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Whats the best car (or one you remember fondly) for peanuts? mine was a Simca 1100 for £300 and though much derision was sent my way by my squaddie colleagues it did the job!
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Not mine but an Office hack we bought in 2004 - 480 quid and a tank of petrol for an M reg Cavalier SRi. Used to make me laugh burning off the little ones in their souped up Saxos at roundabouts. Happy days.
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A Rover 3500S, the P6 model, one owner, super condition for £300. My mate ran it for years, it cost him nothing and sold it for more than we paid.
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A Pug 205, bought for £200 a couple of years ago, my son drove it for 15,000 miles with no problems, -recently bought a late model Astra (commuting from Edinburgh to Exeter every couple of weeks) sold the Pug to a fellow officer for £100, with a year's MOT.
P.
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You maybe should have put a date restriction on entries for this category Barney.
Purchased 1977 for £15.00.(fifteen) 1964 Renault 8 Auto Saloon. Ran for 2years gave to my son when he went to Leeds Uni - served him for 3years. Cost just taxes Fuel 0ils Filters + couple of tyres (£8.00 from scrappie for the pair) Same scrappie gave me £5.00 for it when son upgraded to Viva HC..
Cheap Motoring - Phil I
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Cavalier too. Bought it from a dealer in registrations who had whipped the registration off and I bought the car, a 1994 1.8Lsi for £75. I brought it home and took the morning cleaning it and added a set of £10 wheel trims. I ran it troublefree for nearly a year . Very smooth quiet car that is still on the roads four years later. Many consider the Cavalier to be one of best cars ever made by Vauxhall. And yes I got my £85 back -and a little bit more ...
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1957 Beetle in 1982 for paying for the phone reconnection - I think about £57 - ran it for several happy years. Citroen Visa in 1989 which went like a bomb which was given to me as a 'thank you' for allowing (?) my husband to go fishing for a week every year with the donor! Does this one win!!
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Ten-year-old one-owner Renault 20 for 150 quid when I'd (foolishly) sold my Lancia HPE and was looking for a classic in the late 1980s.
Came from a farmer and although the interior was very tidy it stank like a barnyard whenever the weather was hot. Also it had that very common 'marron glace' brown metallic paint that was so faded it turned white every time it rained.
It did me well for about half a year, totally reliable, comfortable, economical and nice to drive. Then I sold it for the engine to a mate who had a newer but much higher mileage one. Got my money back and even made 20 quid profit by taking out the Amstrad stereo and selling it separately!
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Manyconsider the Cavalier to be one of best cars ever made by Vauxhall.
I certainly do. More than that I think for value for money and rock-solid bullet proof dependability and reliability they are the best cars ever made by anybody
1500 quid for M Reg Cavalier V6
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1500 quid for M Reg Cavalier V6
Rare as rocking horse excrement them. Mine is Audi 80 2.0E L reg for 450 quid still going dtrong after two years
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>> >> >> 1500 quid for M Reg Cavalier V6 >> Rare as rocking horse excrement them. Mine is Audi 80 2.0E L reg for 450 quid still going dtrong after two years
This was in 2000 though!
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A Rover 3500S, the P6 model, one owner, super condition for £300. My mate ran it for years, it cost him nothing and sold it for more than we paid.
My favourite car of all time but drop the 's'. OK...so what car today would fall into the same bracket, i.e one owner, cheap and keep going.
Very best regards..........MD
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Vauxhall Victor FB bought for £40 in 1976. Bench seat, column shift (handy because the driver's door wouldn't open). Did 8000 reliable miles in 10 months, sold as spares with no MoT for £25.
Hawkeye
-----------------------------
Stranger in a strange land
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fiesta mk2 1.3 on webers, got it for £75 T+T, was ultra reliable for a year then sold it for £40.
Or my current rover 620sdi, was free with a months T+T, apart from service items its been great.
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My first car, a left hand drive 1948 Citroen Light 15 in a fetching shade of matt desert sand, Proper small boot model, with two tall thin Stromberg (I think ) carbs without air cleaners, steering wheel with four spring spokes. Rusty and fairly knackered - cabin used to fill with oil smoke at its 85ish maximum, often required of it in my hands - and the synchro gone on all gears necessitating double-declutching in up changes as well as down. Loved it dearly but soon killed it being young, foolish and inexperienced.
