To start over, or not to start over?

Looking for some opinions here.
I have a 1987 951 that's LS1 swapped. Recently i was hit in the back by a kid on his way home from work. I ended up with a $1600 check from insurance.
Here's the damage from the hit:
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Not too bad, and i was quoted about $700 to fix it (minus paint).

Here's the real concern.
A few years ago i was out screwing around on some windy mountain roads when i lost control a little bit (basically came around a corner, crappy tires were too hot, slid and went off the road). I went into the gravel and put a few small dents in the rocker panel that will be no problem to repair, but this is what has me worried:

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Those are the roof area. The first one is on the back passenger side behind the sunroof, the second is actually on the driver side! I realize it's hard to see, but look at the reflection of my garage door to see the waviness. You can see the paint cracked in picture 1, and my sunroof had some difficulties opening/closing for a little bit until the car seemed to just settle back down (now it works just fine).

When re-entering the road surface i think it bottomed out my back shock (the same as hitting a small curb) and that's what caused the damage.

So, the dilemma:
For $1600 i think i could make a pretty fair offer to someone for a shell with good paint and a nice interior. Just looking around, Lart on r*list just picked up a couple '89 S2's that he's parting and the shells will be available. I think i would prefer to pick one up with the interior in perfect shape so i can just unbolt my front and rear suspension, motor, trans, etc and swap it into a new shell (i realize it's not that easy, but it wouldn't be horrible and i would do the work myself).

So which would you all think is the better route?
Fix my car? $700 body repair + $to repair the roof damage + $to repair rocker panel + paint
Buy a new shell and swap my good stuff into it? $unknown, but probably about what i got from insurance.

I can't tell if i'm over-reacting to the roof thing or not, i think it's probably a really bad sign about my car's structural integrity. :/
(Note: i've since invested in better tires and started driving like an adult -- but, i will say, i bought the car to have fun with and i'm allowed to drive it like a jackass on mountain roads if i want to! )

I am doing a similar thing with my 1/85 swapping into a 86 turbo. It is alot more complicated than probrably fixing your car's body up.

But i am not one to talk I am doing the swap anyway.

Yeah, i hear ya!
I'm just not sure what can be done to fix a chassis that has had an impact like what caused my roof to get waves like that. If it were just the damage on the back it would be no question ...

I under stand what you are saying. You should see the radiator support on my early. They melted the frame trying to weld it back together. That would be one reason for my swap.

Question on the wavy part though. Would an impact be the only cause of that? I mean, you never really know. I would say take it to a frame shope and have them see what it looks like on there computer. They have those frame straightners that can tell you if its bad.

LOL, nice, seen plenty of "those" kinds of repairs. Good choice on moving on!

My fear is that if i put it on a frame machine it will show up as straight, but i'll have a ton of chassis flex. For example, if i put bondo on the roof and paint it, and go over a pothole a few years later, is the flex going to just pop the bondo off? If i increase the spring rate, is the sunroof going to suddenly stop closing?

I'm just at the point right now where i'm probably going to keep putting money into the car to some degree, and i'm thinking i really need a solid base to start from! Hmm...

I have never had a car long enough to have those problems, so I would not know first hand. I see where you are going with it, and it would take alot of work to replace all the pieces. Even if you couldn't find a solid base you could weld in new sections but that takes alot of time, effort, and money.

I can agree on the swap. The hard part is actually finding a old car like these that has not had some sort of collision or bad driving to destroy the integridy.

For reasons such as resale, panel alignment, and that youre already going to spend over 1000 to fix the right rear, I would grab a nice shell and transplant. Thats only if you can get a nice one for less than 2k of course. I think you would save in the long run. To fix the warping and then refinish the roof is going to cost quiet a bit more than to fix that right rear; maybe even require frame straightening (if thats even doable with a 944).

If theres a real nice shell available......snatch it up, sell whatever panels off the old shell and be on your way!

Resale?

No, that's a good point. I've found a few shells in the reasonable range, now i just need to find the right one...