I'm 38yrs old...
If I learned ANYTHING since I started fooling with cars, It's that I WISH I had taken the advice of my peers when I first started out.
Beauty is all in the eye of the beholder.
To a 16 yr old kid, a 78 Regal pile of pus for a first car looks like a Ferrari.
To the wiser, it's just another underpowered example of a bogged down, overweight piece of junk from the late 70's/early 80's emissions era.
The best place for a '78 Regal is a scrapyard. I wouldn't spend a nickel on it.