£60 from a couple of Aussie girls in West Kensington. Of course 60 quid was 60 quid in 1962.
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In 1990 bought a 1968 triumph 2000 mk1 for £500 off a Ford garage that girlfriend's brother worked at. They had flogged a Sierra Ghia and took it part-ex ( I overpaid for it by about £150-£200, but it had 8 months mot and looked different).......paint work was faded and every panel had a slight dink or imperfection, but interior was immaculate, with leather and wood everywhere.
have still got it........4 years ago spent £3,500 on it.....engine re-build and respray....for a car worth £2,000 max!!!... I've fallen in love with the damned thing.....have vowed never to sell it
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I bought an Austin A35, complete with the "beak" like sun visor, in 1970 for £7/10/- in the days when we had proper money. It had no reverse gear so had to be pushed back off the vendor's drive. Drove it home and Dad and I stripped out the gearbox and replaced the layshaft cluster. That cost nearly as much as the car as I recollect. I did about 20,000 miles in it and then sold it for £35 to buy a MkII austin healey sprite which started my life long fascination with MG cars. Unfortunately these proved to be not quite such a bargain.
MGs
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Ford 'pop' 100E for a fiver - with no brakes!
About a quid for a few new seals (in the days when you could) and fluid.
It passed that MOT, and one more before the big ends started rattling and a length of box section with a spring hanger on it popped through the boot floor.
Flogged it to a workmate for £2.50.
Reg No: OO 3273. What would that be worth today?
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" years ago spent £3,500 on it ....for a car worth £2,000 "
So long as you enjoy it and its your money matters not does it !
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have still got it........4 years ago spent £3,500 on it.....engine re-build and respray....for a car worth £2,000 max!!!... I've fallen in love with the damned thing.....have vowed never to sell it
Another beautiful car..MD
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Threads like this bring back happy memories of my first ever car - a 1955 Austin A50 Cambridge bought for £65 in 1969 when I left Cambridge - suitably with a Cambridge registration, OCE 340. It never failed to start first time - a few repairs but nothing catastrophic - wonderful 50s good-to-be-British feeling with those very comfortable Austin front seats, floppy but very smooth column gearchange, "Austin of England" in chrome lettering on its sides, and that terrific flying-A mascot on the bonnet.
Happy days...I often think that if I had a few thousand pounds to spare I'd get a restored (I'm no mechanic) Triumph Vitesse - but maybe I'd go for an A50 for nostalgia's sake.
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The current 'cheapie', which is in fact on loan to a friend - E-reg Mazda 323 1.3LX. When purchased - 53k miles (genuine), 8 months' MOT, 6 weeks tax, a few OAP dinks but no rust at all...£160. The interior is showroom-fresh. And what a pleasure to work on - everything laid out sensibly for service items.
Seems like a much better buy than my last cheapy, a £300 Omega 3.0 estate which has consumed it's purchase price in getting the 'usual issues' done (cambelt and tensioner, cam covers, aux belt and tensioner, breather cleaning)...but now it's sorted it's still a very useful old shed to have around (estate + towbar + roofrack = not a lot it can't shift)!
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In 2000 when I was at uni I couldnt afford to fix my old micra so bought a rover metro gta for £75. I got a year and 20,000 miles out of it for the cost of nothing other than petrol and two tyres and they were from a scrappy already on wheels! Happy cheap motoring!!!
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Not quite in the spirit of the question, but from a very early age the car I always hankered after was the Austin Atlantic A90 (superb looker as a cabriolet)....:-)
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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Just been Googling and found the brochure illustrations...:-)
www.philseed.com/austin-a90atlantic.html
The first one I saw was owned in the area where I lived, a black saloon resplendent with shining chrome.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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"the car I always hankered after was the Austin Atlantic A90 "
I have one - only trouble is - it's a Dinky Toy in a cardboard box somewhere up in the loft - rather fetching turquoisey colour I think
--
Phil
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If we are going to go back in time then looking back our best buys came when I was 15ish - my Dad was a school caretaker in Brum and just down road was Medway spares and he used to buy Austin 7's for a fiver - we used to thrash them round playground and flog em on for 15quid - we only wrote one off - possibly the rarest one a Austin 7 pickup- nicest was Austin big 12 or something like that. - the good old days.
