept under a carport its whole life had frame rot in two places, and it wasn't kept close enough to the Gulf for salt air to be an issue.