I think you will find the engine in the 41 is a 49-55 331 Cadillac engine (definitely swapped in at some point the cars life time).

I fully understand the felling of settling for something that’s close but not exactly what you want. The 41 has a lot of potential but like the other have indicated I’m not sure that I would consider it a good first project.

I’ll make a couple of suggestions for what their worth:

Hold out for a 41 in better condition.

Buy the 52 and do what needs to be done to it. That will get your feet wet in the restoration process (to se if it’s something you really like), and give you some equity to trade up for what you want at some point.