Have a 75 vette with dark red paint mfg code 74 Can I prep the paint and have it clear coated? If so What strength clear coat and can I prep with steel wool to get a finer prep than sand paper. I have special striping of corvette silver mfg. 13 on it and just love it .car has only 26,000 miles and hate to spend the money

Not a good idea....Clearcoat needs something fresh to bite into....You most likely have single stage paint....To find out, take a white rag with some wax or rubbing compound and just rub onto the paint....If the rag turns to your color then you have singlestage paint....Clearing it wont be a good idea....Neither would be using steel wool to prep it.....You would need the car totally redone to have it done correctly.....Clearing it would just flake off in a couple years.....Hope this helped.

But, in answer to your question, yeah, it could be done. If you really want to do it you could use something like #1200 to #1500 sandpaper and some PPG quik clear, hardened, and it would look great! Everyone keeps their Corvette inside anyway. Keep some clearcoat wax on it. It would last a while.
But if your original paint is still good, I'd just keep it clean and waxed.

I had a '75 w/the same paint you've got.

It (the paint) looked crappy.

I power buffed it. It looked new.

If you just want a quick cheap fix, power buff it?

I did buy a very expensive (well, for a 16 year-old!) kit. It was around $50 for the buffer et al in the early 90's. Worked like a charm though!

I kept her looking good by waxing once a week. I was teenager. I had the time.

Silly, cheap, quick fix. But . . . you can drive her and be proud while you figure out long term solution!

Just a thought.