3500 bucks would be extremely low. how good do you want it to look, and how long do you want it to last? what colour? beetles have a suprising amount of surface area. my 88 caprice took less paint than beetle!
good paint isn't cheap, and cheap paint isn't good.
when I did a complete on my beetle in '07, it was 500 bucks in materials (sandpaper, filler, masking, primer and paint, oddball stuff) and that was for a rat-rod flat black job that I did myself! and on the cheap too!