Not Quite Free Cars.

[UltraWomble]

I rather suspect that a certain Vauxhall loving Cheshirite is going to win hands down here, but what is the cheapest car ( not free, one you have had to pay pound notes for) that has still had an MOT and been useable that you have bought?

 

Mine - a Mk 2 Fiesta 1.1L. Cost £40 with 3 months MOT which I bought when my wife wrapped our Mk3 round a gate post.

 

As you may have already guessed for £40 it was an utter shit heap, but saw me right until the Mk 3 had been fixorated by the insurance company.

[Partridge]

RobT sold a very, very decent Rover for £200 recently. PARTRIDGE_WOMAN's brother has a Stilo JTD which I was in today funnily enough. He only paid £80 for it, and it's actually a very good car.

[dollywobbler]

I don't think I've ever managed to snag something with MOT for less than £100, but £150 got me both a Volvo 740GLE estate with MOT and around the same time, a Honda Civic 1.4GL. The Honda was not a bad car, but had a rotten back arch. The Volvo didn't like idling when cold and once dumped a load of water on Mrs DW's head because a sunroof drain was blocked.

 

I put a silly graphic on the Civic, and I still have no regrets.

 

Both are visible in this shot.

[320touring]

My £100 e32 735i wasnt a bad shout:)

[danthecapriman]

Ford Capri mk2 1.6L, bought for £100 in 2001 with a few months tax and test. Still got the car now, although it's not in the same condition as when I bought it!

It was hanging though and had no chance of getting another mot.

[Lacquer Peel]

I bought a tidy but crash damaged Nissan Sunny estate (weird spec with an electronically controlled carb, no PAS but 4x electric windows, electric sunroof) with lots of T&T for £50, not realising that it's a completely different car to the Euro Sunny hatches, I couldn't find any panels locally, I weighed it in and spotted a Sunny van of the same style in a local-ish scrapyard a few months later. Baws.

[bub2006]

Mk2 fiesta pop. Brown vinyl roof. Paid 30 quid 11 year ago. Boot floor fell out.

[twosmoke300]

Bought a chevette from the Honda dealer I worked for for a fiver . It had two months tax n test . A mate used it for a month while he rebuilt his kitten engine then I chopped in the tax and bridged it for thirty quid .

[the judge]

Once saw an escort mk2 go through tuebrook auctions for 3 pounds. Would have cost 33 with imdemnity,and it really was awful

[spike60]

£60 Sunny, 1.3 metallic green with huge gloss yellow patches over the scabs. Drove well for about 4 months then sold wheels and tyres and some other bits, scrappy gave £30 for the rest of it.

[derskine]

£150


 

 

£150 - this was not usable though..
 

 

£150
 



This was pretty much free because I swapped the other 18 for it, and then received the other 18 back, albeit with a smashed up rear end.
 

[Keymaster]

I can believe that. Tuebrook auctions only ever sold top quality* stuff! I used to live round the corner and would go sometimes with a couple of mates if we were bored. I dont think we ever saw anything even half decent get put through there, special mention to the mk3 escort that contrived to loose all its coolant and jettison its exhaust system when driven through. Oddly enough it didnt sell...

[eddyramrod]

I think the two cheapest MoT-d runners I've had were my £40 Cortina mk3 in 1985, and about a year later, my first Princess, which cost me 30.  Was supposed to be 60 but I only had half on me, and promised to go back later with the rest.  Later still hasn't happened...

Princess was a 2.2 auto with a dodgy box, Tina was a 2000GT in Daytona Yellow, ex-Lancashire plod.

[Albert Ross]

1985 saw me buy a taxed and tested 1969 Mk2 Cortina for £65. 2008 I bought a taxed and tested Sapphire for £70, and sell the CD player for 30, and discover £40 of fuel in the tank when I messed with the sender. Win. Oh, and a DS and Austin 3 Litre for £50 each.

[wuvvum]

I bought a Metro automatic at auction for a fiver, and a 928cc Talbot Sunbeam for a tenner.  Both were plus auction fees though.  I also once bought a Talbot Horizon 1.1 LE with T&T but a snapped front torsion bar for a tenner.  Taught my then g/f to drive in it.

[DodgyBastard]

DSC_1948 by srblythe, on Flickr

 

£100 for the Proton, £250 for the Carlton both last year.

[eddyramrod]

I bought two of my Fiat 500s for £10 and £25, but neither had MoT.  Both worked though.  Allegedly!

[Split_Pin]

My mate got a 5 year old FSO Polonez for ten pounds in 1994. It was the mega pov spec with oblong lights and no third side window. Horrible car but it was quite fast so everyone took turns to do donuts in it until it blew up. Stuck a 5th wheel in the back and weighed it in.