Dave
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The cheapest car I ever purchased was in March 1984 for the princely sum of £500; a 1975 Austin Aggro 1750 "Sport". Eurgh. Tidied me over until purchasing a new MG Metro in September 1984, but that's about all. A truly horrid device.
The best car I ever purchased for "peanuts" is still with us nearly five years on; £2601 for a genuine 14k miles 1995 Peugeot 306 1.8 SR Sedan. Now at a fun filled and reliable 45k miles, it still costs peanuts to run and still looks fresh and crisply styled. One of those rare cars to look half decent in all guises and one of Peugeot's finest efforts.
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Not quite in the spirit of the question, but from a very early age the car I always hankered after was the Austin Atlantic A90
Me too.
--
L\'escargot.
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Morris 1000 van for £70 in about 1965. It went like the clappers and was totally reliable. My wife wrote it off in a prang (with my mother in the passenger seat) and the insurance company paid me £70. Happy days.
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1975 Renault 16TS for GBP100.00 in 1982. 5 months tax and 11 months MOT.
A bit dented after being swiped by a trash truck but fully Zibarted so no rust. Ran it for 2 years and then sold it for GBP70.00 with no MOT.
Great comfortable, economical French cruiser. One of the most comfortable I have ever driven.
Q.
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Either a MkIII Cortina (£40) or a Chrysler 2 litre (looked like a 180) won on a bet.
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70 quid marina 1.8 TC auot! bought it for a month ended up keeping it for 2 years never broke down, sold it for 200 quid bargain PEY 666K I wonder where you are now!
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1984 Ford Sierra 1.6L in running order but rusty as hell and with two weeks ticket on it. Paid the guy £30 which is what the local breakers had offered him, and he just wanted it out of the way.
Drove it home - ran really nicely actually although the clutch was slipping.
Took the alternator off which had just gone on my own 1983 example. From that point I had broken even.
Drained the half tank of fuel out and put it in mine.
Changed some of the interior trim over to my car as it was in better nick than mine.
Swapped the wheels and tyres with mine (they were all nearly new)
Swapped the door mirrors with mine, as these were remote adjustable whereas mine weren't.
Filled the shed with other spares (carb (Weber) and manifold, lights, battery, radiator, coolant hoses, coil, HT leads etc)
Approached by a bloke up the road while I was working on it. "What's the gearbox like? I'll give you £50 for it and give you a hand to take it out." "Done!"
A "breaking" ad in the local paper got me another £300 for the engine, fuel tank, calipers, bonnet, grille, rear wiper assembly, radiator, back box, back seat, prop shaft and a few other bits.
Got the local scrappie to pick what was basically then a rolling shell up for nowt as he had a collection in the area anyway. Gave the guy a drink for his trouble.
An enjoyable and profitable few weeks. Over £300 clear profit, plus a set of nearly new tyres, and another few hundred quids worth of spare parts for my own car (the vast majority of which sat there untouched until I took them all to the dump when my parents moved house a few years ago and insisted I shift them - I'd long since moved out and forgotten all about them). Best of all though, I really enjoyed doing it. I can think of no better way of learning how a car works than stripping one down, especially without the added pressure of knowing you have to put it back together again ;-)
Cheers
DP
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Ever wondered why you don't come across poor vehicle dismantlers...
I would think with all the hi-tech stuff on cars these days, the margins are even more attractive, even allowing for the much tougher regulations concerning dismantling.
Some years ago I had the opportunity to get involved as a 'sleeping partner' in vehicle dismantling business. The business has gone on to be huge with one of the owners dripping with money. And I made a huge mistake :-(
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1965 Mini Moke. In 1971 a mate was going home to Canada and was going to let it be repossessed by the HP company. He offered it to me and I paid 6 months payments on it, drove all around Perth, Australia, took it up to the Pilbara (not a good idea) and then sold it to a guy up there for the price of the remaining payments on it. Sent off the money to the HP and paid it off. It was the ideal vehicle for West Australia. Most of the time I had the canopy off and just drove round in blazing sunshine. Used to pick up one of the nurses next door and head off down the beach most afternoons. I would buy another Moke like a shot if I saw a good one but there are very few on the road now.
