2017-11-09_12-05-10 by
Kerry Grubb, on Flickr
My ta was in much worse condition than what your car looks like. I dabbled very little in the car world before I started this resto. Mainly I did it just because. My buy in price wasnt that great and I figured if I failed I could afford to lose what I had in it. I am a carpenter by trade, have been working with my hands for 45 years. I also have a great attention to detail which helped. I am not a mechanic and still know only enough about motors to be dangerous. I did everything on this car including paint, exception being the motor rebuild. I had almost 5 years in this. I am 5 years in on a second restoration of a 79 ta, should be done soon.
In my case I could not afford the car I have by any means. Putting it together myself and paying for parts as I could afford with spare money is one of the reasons it took so long. When the car was finished I had zero debt. It is easily worth 5x my build cost at this point.
You need to do a deep inner look/soul search and decide for yourself what to do with your car. All of the previous post have their own merits. I know people that would say what you have is a parts car at best, others I know have built complete beautiful cars out of a whole lot less. Personally I think this car looks fine for a resto. If I ever get my 79 ta done I too was 'given' a car that is next on my list. Its so bad that I dont think it could even be considered a parts car!! But I have another car to drive and I enjoy working on them as a hobby.