[xtriple]

Said before, the Passat estate I bought at Saltash auctions for a quid - auctioneer couldn't get a bid so I bid a quid and the bastard knocked it down to me!

 

To be fair. it had loads of t and t and nearly a tankful of fuel and it drove superbly, just a bit tatty. It got used for everything, moving at least two households and got leant to everone. It was great.

[AlabamaShrimp]

Cheapest I've actually bought with my own money was a mk1 fiesta for £40 in about 96. It had some t&t but can't remember how much. Got sent to the scrappers when I was stopped for turning right against traffic... Long story

[New POD]

On the FREE cars thread I detailed a mk2 cavalier cdi auto that was free, but I gave the owner a bottle of scotch which cost £6.64

Before getting it, I'd followed some random bloke to his work because he had a mk2 cav sri and left him my number.  None months later he phones me as hes getting a new car, and the scrappy has offered £35 for the Sri. I gave him £40. I ran it successfully for 3 years and 50K miles.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

In the olden days, me and a mate used to run a 'Cars wanted' ad in the local paper this led to numerous cheap,free and even in somers cases owners paying us to take some ,now, prime chod away. That little bubble burst at about the end of the last century .

In recent times,my best bargain has to be this;

Pictured in July in the petrol station near to the AngryDicky family seat after I gave his dad £100 and 50 for the tax ( ah,the good old days). It has since toured France ,sailed through a ticket with no advises and is currently getting daily abuse by one of the Miss Ns. Total expenditure or maintenance in 5,000 miles ? - half a litre of Tesco semi-synthetic.

[JohnK]

Cheapest I have had was a 1995 M reg Mondeo 1.8 GLX TD, which I paid £70 for back in 2007. Great motor

 

 

Next cheapest was a Volvo 440 1.6 for £100 in 2008. It belonged to my mates dad originally, who was the head service technician at our local Volvo dealership. Meticuously maintained..

 

[Junkman]

 

£ 1.00

 

Needed new front tyres for the MoT and functioned faultlessly as a WBoD for four months.

Well, apart from the back box probably still being on the M6 in Brum that is.

Sold because antedeluvian method of gear ratio alteration, wrong propellant, untrustworthy green tincture

and the Peugeot 405 simply being a better car in every single aspect.

[Negative Creep]

£50 mk1 Clio with a knackered starter motor. Only needed a few things for the MOT and became a rare example of a car I actually made money on

[cort16]

I got a Volvo 360 gle for 100 quid when my cortina failed it's mot spectacularly and I was out of transport. It had 9 months mot and tax on it. It was the most unreliable car I've ever owned .

 

I got a1.6 cortina crusader for 150 quid that was really tidy. It also had chrome type mag wheels and when I opened the boot I found a 4 ton jack, which I then somehow lost.

 

A few years ago I bought a Volvo 440 gle for 70 quid with a months t&t. I gave it to my mate who used it in a 1500 min px deal on a vectra.

[Six-cylinder]

Back in 1998 I was bored traveling with my boss for work in an old Luton Transit that could only manage 50mph. My boss was telling me how he had been offered an old MKI Fiesta 1.1 for £45.00 with 3 months MOT, just to relieve the boredom of the journey I asked if I could buy it. My boss called the seller who would not budge on price but agreed to delivery it to my home. That brightened the journey up a lot.

 

The car arrived a few days latter and looked tatty but ran well. I gave it a wash and placed an ad in our local Tesco for sale board and it sold quickly to a New Zealand traveler who wanted it to tour the UK for a few weeks. I liked that Fiesta a lot not only did buying it brighten my day but I sold it for £70.00!

 

[John F]

Back in the mid-1990s I bought a 1979 Audi 80 1.6 with 6 months' TÜV for £20.

 

After a year or so (it was still on German plates), I sold it to a breakers in the UK for £35.

[jakebullet]

Back in 1998 I was bored traveling with my boss for work in an old Luton Transit that could only manage 50mph. My boss was telling me how he had been offered an old MKI Fiesta 1.1 for £45.00 with 3 months MOT, just to relieve the boredom of the journey I asked if I could buy it. My boss called the seller who would not budge on price but agreed to delivery it to my home. That brightened the journey up a lot.

 

The car arrived a few days latter and looked tatty but ran well. I gave it a wash and placed an ad in our local Tesco for sale board and it sold quickly to a New Zealand traveler who wanted it to tour the UK for a few weeks. I liked that Fiesta a lot not only did buying it brighten my day but I sold it for £70.00!

 

 

My first fiesta was the spit of this car. Technically I've still got mine, but only as a rusted shell full of shit under a tarp.

[Six-cylinder]

My first fiesta was the spit of this car. Technically I've still got mine, but only as a rusted shell full of shit under a tarp.

 

The Reg was ONC 418W, I have just done a DVLA check, mine shows no MOT last taxed August 1998, so I guess it is dead.