Shh - it will put a lot of people in shiny showrooms and busy factories out of work!.

Few people can be bothered these days - they just borrow the money on a PCP and get a new car.

What is surprising is that with fuel injection etc is that a £500 car will run almost as well as a new one!

I'm of the view that three £1000 cars is a much better deal and lower risk than a £3000 car. Either may go bang and become a lump of scrap metal at any time, but with the £1000 car that can happen three times before it has cost £3000

A mate of mine only ever spends £500 on a car, and after buying it only does routine service items on it. On average I'd reckon he gets about three years out of each one before scrapping it. He also drives about 20k miles per year so gets seriously good value for money.

Good luck with the Mazda3 - I own one of a similar age (a 55 reg from Jan 06, owned from new), admitedly still only at ~60k miles, but its generally going fine for an 11yo car (the steering's a bit heavier than a few years ago, but its still perfectly driveable). Unless something really major goes wrong and I can't find a suitable replacement that'll last a similar amount of time, I'll keep mine and run it into the ground.

The petrol-engined versions are very reliable - I can (and have) still thrash it all the way to the red line no trouble (an occasional Italian tune-up) and its just done another 1000+ miles of motorway, A roads and windy country lanes driving when I went on holiday to Cornwall recently. Didn't miss a beat. Barely depreciating now, probably worth more now than a year ago as its had a new clutch recently. Little amount of fancy electronic (and most untested) gizmos to go wrong outside electric windows, A/C and the ICE (all fine).

OP - don't forget that some older cars are more expensive to insure than newer (equivalent spec) ones, as they have less safety features. This may make a reasonable difference (maybe £100) to the figures, but still...good cheap motoring is nice to hear!