About 3 years ago we acquired a 1983 GL sedan for my son with an incredible 80,000 miles on it. It is now, of course, over 100,000 miles. It was not in as good a condition as my untrained eyes wanted to believe, and we've put a significant amount of time, and money, into some mechanical repairs. The car had minimal rust in the rear wheel wells but was otherwise clean. The rear passenger quarterpanel had some dents from a run-in with something, but no signficant damage otherwise. In the meantime, my son has learned a lot about careful driving, primarily on ice and snow, by having some wrecks all of which have been repairable; but the car has very tired suspension, very worn upholstery, and the old electrical wiring in the engine compartment.

My wife became alarmed at a comment from the son's girlfriend--that my son is looking forward to finishing college (a few years off) so he can have enough money to really restore this car. It will need new paint, probably new suspension components, probably he'd want a new dash cover for the traditional cracked dash; new upholstery.

So here's the question, to which I expect hundreds of shadings in answers: If this is car is obviously NOT a collector's item now, given the fact it had some rust and has had some wrecks, and given the fact that my son is NOT an accomplished DIYer (and his old man can't teach him much and doesn't have good tools), is it likely to be worthwhile to RESTORE this old brick, or just do what it takes to keep it running as long as we can and then dump it?

Thanks for your subjective views on this; I'm sure he'll do whatever he wants.

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83 240 GL