AndyG
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Guilty Pleasures....Good now that the title has your attention, what with all the top ten lists I dont think there has ever been one about "underdog" cars . you know those faithful old mutts that keep on going , never see a lick of Turtle wax or a drop of Castrol.
To start off I have two , first is a 1984 Peugeot 305 1.9GLdiesel estate bought in 1987 for the princly sum of £500 from my dads company. It was cheap for a reason... it had been a sales reps hack for his company in the south of England . Well it was a mess not one panel was rust free! and 3 of the 4 door handles were broken but the best thing was the engine 413 000 miles when I bought it and sweet as a nut! In my time with it I resprayed it myself and added another 75 000 miles before I traded it in on a Mk1 astra GTE.
The second and more recent is a 97 Daewoo Espero 2.0 . After I was made redundant in 02 I needed a car quick , and cheap so I headed off to the car auctions in Glasgow . Most of the cars were mince , (rubbish) early Mondeos and last of the line Cavaliers that were only fit for fragging. Just as I was heading for home I seen this silvery-blue Espero get driven in on flat tyres , it looked sorry for itself but sounded fine , I had a quick look round it and settled in for the bidding.
Surprise surprise nobody bidded. as it had a reserve on it I went to the auction office after the auction was over, a phone call to main dealer whom it was from came up with a price £200 not bad for a 2.0litre Holden engined  4 year old car with 10 month mot on it . I came back the next day with a trailor and towed it home. Although it was based on the Mk2 Cavalier/Ascona C it felt more like a late 80s Austin-Rover; a good car badly screwed together... though once Id fixed the little niggles and fitted 4 Cavalier LX alloys+tyres it served us well for three years even after id started importing Jap cars and had my Surf as company car I still kept the Espero as even though it had the image of cheap Korean white goods.
I still trail thru the bay of E looking for another one..
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dean3324
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Growing up in the salvage yard I can attest to several great beater cars that literally ran as long as you changed the oil: mid 80's deisel powered rabbits, the Omni Horizon <dodge/plymouth corp.> and even the early escorts <just dont run the car wash under the hood!>
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Stuart
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AuctionsAh "mince" there's a phrase I haven't heard or used for a while. Thanks Andy.
Renault 5s could fit into your category. My uncle had one for 6 years and in that time the bonnet was never opened. He put petrol in it and thats it.
I used to go to the auction at Maryhill and even put a couple of clunkers through Mk1 Escort with 2 litre capri engine, no strut brace bar so the whole thing flexed. Fortunately they had to push it through so it was only at the end when the dad lifted the bonnet to show daughter her new cars engine (no under bonnet pre-inspection allowed back then)that he discovered what his 40 quid had bought.
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