In my experience as a bodyman/painter,I have found that painted DeLoreans are usually the result of an accident.Parts are hard to come by,and the price to pay for them is not chump change.A vin number check could tell a lot of the history of the car.
It might always shed light on why Karr could afford it.
I bought a supposedly new RED Delorean off the showroom floor and I later found out the dealers owners son had put it in a ditch and as you have stated, you can't do bodywork on a stainless w/o painting it. The bs story the dealer told me was they has purchased a bunch of DeLoreans and once they had sold a few the local market was saturated so they painted the rest they had for sale. That freaks me out that GEEK had one too, I gave mine to my daughter for her 16th birthday. A regular pickup truck was faster as they only had a small Volvo motor.