Gastropod VW Rabbit Fair Market Value?

I accidentally ended up with a car that I think will work for the Gastropod class , but I need some input on fair market value. It's an '06 VW 4 door Rabbit automatic. We bought it used for our son 9 years ago when he was a senior in high school for $7,500 and gave it to him. He ran the hell out of it, and then took it to college, graduated, bummed around for a couple years, now works for Cinncinnati Children's Hospital in their molecular genetics lab sequencing DNA. Amazing.

The Rabbit ceased to run last January 2018. It sat in front of our son's apartment under a tree until August 2018 when he got a notice from the city that they were repaving his street and he had to move it. He called us at 9 p.m. the day the car was going to be towed at midnight, after having the notice for 2 weeks. We have 100 miles towing with AAA, and it turned out it was 98 miles from his apartment in Cincinnati to our house in Lexington, KY, so the tow truck driver dumped the car in front of our house about 1 a.m. and dragged our asses out of bed just because of his inconvenience to announce the Rabbit arrived. 

I messed around with the Rabbit and found that water got into the main computer connector which is stupidly located just under the windshield wiper area where it is drenched every time it rains. Cleaned the connections, dried it, and low and behold it started!

We have officially repossessed the Rabbit and it's now titled back in our name. But it's much worse for wear and tear, now has 180,000 miles, headliner is falling down, the left rear bumper is bashed in, driver's door fabric falling off, 3 large bags of our son's clothes, cleats, dirty underwear, a tanned deer skin, and general E36 M3 in the car. Looks like a homeless person was living in it. 

So, is the Rabbit eligible? KBB says it has a trade in value of between $81 and $650, with an average of $366. KBB private party value  is $1,281-$2,882. I found a '07 Rabbit on Craigslist that's slightly crashed and similar in condition to ours for $1,200. 

What do you think is the fair market value of the Rabbit?

I would value it around $1000 or less based on a non-running car in poor shape. 

I'd say 500-1200 - 4 doors don't bring the love the 2 doors do.  Relatively speaking two doors in that shape would bring a lot more say 1200-2000.  bring it back to life!!!  A G60 or 1.t swap is cheap and makes them rowdy.

84FSP said:

I'd say 500-1200 - 4 doors don't bring the love the 2 doors do.  Relatively speaking two doors in that shape would bring a lot more say 1200-2000.  bring it back to life!!!  A G60 or 1.t swap is cheap and makes them rowdy.

It’s an 06

chandler said:

84FSP said:

I'd say 500-1200 - 4 doors don't bring the love the 2 doors do.  Relatively speaking two doors in that shape would bring a lot more say 1200-2000.  bring it back to life!!!  A G60 or 1.t swap is cheap and makes them rowdy.

It’s an 06

He’s right, better to boost the 2.5 and hope the slushbox makes it through the challenge.

I appreciate everyone's input! It seems that if I give it a fair market value of $750 that would be reasonable (half way between $500 and $1,000). And a boosted 2.5 would be very interesting even if hooked up to a slushbox. I plan on keeping it at a daily driver level to qualify for Gastropods and driving it to Gainesville for the Challenge. Since I got the Rabbit running, our youngest son has been driving it around and it seems that most everything is working, which is nothing short of amazing after everything it went through under our middle son's ownership. Our youngest son is a little less destructive. 

Tires: After reading through most of the posts on Gastropods, it sounds like 300tw or higher is required? That's fine with me especially since the current tires are are old and still a little flat on one side after sitting for 8 months. Anything would be an improvement.