|
Got to thinking what the cheapest car I ever got that did a good job for me.Had to be an Simca 1100 that I bought for £300 from a local paper ad. Got me to work and did a couple of holidays and it kept going for a couple of years before MOT man gave an expensive diagnosis. I exchanged it at a main dealwrs for something I can't remember but got my £300 back in px.
|
Without doubt a Volvo 360 GLS, Y-reg suffix bought in about 1998. Nasty metallic green with beige velour interior. 2.0, 3 door model. Loved it. Great car on the motorway. Even had those little wipers on the headlights.
I paid £150, which included 6 months road tax and a year's MOT. I used it to commute daily from Reading to Maidstone for a year without a single hitch.
After a year I fancied a change and bought a Volvo 480 (which was similarly reliable) and gave the 360 to a friend in need who ran it for a further year before the head gasket went.
I still occasionally search autottrader and ebay for 360s, however when they crop up they're usually GLTs. I would just love to find a GLS and keep it for fun.
|
|
Bought 138k miles 14-yr old Nissan Sunny for £300. Used for 5 months. Then sold at £350.
|
|
Daewoo Nubira. Free, but worth £600. That was seven years ago. Still going with minimal fuss.
|
|
1989 Volvo 240 estate bought for £100 4 years ago. Still going strong, used daily.
|
|
Ford Cortina MkV GLS. Three years old, 72,000 miles, £256 in 1983. Kept it for two years until it was stolen. Would have gone on and on.
|
|
|
|
Without doubt a Volvo 360 GLS, Y-reg suffix bought in about 1998......
My old boss had one of these and decided to look out another for spares. So another colleague who lived near him decided to let him have his for nothing after the RAC chap who had towed it home told him that it was a major mechanical failure in the diff/rear prop shaft area - complete lack of drive.
My old boss (call him John) went round to his house to collect it with a mechanic friend, who crept underneath the back of the car and re inserted the problem shaft and restored drive to both rear wheels! John was very impressed whereas the guy who'd just given him the car was rather less impressed.
The car that was intended for spares was driven round by John for several months before the MOT expired and he then broke it to fix his other one.
|
|
|
|
Vauxhall Victor bought at short notice in the '70s for £40 with a fresh MoT and sold a year later with no MoT for £15.
It was christened the "dulux dog" by my heartless colleagues owing to its hand painted 2-tone grey bodywork.
|
|
1967 A40 Farina bought in 1978 for £80 as a runabout for my wife for an anticipated 6 months...had it for 11 years and sold it for £30.
|
|
1986 Mazda 323 1.3, £200 3 years ago, 70k, no tax but long MOT, never went wrong, hardly any rust, sold for £300 6 months later.
|
|
1957 Austin A35 cost £30, sold after 1 year and 8k miles for £35...
|
|
Austin A30 bought in 1970 for £5, shared between 6 at college. Sold 2 years later for £40.
|
SUZUKI ALTO bought for £2000 and kept it for four years- didnt cost me a penny, nothing went wrong and sold it for--£1600.00
|
|
|
|
Time since the deal makes it all relative but...
SAAB 96 from 1968 bought in the mid-80s for £20 and one month's MOT, renewal of which entailed a couple of side light bulbs. Sold after two years and 20,000 totally reliable miles for £60.
Dyane 4 (age forgotten) bought in 1975 for £80 with a year's MOT when I moved to a job paying a decent mileage allowance which meant my first trip to Wales brought back £140. Used it for a year on very profitable expenses until it became a one-cylinder 200cc car and sold it for £140 when various Citroen 2CV racers tried to bite my hands off for the gearbox alone. Once down in Surrey when the power went I had to reverse up a hill because it couldn't cope with going forward!
Cheapest fun car was a one-owner 1963 Series 1 Lotus Elan bought in 1980 and sold after two years' extraordinary motoring for the £600 paid. It had never been garaged in its life and the gel coat was suffering but its first engineer owner had maintained the rest wonderfully.