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>> >> 1500 quid for M Reg Cavalier V6 >> Rare as rocking horse excrement them.
Pardon me for veering a little off topic ;-), but as something of a Cavalier Mk3 fan, the rarest version I can recall, and I haven't seen one for a while, is the orginal 2.0L 4x4. IIRC they only made them for a couple of years, I don't think anybody fancied the combination of basic trim and 4x4. Probably a bit complex for bangernomics anyway.
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Austin A30 bought for £5 in 1971, shared between 6 fellow students. Sold for £40 two years later, replaced by a better example costing £30.
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"2.0L 4x4"
IIRC production was stopped because of some problems with the transmission system........I remember a client of mine knicked one of these and got stuck on a soft verge....(and caught)
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Renault 16 for £15 - wrote it off 2 years later!
Morris Marina 1.3 coupe £25 - and not worth that - worst car I have ever owned - cheap though and the seller was kind enough to tow me to the garage to get fuel to drive it away.
Ford Cortina Mk3 1.6 estate for £50 at the back door of a garage from the scrap man - drove it back round to the front - sailed through its MOT and lasted me 2 more years.
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forgot the best one
Audi 100 avant - "its not worked for 3 years its yours if you can get it going" - reconnected the battery the right way round and drove away in 15 minutes - bloke was sick as a pig!
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A 1987 2CV Bamboo. Bought it as an extremely clean 2-owner car 7 years ago for £300. It had no MOT and I new the floor needed welding, but I thought I would put it in to see if there was anything else that it would fail on, and it passed!
I bought it as a station car on the basis that no-one would ever nick it (they haven't) and although I no longer need a station car I am loathe to sell it, because it always starts on the button. Of course eventually I had to weld the floor and put it on a new chassis (all of £500!), but the car is otherwise so clean and original, I reckon a nutter, sorry enthusiast, might give me £2000 for it on a sunny day. Not that it's for sale.
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Keep it boxster. An all-time classic and thoroughly sympathetic radical passenger-carrying device. Can only become more and more valuable.
What a pity the philosophy behind it seems to have departed from the automobile industry.
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I like the home made 2CV pickup, complete with plastic Indespension trailer wheel arches that I recognize from my trailer in kart racing days, I've seen parked in Oxford several times. So cheap and cheerful, but just so "right" at the same time. In daily use, it looks in super nick, too.
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A 1981 2CV that was advertised for £100, in 1999. The owners were going to scrap it but it wouldn't start, which they deemed to be fate.They gave the car to me for free, along with a new MOT. I commuted in it 60 miles every day up and down the M23 for a year until it's next MOT, where it didn't do quite so well. I sold it to the Tin Snail garage for the cost of the MOT and they restored it and sold it on...
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1984 2.0 Montego, bought in 2000 for £100, mainly for it's g/box to replace the one on the K reg Monty that had gone bang. due to vagaries of BL build quality, the older Montego was actually better than the K reg one so scrapped the K reg one and ran the 84 Monty for a year. needed a new power rack for the MoT but other than that was fine, 15,000 miles, just did a major service after I bought it and it was fine for the next year until I decided to buy my mates Luton rotbox Mk3 Cavvy which cost me an arm and a leg in welding, more than twice as much as I'd paid for the Monty.
Monty was very blue though, it was something aking to Moonraker Blue with blue velour interior and dash and the fake wood cappings on the door trims.
It was the last of my affairs with Montegos' as well. I drove it to the scrapper and couldn't get all the bits in it. I had a couple of spare wheels belted up in the front pass seat, the seats were folded down and I had 2 complete sets of lights, various altenators etc from previous montegos, spare exhorst system and the bike was in the back (so I cycle back from the scrapper).
