Some news.

I was contacted by the 3rd party insurer and after some negotiation I have managed to get

£3.5k for the car which I've accepted

(didn't think I'd get anywhere near that amount).

Fortunately they sent an independent engineer who understood the rarity of the cars.

I've bought the car back and have just shy of

£3k to restore her.

I need to disassemble the back-end and take some pictures to send to my local accident repair centre who have a realignment jig so will find out soon whether they think it will pull out.

If not I'll have to reconsider but on an initial inspection without the bits removed they think it might not be as bad as it looks.

Will keep you updated.

Thanks for all the support, I think this is a pretty good result.

Annoyingly, the car will be written off which will affect the ongoing value, but since I've had it for 18 years already it is highly unlikely I will ever sell her

(assuming I can get her fixed!)