In the late 1970s and 1980s I never paid more for a car than I could withdraw from a cashpoint, i.e. £300. Cue Austin Somerset, Peugeot 604, 3-4 SAAB 95s, two SAAB 900s, Volvo 144, Volvo 164 and so on.
|
Rover 214 got it free.!!
Lasted 2 years only put a new cat and brakes 2 tyres on serviced by myself so not bad, towards the end the head gasket was weeping into cylinder got shut.
|
£75 for an old brown 1.3 Marina when we'd been told we couldn't afford to run a car by my boss... we had for 6 months, it did 8k miles in that time and for some reason we never got to the bottom of used no oil but needed topping up with water every so often! Used it for a trip from Falkirk to Weston as well!
Best bit was that we entered a "treasure hunt" from work with it after about 5 months use and we won!
|
A few come to mind.
First car was a Mini 850 - Smokin Chas if you're around you'll remember this one!
Haggled, yes I haggled with a little old lady, who definitely knew her own mind over this. I eventually got it for £175 in 1985. During the time I had it it needed a new water pump and I put a stereo in it. I think I may have changed a tyre or two as well.
As I was coming up to sell it I decided to repair the rust holes in the front wing with fibreglass etc. I sold it for £350 to a guy I knew who was just coming up to driving age. I managed to recoup the purchase price and all my expenses, so I came out even.
More recently I bought in 1996 or thereabouts a Morris Oxford Series 6 Farina. This cost me £675. I spent some money on it plus I had to fork out the excess on a claim - brakes failed and it hit my garage wall. OUCH! The bodywork was repaired by a classic car retoration specialist and he did a cracking job on it! I sold it in 99 for £995 to an Irishman who flew over to Bristol to pick it up.
Peugeot 309 SRi - given to me by my father. It was probably worth about £1200 when it had 40k on it. I put another 40k on it then it got written off. The insurance co paid out £650 and left me with the salvage, valued at £0. I made another £125 by selling the wheels to a young lad for his 309 basic, the windscreen to a friend of mine who was getting another through an MOT, and the rest of the car to a garage owner - he wanted the gearbox and a few other bits.
This was replaced in 2001 by a 1993 Lada Riva. Bought for £200 with long tax and MOT. I basically kept it about 5 months really to use up the rest of the insurance policy left over by the 309, and to tow my trailer as I was renovating a house in my spare time. When the insurance policy was nearing its end I sold the Lada with about 3 months MOT for £100. During that time I hadn't even changed the oil!
It was used as a work hack, small tank and to embarress the wife and kids! On one occasion I was waiting at lights and an elderly gent coming up behind me lost control of his Rover 100 (Metro). He clipped the near side rear bumper causing the car to shake. Upon inspection the following morning I phoned him to tell him that there was absolutely NO damage to my car whatsoever. He reckoned he'd done quite a bit of damage to his!
|
1985/C FIAT Panda 1000S (we used to joke about it having the "999 FIRE engine"), 71000 miles exactly, bought for £200 from boss's wife in 1994. Everything was so cheap to fix, ie head gasket £7.70 and an afternoon's spannering, tyres £20 each and so on. I replaced all 4 tyres to get it through its MoT, a year later the bulkhead had rusted through all around the pedal box so I sold the wheels and tyres to a neighbour for £20 each plus her Panda's wheels and bald tyres, then auctioned the car for £150. Even after taking the auction's slice off I didn't lose any money on the car, and it regularly returned 60mpg to boot!
1989/G Nissan Bluebird Premium 1.6 petrol: bought to use as a minicab, cost me £1400 from another cab driver in 1998. The car had 114k miles showing, it was clean as a whistle, the only fault was a very saggy driver's seat base (cured by wedging a folded blanket underneath 'twixt seat cushion and supporting spring web). I cabbed it for a year without anything breaking or falling off and took it up to 198k miles. Just before selling it I removed the instrument binnacle to, er, change a bulb (cough), and behind the speedo was a piece of yellowing masking tape bearing the words "oh no, not again!".
