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Your least expensive car?


Dyslexic Viking

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Either my free Passat (from my dad) which has really only needed service parts (including the usual suspension arms) and gained another 100k in my ownership, or my £85 Renault 5 which was fitted with a £90 2nd hand engine. Both very reliable otherwise - I knew the Renault engine was tired when I bought it

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$150 Nissan Bluebird 1.6 LX in a fetching shade of About To Rain Blue.

Stuck a $60 Bosal exhaust on it and a $55 pair of Ring Comet spotlights with *ahem* legal wattage bulbs in.

It also got fitted with a proper tow hitch and electrics, so all in all I bolted things to it that were worth much more than the car itself. However, it was supremely reliable and comfortable. 

Sold it and bought a Bluebird ZX turbo for $200 which was the opposite of the car in terms of comfort and reliability, but still I do not regret that decision...

 

Phil

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1990s. For me, it was from one extreme to the other.  My CX GTI Turbo 2 was such an effortless speed machine that I feared for my licence. Then its clutch slipped occasionally during hard acceleration. 16 hours labour + parts was the quote. Expensive. I sold it in a hurry to a very knowledgable guy who was equipped to do the job, so I did not feel guilty. I urgently needed something, anything to replace it for my daily 27 miles each way commute.  On a dark, miserable evening after a search of the local free paper ads I saw a £200 MK1 Fiesta with MOT.  That would do. £20 reduction because the brakes felt iffy.  They failed on the drive home. Handbrake was good!  With a new master cylinder (£30), this horrible, unrefined thing which sounded like a powered biscuit tin was annoyingly reliable for a couple of years. Annoying because I could not invent a convincing reason for the management to approve its replacement. I sold it for £50 to a colleague and the damned thing motored on for several more years.

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Peugeot 306 FTW!

No 1 - cost minus £950 - Bought for £300 from a mate with 252k on it, did another 30k in 18m then someone went into the back of it and wrote it off, insurance pay out £1250..

No 2 - cost minus £50 - Given free as as a project for Smollest FL, unfortunately made mostly of bran flakes, scrapped, got £50 on top of delivery cost

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In 1987 , just married I bought my brother's Mini 1000,in Citron , YWP323M for £30 needing an MoT. It looked fairly scruffy, the tester said it looked like it had been attacked by moths and crocodiles. He also said it was a much better car than it looked and passed it.

Everyone loves classic Minis, but I couldn't wait to get something else. It was noisy, slow, and felt very unsafe. After 6 months I replaced it with a 1500HL Dolomite. The Mini sold for £170 to a workmate of my brothers who was later convicted of molesting his nieces. Among his lesser crimes was brush painting the Mini bright yellow and screwing on plastic wheel spats while leaving the original 145 section tyres on. I'm not sure what became of it, as my brother didn't have anything to do with him once his other activities were revealed.

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I have to admit that I'm a little jealous of how cheap cars are elsewhere. About 250 pounds is the fixed scrap price here and cars under about 1000 pounds exist but they are most often part cars. And getting cars fixed by a mechanic is also very expensive and car parts are often more expensive than the rest of Europe. So a cheap car quickly becomes an expensive one.

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That's easy for me (ignoring things I was given), my first car a 1959 Austin A35 two door deluxe, bought for £10. A triumph of hope and enthusiasm, over ability, saw it running well enough to drive around the garden and field. My father was going to teach me how to weld and get it roadworthy. Unfortunately that never happened and I eventually sold it to a friend of my brother for £25. One of the few times I've made a profit on a car.

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Oh, I almost forgot the Suzuki Swift I bought in 2015 for 222 euro. A bit more expensive than the Peugeot, but broke it up for spares (it used lots of oil and my intent was to either fix or swap the engine and then sell it on, but it turned out to be terminally rusty as well) and made a profit of several hundred euros.  I never intended to keep it for long anyway, so this one probably shouldn't count.

22786531475_0e40e96bf5_z.jpg

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Lada Riva in 2004 has got to be my cheapest.

1989 model in that dark red they did. 1.3 I think.

Was mot'd and taxed for several months and I paid £30 for it.

My previous car had been written off and I  was due to attend my apprenticeship training programme which now involved a train ride from Kent to Nottingham. The company paid for my train ticket and I used that money to by the Lada and put the fuel in to get me there and back.

The intention was to scrap or sell it when I returned as 17 year old me didn't want to be driving a Lada but it was perfectly adequate and so I ended up running it for a few months of total abuse and eventually the utch slave popped a seal and it went to a guy who was exporting them. Thibk he gave me £200 for it lol

Cheers

Ben

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A maestro that I was given when without wheels. It had a months' MOT and smelled of cigarettes so I had to drive it with the windows open.

I bought a blue Skoda Estelle 105 Lux around 1996 for £60. Did some work and got it though the next MOT. Sold for £400 to a girl about my age who arrived with her dad. I rang her after and ended up seeing her a few times over the summer. I thought I better bail out though as I wasn't sure how long the engine would last...

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11 minutes ago, stripped fred said:

A maestro that I was given when without wheels. It had a months' MOT and smelled of cigarettes so I had to drive it with the windows open.

I bought a blue Skoda Estelle 105 Lux around 1996 for £60. Did some work and got it though the next MOT. Sold for £400 to a girl about my age who arrived with her dad. I rang her after and ended up seeing her a few times over the summer. I thought I better bail out though as I wasn't sure how long the engine would last...

Do you mean the Skodas engine or the girls? 🤣🤣🤣

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