The Cheapest Car

M

Muhammad Shafique

New Member
Messages
18
"How low can you go? Let's talk about the ultimate budget wheels. From secondhand finds to ultra-affordable new models, what's the cheapest car you've ever owned or come across? Share your tips for scoring the best deals and discuss the pros and cons of budget-friendly rides!"
 
philw696

philw696

Member
Messages
25,461
For me the cheapest car that I bought that was also a special car was a 1995 BMW M3 3.0 for £300 back in 2011 spent more putting two front wings and rear arches on it but flew through a MOT and I used it for track days.
Most useful car I have is my 1990 Renault 4.
 
Wack61

Wack61

Member
Messages
8,793
Cheapest to buy or cheapest to own

New GR Yaris, 7 months of fun, sold it back to a Toyota dealer for a £600 profit

New Mustang 5.0, 2 years cost me about 4k, annoyingly it's still worth what I sold it for 4 years on

I only buy cheap luxury or sports cars at throw away money
I used to have a very good mechanic who would fix anything and do an engine swap for £400 if it was like for like and £500 if there were bits to swap over

XK8 £1000 blown gearbox, £600 to fix it, 4 years use, sold it for £2000
TD6 range rover £1000, bought a knackered engine on a pallet which needed doing again so 3k in this one, sold it for £2500
4.2 supercharged range rover £2500 , sold for the same after 18 months
Audi A8 4.2q, loved it but 10mpg £3k, sold for 3k
Nicest to drive 2008 E280, almost silent on the road £3k sold for 3k

I've had so many cars :D

Once my wife went to the supermarket, had to ring me because when she came out she couldn't remember what she'd driven there in.
 
D

Doritoharv

Junior Member
Messages
18
Oooh, I like these questions ... I'll roll with two for differing reasons:

1) - Around 2003 - A very poor decision purchase had just decided to die on me ('92 Renault 19 16V saloon - never touched a French car since!) and I was in desperate need of a car. Me being me, a simple Fiesta or some such wouldn't suffice but I noticed an '89 VW Scirocco 1.8i Scala (140k miles) for sale for £650. I rocked up later that afternoon but had sadly missed out on the said vehicle. Alas, the chap had another that he'd just sourced, a '90 VW Scirocco GT2 in grey with 120k miles on it and an extremely extensive FSH. He apologised that he'd yet had the chance to even wash the car. I paid £600 for it and it lasted me a good 18 months, including commuting from Southampton to Bracknell daily for a while. I sold it on ebay for £350 with 165k on the clock. My mates still call me Marty McFly because of that car. It cornered like it was on rails. Brilliant.

2) Around 2010 - The said commute above was becoming very expensive in a BMW E46 330Ci Sport coupe that I had and so I needed a diesel to take the sting out of it (I kept the BMW as a local car for my fun). I rocked up to visit a chap in Camberley that was doing the opposite commute to me. He had an '00 Audi A4 Avant in a rather unfortunate turquoise type blue/green. It had 195k on the clock but was however in mint condition, and again, with an extensive FSH. I took that off his hands for £1950 and proceeded to take it to 307k miles. Absolute tank. The local independent that serviced it for me took it off my hands for £300 (it needed an MOT, service and new tyres - hence the low price) and continued to use it as a courtesy car for his customers. I still saw it knocking around for another couple of years
 
joered

joered

Member
Messages
431
Many moons ago in my late teens an acquaintance came to the house and asked me if i was interested in buying the car he had outside.

So on going out, the car that he had for sale was a Rolls Royce.

It was one that had a rear cabin/compartment, with the driver in the open bit at the front.

The car, I presumed to have been owned by a woman as it had needle work scenes in the cabin rather than cloth,

It also had an old type phone, that the owner could communicate with the driver.

Of course I dismissed the car there and then who would want this old fashioned thing.

Oh, and also at £20, ridiculous how much he wanted......
 
zagatoes30

zagatoes30

Member
Messages
20,945
joered said:
Many moons ago in my late teens an acquaintance came to the house and asked me if i was interested in buying the car he had outside.

So on going out, the car that he had for sale was a Rolls Royce.

It was one that had a rear cabin/compartment, with the driver in the open bit at the front.

The car, I presumed to have been owned by a woman as it had needle work scenes in the cabin rather than cloth,

It also had an old type phone, that the owner could communicate with the driver.

Of course I dismissed the car there and then who would want this old fashioned thing.

