I LOVED my clunker.....

In My Humble Opinion
1

So, this has been brought on by the almost continuous running of “Cash for Clunkers” type ads for cars that show a “clunker” being somehow destroyed and replaced by a new car.

I find these commercials to be really sad…I have had a couple of clunkers that I LOVED-the most notable of which was an '85 S10 Blazer that I bought for $500, drove for a year, and then sold for $300. Never had to do a thing to it and it ALWAYS started. Now, I’m not saying that it didn’t have a bad case of cancer (a lil diamond plate tape along the rocker panels helped conceal most of that), or that the windows always rolled up or down when I wanted them to, but still, I’m kinda offended by the idea of someone crushing it just b/c it was old and ratty…

Anyhoo, the whole point of this is: Have you ever had a car that was most definitely a clunker that you still really really liked? What was it? Pics welcome-if I can dig up one of the mighty Blazer, I’ll link to it.

2

Yes, I had a rusted out Maverick that just chugged along unaware of how hideous it was. I bought another one for spare parts and swapped in a rebuilt engine. It was a boat of a car but it had air conditioning and I could tow stuff with it.

True story, I was driving down the highway in it when a car came flying up the next lane. When he got next to my car he stopped and began paralleling me, which made me nervous. When I finally looked over there was an identical rusted 4 door green Maverick and the guy was smiling and giving me the thumbs up. I couldn’t stop laughing.

3

I was driving a 1982 metallic pumpkin Toyota Tercel for a while. I bought it for 200 dollars during a transit strike in 2001 and drove it for a year and a half. It probably had less emission problems than most cars on the road. (It continually passed AirCare)

Its tranny crapped out and sometimes I wonder if I should have paid for the repairs instead of scrapping it.

4

In retrospect I should have loved my :

1962 Chevy II Nova Station wagon - always cranked, ran well with very little oil - as far as I know it is still on the road.

1970 Datsun wagon - same as above

(my dad had a thing about wagons as cars for his kids - “wrap 'em in steel”)

1985 Dodge RAM prospector pickup - power windows didn’t work, but it was a workhorse and always cranked.

1992 Bonneville - a gem of a road machine, would still have it but for unfortunate circumstance…

5

I used to love my old Honda CRX. Even with more than 150 Miles on it I got better than 40 MPG. They say it has a 1 star safety rating, but that thing could go damn near anywhere.

6

'79 AMC Concord, my first car. Total POS even then.

Why did I love it? The full front and back bench seats that were twice as comfortable as any futon to a more than a couple of 16-year-olds. :smiley:

7

I just loved my Austin Sprite.
I bought it in college for $250 to tool around campus. It couldn’t reach 55 mph. The rag top leaked in the rain and it was uncomfortable to get in and out of. It burned oil, threw smoke, and got terrible mileage for a tiny car.
And in the end the engine blew up (lost it’s oil, threw a rod, and cracked) stranding me on the highway. So I sold it to the tow truck driver for $60 as a parts car.

8

I was very fond of the 1992 Ford Taurus station wagon I inherited from my mom, despite the fact that it was an absurd amount of car for a young single person. I owned it from 1998 to 2007, and by the end of that time it was definitely on its last legs, but it got me through grad school. Sadly, I had to donate it when I moved from North Carolina to Illinois, as it would never have survived a trip halfway across the country.

9

I had a red '69 Mustang for a while. Bought it for $100, sold it for $100, and saw it the next day on the side of the interstate with the hood up.

My favorite was my '75 Valiant, though. It ran winter and summer and never asked for much. I don’t even remember where it ended up.

Brief hijack: Interestingly, under Cash for Clunkers, we could have traded in our relatively new F150 (that we drive if we have to go to Menard’s) on a slightly less hoggish truck or SUV, but we could not trade in the 1995 Saturn with 250K miles on it that burns a quart of oil a day and that my husband uses for his 45-mile x10 weekly commute.

10

My first car, when I was a young lad of 17, was a crappy, beat-to-shit, smoking, shaking old heap that my friends all called “The Mighty Scrap Iron”. She was a 1974 Ford LTD in 2-tone turquoise & white. She could hold 8-9 friends (more if you stuffed a few in the trunk…handy for sneaking into the drive in), never stayed broken for long (unlike modern cars, I could actually do my own repairs) and was an active participant in many of my wild young adventures.