I sold it to yet another cab driver for £1100 who ran it for another 2 years, it was then sold on to a private owner and I used to see it parked in the same street for another 4 years after that. Last time I looked in the window the mileage was showing 285k, although it had probably covered a couple of hundred thousand more.
Edited to correct subject line bug
Edited by Pugugly on 20/02/2010 at 23:12
|
Had a few freebies when running the breakdown/recovery service..
Triumph 1300... gave it to my dad.....just needed 30 minutes welding.
Volvo 340/Opel Kadette Estate/Renault 5. Used them all regularly until they died....all free with minor faults.
Bought an early Ren 5, welded a floor in, converted it to a little service van.
Cost £50 as an MOT trade in at the local garage. I reckon it earned about £24K before I scrapped it with HG failure. Bought a Simca 1100 van after that but it was never as good !
Ted
|
1983 Sierra 1.6L in Baltic ("Doom") Blue. Came in as a PX in a Ford dealer I worked in at the time. 97,000 miles on the clock, slipping clutch, otherwise clean and tidy. Got it for the stand in value of £400. Cost me £80 cash and a case of Stella for one of the techs for the new clutch. Kept it 7 years, and sold it to a mate in 1998 with 200k on the clock for £250.
Blew its head gasket on holiday at the top of Porlock Hill in 1997, and seized solid a mile later. Cooled down, restarted and got us home (love that Pinto engine) with a couple of coolant top ups. That was the only major mechanical failure. Also needed bits over the ownership period (a water pump, various bushes, rear wheel bearings, a coil, a battery and an alternator) but with Ford parts prices, and being an easy car to work on, nothing broke the bank. Apart from when the coil failed, it never failed to start or get me where I was going. I know I will never experience cheaper motoring again. I once worked out that the depreciation and maintenance cost of that car came to less than 2p a mile.
|
My 1st car in 1989 was my Retired Aunts 1.3 VW Golf Cl in a kind of dull blue colour. CNC443Y I can't remember the milage but they sold it to me for £1200 (a lot less than the car was worth) I ran it over the summer as an agricultural student was working all round the UK so put on a few miles. At the end of the summer when I went back to college sold it for £2200. Wanted a new car. Nova SR was the car of choice at the time for young Agrics. Looked at Manta GTE £2500 to insure a car costing £4k. Renault 5 Turbo, 205XS and various others.
Settled on a 1.3 VW Polo Coupe Sport. Not my brightest decision, poor handling gutless car with 4 speed box.
I was a fool to part with that Golf but at 18 yrs old you know it all. Don't think it went down too well with the aunt either.
Last car but one was 1.8 Golf CL. J91HSL. Purcahse at Auction for £3500 with 50000m kept 5 years sold it for £600 with 180000m on it.
Last car Octavia Tdi Estate bought at 47000m for £4700 ran it for 5 years till it was 11years old and scrappaged it with 165000m on the clock for new Volvo V50. Nice car but I don't know if i'm as happy running a new car with all that money tied up in it as I was running older relaible second hand cars. You tend to worry a lot more about leaving it parked etc.
Edited by rtj70 on 21/02/2010 at 10:48
|
Renault 20 TL bought for £150 from a farmer's widow as a stopgap motor in 1986. It was rusting everywhere and it was that horrible 'marron glace' metallic that was so matt it turned white every time it rained. It also stank like a cowshed every time the weather warmed up.
But it was comfortable, utterly reliable and economical and we ended up running it for months, by choice.
Got most of the money back when it eventually failed the MOT, by selling it to a friend who wanted the engine that had done only about 80k and was sweet as a nut. Even got 20 quid for the Amstrad stereo!
Edited by Pugugly on 21/02/2010 at 12:36
|
|
1976 VW Polo bought in 1993 from a neighbour for peanuts as a stop gap. Kept it for a year until the MOT was up during which time nothing whatsoever was replaced, not even the oil I'm ashamed to say. Sold it for virtually the same money to someone with the competence and equipment to weld up the rather porous floor pan.
|
|
