What's the cheapest car you've bought?

[Will]

Was just thinking to myself, having got my 190E MOT'd on Saturday, what a good little car it is for such a little amount of money. It's not perfect and I never will expect it to be. But it still looks smart enough and that's the beauty of cheap little cars - you don't mind

With the price of scrap so high these days I think really cheap cars are harder to come by, probably also as a result of the scrappage scheme a year or two back.

I think the cheapest car I can remember buying was a Series 3 Daimler Sovereign that I bought for £70 some years back. Even had 6 months tax, two brand new tyres and 1/2 tank of fuel

This 190E will cost more to tax than the car + the bits i bought cost, which isn't a good feeling

Ok - I did the work it needed myself (cylinder head gasket + a few other jobs) so labour was free - but at least it's been saved from the scrappy

How about you guys? Cheapest car or cheapest MB that you've bought? Excluding 'mates rates' and the like!

Will

 

[neilrr]

Bought an R reg C180 estate with an MOT (just) for £100 several years ago. Gave it to a friend for what it cost & he's still driving it around.

 

[MercFanUk]

I bought a blue Mk4 Escort at auction for £50 (less the fees) about 6 years ago. Was nothing wrong with it either, ran it for quite a long time

 

[Will]

Happy Days!

The last 300TE that I had gave me no real trouble in the 3 years I had it. Cost £320, sold it for 2 kegs of beer + a bottle of CO2 for a friend's BBQ that I got £250 for. The alloy wheels also made £200 on eBay on their own, which surprised me

Got to love a bit of bangernomics at times

 

[jaymanek]

I bought a Renault 25 ages ago for £25... my first time by myself at an auction at the age of 17.

I was chuffed.. It was brown with brown leather and all the toys in it... some executive model or something.. I was the uncoolest kid at school with a turd brown barge but i loved how it wafted about.
My dad wasnt too happy when I broke down right in Coventry town centre... he had to drop all his jobs at work and come to rescue me... that was a day ill never forget. the city centre was gridlocked for a while all due to my £25 renault 25.

The next day I went back to my yellow W123.

 

[BTB 500]

Cheapest car ... well I was given a rusty Fiat 126 with no MOT which I did up and ran for a couple of years!

Cheapest M-B would be the SL!

 

[Mike Walker]

F Reg Singer Chamois (Hillman Imp) for £100 from my brother in law. First car I ever owned. Boy did the drive shaft donuts go with a bang!

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

In 1997 I paid £950 for a 1989 F-reg Peugeot 205 1.1 GR in white. It was one owner from new.

I was working in a city where I didn't want to park my car, which would have been a new Rover 220 SDi (great car), so I bought this for parking wherever I liked!!

I sold it around a year later for £975 with a clutch which needed replacement. The only time I ever made a profit on. A chap bought it for his daughter's 17th birthday. He changed the clutch, and she wrote it off a week or so later.

 

[Scott_F]

1982 Austin Ambassador - free. About £300 to get it MOT'd and it gave great service for a year and was sold for £225.

1987 VW Polo - free. About £100 to get it MOT'd and another £200 or so on repairs and a head gasket. It covered 20k miles in a year and was sold for £295.

1981 Talbot Solara - £70 from a breakers. Covered 1500 miles and was sold for the princely sum of £35 !

 

[Will]

I've been given the odd one for free from a friend or someone I knew etc. But actually purchasing on the open market...

Scrap values mean that you'll struggle to get any car for under £100 these days I reckon

 

[starquake]

Heres hoping top gear do a under 100 car challenge

That said knowing clarkson they'd get cars for free.... just because sold to clarkson

 

[trapperjohn]

Volvo 340 - £70. Have a severe drinking problem though and had to go. Not many lamp posts to the gallon in that puppy.

 

[EDZ649]

£10 for a 1966 Mini Traveller from the council pound back in 1985

 

[Doodle]

Least amount paid - £100 for a 1.3 Polo, including 6 months tax. Lots of niggles that previous owner believed to be sign of dead car, but actually just needed a bit of spanner wielding. Ex-wife passed test in it, sold 18 months later for £250.

All things considered - probably my Civic VTi-S. Bought for £4k with 70k on the clock from lease company (it was my dad's company car). Sold 3 years later for £600 less, odometer now showing 145k. Zero excess expenditure bar a failed tail light bulb, just filled it with fuel, did the servicing, brakes and tyres as needed.

 

[sportyreptile]

£40 for a 1968 VW 1300 Beetle in 1985.
Dropped the engine and replaced the big end and crank bearings to cure the end float on the crank. Changed the piston rings and lapped the valves in, adjusted the tappets and replaced the Solex carb for a second hand Weber one.
It ran sweet as nut for 3 years, put 2 wings on the front and painted it in white with black stripes, it looked like the Land Rover off Daktari
It had a radio cassette player bought for 3 quid and I wired up 4 speakers recovered from scrap TV's my dad had lying round.....truely a recycled car!

 

[Ian B Walker]

£200 for a 300-24 copue earlier this year.
£195 for an E220 saloon
E220 saloon for free
all of these are still running with tax, mot and insurance

 

[JonMad]

Enjoying this thread as am wondering what bargain Merc I could get as a reliable and classy family wagon.

Cheapest for me, £50 for a Volvo 340 in 1995. And I should have haggled.

 

[corned]

£10 for a 1966 Mini Traveller from the council pound back in 1985

Wow - close! My first car, a Mini 1000 Super (1967) I bought for £10 off a mate-of-a-mate in 1984.

 

[Sp!ke]

I got two VW Beetles as a swap for a very ropey 250 superdream worth no more than £150 at the time.

One Beetle was great inside and the other was good outside.

I ended up using the scruffy one as a bug bug.

 

[Igurisu]

Free, my lightweight landrover from a farmers field where it had sat for two years, he just wanted it gone. On saying that I spent £600 on a new chassis and rebuilt it, was a great project though.