Best car you've ever owned?

[CortinaDave]

For me.... probably this:

 

 

It was completely mint, and i'm an arse for selling it

[Alexg]

Best as in coolest - probably this

 

[dollywobbler]

Sorry to be predictable, but it's this one.

 

My wobblin' Dolly. I love how it just laps up the way I mercilessly thrash it all over the place. Well, I say laps up - I have broken gearboxes twice...

 

There's only one car I really regret selling though.

 

Sadly, not the Ferrari - my ol' Renault 5. The regret isn't too bad, because Mr Bickle's got it now, but it was superb. A bit like an eager puppy. Would really like another. Albeit perhaps with a slightly larger engine...

[Pete-M]

 

Predictable, I know.

 

I cannot bring myself to sell it. Every time I drive the bloody thing it cheers me up and relaxes me at the same time. Can't ask for more than that.

 

Oh, it properly goes like stink and averaged close to 25mpg on a week long 2200 mile Eurothrash last year.

[Mr Lobster]

Probably this -

 

 

Really should have kept it, it was mint but had a couple of minor electrical issues. But i'd spent the best part of £3k on it and it still kept breaking. It got the point is was draining me and I fell out of love with it and sold it, bought the Toledo which by any sensible measure is a far better car - faster, bigger, comfier, better mpg, reliable. But not as exciting as the 145...

[Lord Sterling]

This:

 

 

I just cannot bring myself to part with it. Best car I've ever owned.

 

Alas this was another car I really liked:

 

Sadly its well past its best and may well be stripped for parts sometimes soon.

[Hertz]

My Current Alpine A610, love it to bits.

 

[outlaw118]

Hmmm, a difficult one, either this:

Astra 3 1800 sport estate, rusty, dented, and as you can see, in the twilight of it's years, sporting a green bonnet. The Volvo I have now is technically superior in every way except I don't LOVE it. The Ashtray had character, i knew all it's little foibles, and it never let me down (properly).

 

Or

 

JLE627V R4 GTL, you never forget your first car, and have had another since, but it wasn't the same. Willing to try again though.

[Angrydicky]

My A55 MK1 Cambridge is the best car I've ever owned, without a doubt. It's super comfy (as Torsten will verify!), with a lovely quiet recon engine, burbling stainless exhuast, big squashy leather seats and column gear change. Cheap as well, it's probably cost me about £1000 in total. I had to replace the whole braking system when I got it but the parts are fairly cheap so it didn't break the bank, also had to do a shedload of welding (mainly chopping out old MOT plates-over-rust and doing it properly) REALLY reliable for such an old car as well, and I do a fair old mileage in it. I used it all through the winter and it never let me down either. All the people at work love it.

 

It will need a bit more welding for the next MOT though, and a bit of TLC to the exhaust, as I caught it on a speedbump and it's been knocking ever since. Here it is, taken a couple of weeks ago at an A30-35 club meet in Kent (the A35 wouldn't start so I took the reliable Austin )

 

[RoadworkUK]

Ok, I'm going to brave here and post a car that isnt really Autoshite, but may be one day. Sorry for not having owned enough cars, but by any objective measurement this has been probably the best car anyone my family has owned ever.

 

 

My current daily driver. Cost me a bag of sand three years ago, with 51k on the clock. 1.8T Sport, took me four thousand miles across europe the first month I had it. Water pump failed THE DAY AFTER I GOT HOME, gr11 for not having to be flat-bedded back from Sweden. Apart from that it's never flinched and I've thrown another 45k on it in three years. (click here for the full write-up of the Pan-Euro trip, if you likehttp://hooniverse.com/2010/09/14/roadwork-the-grand-tour-part-one/)

 

OK, it's not a terribly interesting or quirky car, but its tediously reliable, gets 34mpg, does thoroughly illegal speeds if you so desire, doesn't have a stupid Edsel-style grill dominating the front end, and I fit in it.

 

And sometimes I squint and pretend I'm Frank Biela winning the British Touring Car Championship in 1996.

[r.welfare]

 

5 cylinders, quattro, 1 previous owner, 51k on the clock, mint. Lovely.

[M'coli]

This one. 3 different shades of brown before the rust and jenolite are counted, well over 140000 miles when I bought it for £500 in 1998, and being an 1800GLi it didn't have many toys to go wrong but did have a sweet engine, it handed many supposedly fast cars their arse on a plate and kept many genuinely rapid cars honest. That's not why it's the best car I ever owned, though. It never failed to get me home, even when the headgasket had gone between 3 and 4 - it still got me home.

[Negative Creep]

I couldnt just pick one, it would be a mix:

 

Most fun to drive - mx5

Best engine sound - ford falcon

Most reliable - ford sierra

Best memories - nissan sunny

Put the biggest grin on my face. - datsun 120y

Quickest - 200sx

[TimothyClaypole]

Not this one but identical apart from the reg number:

 

 

If I had the spare money I'd get another tomorrow.

[Rusty Pelican]

This , bought from a scrappys for £50 in 91 , still plodding on

 

[andrew e]

This. Bought ex Avis rental nearly a year old for £6600 from the Great trade centre. Traded in minus brakes/front suspension @140k later at Motorpoint for £200! It was only 7 years old, but had been walloped down one side by then. The days when you had to pay to have a car collected! Absolutly loved to be thrashed, went all over europe, carried 2 girls from cradle to school age. Had supurb climate control too. For a torque convertor auto you could rev the goolies off it! I remember after the PX spotting it in a different space to where I left it, but about 4 foot further foward than all the other cars in the line

 

 

Seen here highly overloaded with hardcore!

[eddyramrod]

I really don't know how to answer this question. Could be any one of these...