When I owned Scrap Iron, I hated her; I used to bitch non-stop about how much I couldn’t wait to unload her on the first idiot I could find with $500.00 and no connection to reality. Now that I’m an old geezer, I look back with fond nostalgia at my first car. 17—18-and-a-half wouldn’t have been the same without her.

The photo isn’t the real Scrap Iron, but a cleverly doctored image of one of her kin. Imagine the car in the picture after several fender benders, weeks or months without a good washing, a coathanger wire antenna, a broken driver’s side window, and no hubcaps.

http://www.jettbailey.com/Misc_Photos/ScrapIron.jpg

11

I still drive my clunker. 67 Valiant Signet. I call her the White Shadow.

http://images03.olx.com/ui/1/38/99/5332999_1.jpg

http://images03.olx.com/ui/1/38/99/5332999_2.jpg

Ignore the dipshit rims in the above pix and that is my White Shadow.
Right now she is waiting for me to afford a rebuilt engine, so I drive her at least a quart low (vacuum is gone in the crankcase so if she’s full she spits oil out the carberator) and without the air filter because the choke gets stuck and I have to push the butterfly valve closed now and again so she can start.

She still runs like a champ and I drive her on the freeway to get to school.

[Borat]I love her![/Borat]

12

Yes, I’ve loved a clunker or two.

My favorite was my 1983 Toyota Corolla 2-door sedan. 1.6L with a carburetor, 4 speed manual, rear drive, and manual everything. Bright, sorta orangeish reddish paint. That car was from a time when a stripper was STRIPPED. Vinyl floor, no glove box door (just a hole in the dash!), and get this, it didn’t have a day/night mirror. It was just a mirror, so I went to Pick-A-Part and pulled a mirror from a later model Toyota that had the little lever at the base of the mirror. No arm rests either, so Pick-A-Part had an old Civic that donated it’s rests.

In 1995 I paid $1,400 for it in California and had the Navy ship it free of charge to Oahu, where I drove it for almost four years. I sold it to a buddy for $600.

I have very fond memories of time spent with ex-girlfriends, going scuba diving and just enjoying the fantastic landscape of Hawaii with my little Corolla.

13

This is pretty long, but hey, sometimes it takes a while to talk about a love affair!
My first car was a 1965 Jeep FJ-6A. This FJ-6 looks just like it, but I remember that the VIN tag said FJ-6A. My brother originally bought it at a Post Office Auction and drove it until he cracked the block. Dad worked witha guy whose son had rolled his '67 Cougar, so Dad bought both and shoehorned the '289 and C-4 from the Cougar into the engine bay of the Jeep. The 8-inch rear end bolted up after a little welding by the autobody guy who lived down the street.

It was ugly as sin, even after I sanded down the old USPS paint job and shot some primer on it, but it would go 85mph before wind resistance got the better of things. One time, I was doing some doughnuts in the school parking lot when Dad drove by. Several hours later, he made the casual comment, “You know, you were well over on two wheels back there.” (Oops.) Beach trips were a blast. My friends and I used to call it the rolling embarrasment, but I was the guy who drove on trips to the beach, and I was always hauling equipment around for one band or another.

On the other hand, it had some problems:

-Dad didn’t get the geometry right for the rear shocks, and they would sometimes tear out. If the shocks were loose and you weren’t careful, the body would begin to rock from corner to corner, bottoming out each wheel as it went. Usually, this happened at speeds over 70.

-The linkage shifter meant that it would pop into neutral if you floored it, then bounce back into drive and back again, over and over. This tore out the left engine mount several times and once tore out all three (I opened the dash/hood, and the engine was turned slightly in the engine bay.) Bolting the left mount fixed that.

-Dad never got the wiring right, so the fuel gauge was useless and the temp gauge was affected by both the engine temperature and how much gas you had in the tank. I hated that wiring harness, but Dad wouldn’t let me rewire the van and so I had to live with it. Today, I work in electronics. This is not a coincidence.

-Eventually, the transmission pump gasket began to leak. I sold the van to a friend who fixed it, drove it for years and eventually took it when he moved.

I have no idea what finally happened to it. It may be out there somewhere. I’m probably nuts for this, but if I had the time, money and space to rebuild it, I would probably hire someone to track it down.