I took the remainding 4 spare wheels, 2 bumpers and (folded-up) bonnet to the tip later that day in the Cavvy.
happy days that blue monty gave me. except for the temp sensor being a bit dodgy and so the auto choke would stay on even though I'd driven upto Lancs from Hampshire, the thing would still be idling at 1300rpm...
oh dear, gone on toooooo long
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Back in the mid 1980s I was given a 1972 Morris 1800 (Landcrab) for nothing by a Chilean Naval officer. He tossed the keys at me just as his ship sailed for home. Having fixed a blowing exhaust then taxed and insured it, I ran it for 18 months and it sailed through its MOT. It was like sitting in arm chair it was that comfortable. to drive. Did nothing for my image but who cared it was free.
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I have many happy childhood memories of the Landcrab, particularly Teal Blue Morris varieties. It felt absolutely vast inside, and i thought the strip speedo and facia mounted auto gear change very cool. They don't come up very often on ebay, but when I eventually give in to my yearnings thats the 'classic' I want.....
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Morris 1800 (Landcrab)
My old man had a Snowberry white one.....LCA 16F remember that strip speedo and that particular smell that only BMC managed (a nice warm carrie smell) and umberella handbrake because of the bench seat. Seem to recall he bought it from a pilot who bought it from "Braids" Garage in Colwyn Bay when they were both stationed up there, it used to make "stately" progress, the Princess 1800 he later had on a Y plate was nowhere as classy but still a very comfy drive with excellent Hydragas suspension. I recall the Morris had Hydrolastic (i.e. water) suspension.
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Just remembered the Pilot crashed his MGB (very badly) on the A5 on Anglesey when his spacial awrareness software developed a bug (aka VAT69).
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The 1800 was a good but odd car, just my sort of thing.
Never owned one, but drove a company pool example in my market research days in the City, mid to late sixties. I never got it anywhere near out of shape, it didn't seem to have the poke. Very low geared steering - pre power except in expensive cars - but lots of grip, very comfortable, huge inside. Would swim along on the motorway at 90ish.
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The 1800 was a good but odd car, very comfortable, huge inside.
Yeh cavernous inside, could get a child seat and a large carry cot for the baby on the back seat. I passed it onto my sister in law and her hubby when I finished with it and they got another years motoring out of it. That was until he seized up the engine 'cause he never checked the fluid levels, not that it used a lot of oil.
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he seized up the engine'cause he never checked the fluid levels, not that it used a lot of oil.
How long was it before you could bring yrself to speak to him again?
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he seized up the engine 'cause he never checked the fluid levels, not that it used a lot of oil. >> How long was it before you could bring yrself to speak to him again?
Never saw him again. Him & SIL got divorced a couple of years later
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Bought a Triumph Herald for GBP65 (my first car) ran it for 2 and a half years. Simple to look after, reliable, fun (ish) to drive only got rid of it after a fiesta driving female rep (first day on her job and "not looking where I was going" ran into me on a round about - quite amusing as the seams burst and the car filled with rust dust. Sadly the chassis also ended up banana shaped and the throttle pedal broke away from the floor - drove it home ater applying some araldite and left it behind the barn (shortly to be joined by its quick disolving Alfasud replacement another GBP65 car) to be scrapped a year or 2 later.
The Herald saw me through officer training and my first posting, allowed me to spend money on other things (beer, uniforms, beer, women and more beer) and accumulate a NCB without having to resort to the good parents - expect its either credit of parental hand outs now.
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I've never bought a car for peanuts, but i did sell one for........well flaked almonds.
It was a 1992 Honda Accord, which I sold to the chef of an Indian restaurant in Bristol for £600 and a takeaway meal for two.
And I kid you not, there were almonds atop my chicken curry.
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1929 Riley Monaco fabric 4 door saloon. One owner, full MOT, scabby paint but no rust, fabric all OK with no torn bits, 4 good tyres. Spare magneto. Needed a new battery.
£30.00.
(or rather £30 0/- as it was in 1968)
madf
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In 1975 I bought a Mini from a colleague for the full asking price of £17.50. No radio. no carpets and no heater, but I drove it for about nine months before using its excellent engine in another Mini.
Has anyone else bought a car where the asking price hasn't been to the nearest £ ?
Clk Sec
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