Give me long enough and I could probably think of a couple more contenders too. I think the Cortina was the first car I ever described in such terms, so that should probably take the title.

[Father Ted]

I was a bloody fool to sell this.

Probably the only BX with NO RUST at all. Anywhere.

Bought for £300, sold for £300 12 months and 20K miles later - cost me nothing.

 

Its still costing the current owner nothing

[Cavcraft]

I'll add more at a later date (as fell in love with a few) but right now I think my sorely missed Cavalier Mk2 (facelift) 1.8SRi saloon. Hammered every single day, crashed twice, abused, neglected and mistreated. It went like a rocket, didn't handle and was just un-kill-able in my hands. I raced every possible car I could in it and had many victories against flash chariots.

Picked our first born up from hospital in it too (so very special memories) and when I lobbed a PCS system on it it sounded ace. Third gear was fantastic, it was good on fuel, ace fun to drive and I couldn't put into words how much I loved it. It was also the kick start of a very long love affir with Vauxhalls which I've never regretted.

 

D178 OTX where are you now?

[cort16]

This. I've got a new A6 now and although it's a better put together just look at the Alfa..

 

P.S. CortinaDave did you know your ex SD1 v8 was in in STV's field of blood a couple of weeks ago?

[HillmanImp]

This one.

 

 

Last I heard the guy that bought it had been pulled over by the police and where I had crashed it and replaced the front end (I say I, I mean my mate who did all the work for fuck all and did a fucking amazing job, I owe that man some scotch) with a later car, had forgotten to replace the VIN plate and it got re registered as a Q plate. New owner rang me in a rage.

 

however the car had been treated in some sort of metal preserve beforehand and was immaculate. Fucking gutted I got shot. I would buy it back like a shot.

[dollywobbler]

I should mention my Citroen Dyane. I don't have any pics, as it's well pre-digital. Bought in 1997 for £375 including 12 months MOT. She'd clocked up 168,000 miles, and leaked and burnt oil in a demented fashion. Dropped another engine in and I did 14,000 miles in a year (sharing the mileage with other 2CVs) visiting friends in London and Hull. Once drove it back from the Tan Hill in, North Yorks in fearsome storms - 40mph was as fast as I dared drive down the M6 and we did the round trip from Birmingham and back in a day. I felt quite broken, but the car didn't.

 

Also drove back from Hove to Solihull in just over 2.5hrs once. Foot-to-the-floor all the way. That's an average of over 60mph! Went off-roading in Yorkshire in it once too. In all that mileage, it was serviced once and aside from a slight exhaust leak, there was not one problem in that time. The off-roading actually resulted in the rear wing parting company with the body, indicating that severe corrosion meant another MOT pass was unlikely. Looking back, I wish I'd had the money to restore her. In fact, it would have been far better to do that than spend £1600 on my first BX a year later... (on finance. )

[Parky]

1993 Toyota Corolla Executive. Blue inside and out, power everything, auto and smooth as. Owned by me then my Dad from November 2003 to September 2009. In six years it needed an interior light bulb, a handful of oil changes (Tesco Supergrade FTW), one fan belt (was intact but perishing a little, probably would have been OK, £2 on eBay) and a couple of tyres (Ceats). Loved that thing but annoying to drive around East London as I got stopped at every set of lights by drunk blokes asking if I was a Minicab. Actually took two blokes back to Grays once as it was a stones throw from my place and charged them £30 for the privilege! Wish I still had it.

 

Other than that, my 1993 Renault 5 Campus I owned between 1996 and 2000. Again dead reliable, swift, 40mpg irregardless of how hard I ragged it but eventually I killed it accidentally by changing the coolant badly, trapping an airlock in it and cracking the head. One bottle of radweld and a swift px later I drove off in a new Ford Fiesta amd enjoyed two years of intermittent electrical faults...........

[eddyramrod]

I don't have any pics, as it's well pre-digital. Bought in 1997

 

And that's what sort of excuse, exactly? I refer you to my pic of the green Cortina. That's October 1991, the day it came back from the sprayer. Back then digital was a clock. Even I can scan in an old print and save the file in a useable manner. C'mon man, keep up with the times! (Said by me, of all people, riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight...)

[Pete-M]

Loved that thing but annoying to drive around East London as I got stopped at every set of lights by drunk blokes asking if I was a Minicab.

 

I used to get that in this. They really must look like a Metrocab when you're pissed.

 

[Shep Shepherd]

The Volvo without a doubt:

 

 

It's also the car I've owned the longest - seven and a half years and counting, according to my calculations

[RobT]

So far, it's my current 2.0EFi Montego. I wasn't expecting to like it so much but it's smooth, comfortable and quick despite the auto box. Long journeys are a doddle in it which helps a lot.

 

Coolest car - was a big bumpered oak green mk2 Golf GTi. But I always felt a bit of a cock driving it because of the cool hot hatch status, I'd much rather be in a lumbering old clunker or something beige.

[trigger]

New plate by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

 

My Passat must have been my best car, it wasn't anything special but i loved it, it was lovely and smooth to drive, used no diesel and had all the goodies, I drove all over place in it and never got fed up with it.

 

If it hadn't got written off i much even still have it now.

[DCLane]

This: Saab 9000 2.3 CSE uprated to Aero spec.

 

 

Only replaced because of the 9-3 Aero convertible behind it.

[Barry Cade]

 

 

Cant decide between these two. 190D was faultless. Ran on 100% veg, never missed beat and was great in the snow. I was mad to get rid. Other one was my 200E, bought for £250, then hammered round Europe for 2 weeks,averaging 37 MPG and got me from the Nurburgring to Fife in 1 sitting.Miss it terribly.