Oh, and also at £20, ridiculous how much he wanted......
Click to expand...
One assumes this was sometime ago, probably before many on here were born
 
zagatoes30

zagatoes30

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20,945
There use to be a place in Warrington which sold all the £1000 trade-ins that the local Lada dealer was offering on new cars, they just had to have MOT 1 day or more. These things were one step away from scrap but as they had MOTs the young kids use to regularly check-out what could be had for a bargain. It was not unusual to rock up and pick up something with 3-6 months MOT for £50 we would drive until close to MOT and then either sell it on or more often drive to the local scrap dealer who would normally give you £50.

One such purchase was a 1.9D Opel Rekord Estate, which we bought for £50 it quickly became the Friday / Saturday night taxi, around 8 of us would pile in go to some local nightspot draw straws to see who was driving us home and then the 7 p155heads would stand non-alcoholic drinks for the driver and we were guaranteed a free taxi assuming we didn't cop off (which we rarely did). The driver just had to remember his name was whoever we insured the car with and hope we didn't get stopped by the same copper. The only flaw with this plan is the thing kept passing MOTs , we ended up keeping it for 4 years the last 2 we left in Abersoch as our summer vacation runabout.
 
midlifecrisis

midlifecrisis

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16,229
1996/7 I bought a Polo 16V tax free for less than £9500 as I was in Germany, put 10k miles on it and had it a year. Sold it back to the same people for £10k.

Does that count?

It was 125bhp, 1.4 litre 16V NA. It could do 120mph, 4 up.
 
joered

joered

Member
Messages
431
zagatoes30 said:
One assumes this was sometime ago, probably before many on here were born
Click to expand...

.Correct as this was in the 1960s.

At the time I was driving around in an Austin Healy Sprite.

I did idly wonder if the Rolls would be any good as a banger car, for our local track, but it had an aluminium body so was too fragile!
 
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zagatoes30

zagatoes30

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20,945
The old man had a lot of upmarket cars from the late 50s when I was small, Humber Super Snipe, MK VII Jag, AS Sapphire all of which he picked up cheaply at the car auctions. This stopped in 1970 when he got his first company car a Mk2 Cortina JEK 725 H and from then on it was no more big old stuff just a new Ford every 18 mths or so
 
philw696

philw696

Member
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25,461
We used to go to the Auctions at West Bromwich in the Midlands in the mid 70's with the Oldman on a Friday night had a proper restaurant and bar back then and always interesting stuff going through.
 
Scaf

Scaf

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Messages
6,580
Ban on the mid 90’s I managed to acquire an old 1968 Daimler V8 that had been abandoned in a multi-storey car park a mate of mine managed just of the Edgware Road. It cost me a bottle of Single Malt and came with a bit of paper from transferring ownership and once I had the V5 I arranged to har it towed home.
The guy who transported it wanted to buy it and the next day a deal was done for £450- it was a great deal for me but I still have a bit of sellers remorse.
 
joered

joered

Member
Messages
431
zagatoes30 said:
The old man had a lot of upmarket cars from the late 50s when I was small, Humber Super Snipe, MK VII Jag, AS Sapphire all of which he picked up cheaply at the car auctions. This stopped in 1970 when he got his first company car a Mk2 Cortina JEK 725 H and from then on it was no more big old stuff just a new Ford every 18 mths or so
Click to expand...

Talking of company cars,my brother was in a firm that gave out company cars.

Usually when he returned a car for a new company one, he would get points for the condition it was returned in.

He was going to give one car he had a wash before returning it but my sister in law volunteered to do it for him.

Never having washed a car before she thought it would be a good idea to use Brillo Pads!

Needless to say instead of points, he got a stern letter complaining about the cars paintwork
 
MarkMas

MarkMas

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azman said:
is AI bot can contribute in forums?
Just general question?
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AI bots are able to contribute to many kinds of forums, making contributions to the forum. AI bots are also able to answer general questions, including questions about forums, to which AI bots are able to contribute.
Can I help you with any other questions, especially any questions about forums or general questions?
 
CatmanV2

CatmanV2

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MarkMas said:
AI bots are able to contribute to many kinds of forums, making contributions to the forum. AI bots are also able to answer general questions, including questions about forums, to which AI bots are able to contribute.
Can I help you with any other questions, especially any questions about forums or general questions?
Click to expand...

We see what you did, there!

C
 
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