Oh you have got me started now!
All my cars until I bought the Challenger had been terrible.
I always tell people that my Aussie Charger was the first car I ever had. But that is not completely true....
For a time I "owned" a Reliant Regal 600cc. That was probably the worst car I ever had.
I got it for free with broken engine when I was 17 before I passed my driving test.
I don't count it because I never got it on the road.
I rebuilt the engine myself with parts from another bought for £10. But they had different distributors with different drives. I had to make one good dizzy out of the two but although I got the engine running I had bent the dizzy shaft a bit so the points dwell was all over the place and it ran rough as hell. I did take it around the block once but a miserable guy in the street told my Dad he would report me to the Police if I did it again.
Then I lost interest and sold it to a pair of guys building a hovercraft for £40.
After being married and poor for a few years i got divorced and bought the Aussie Charger for £500. That was rotten as hell. I may as well have built one from scratch by the time I had welded it up.
While I was repairing the Charger i got a Hillman Avenger. That was a real bad car as well. Bought from my mate for £200 we painted it with rattle cans. It was rotten. The front subframe in particular. Only one front disc brake worked and that was the one with the pads down to the metal. The rear brakes worked only slightly better but you couldn't leave it parked on a hill. I had received an MOT through the post for it for $18 which was about double for one you have to actually take the car to.
It under-steered like mad and one day I hit a kirb while trying to impress some young girls. That was it totalled.
Next I had a Hillman Imp bought from my sister for £40. That was pretty bad as it had a habit of breaking down at bad times and in bad places.
But it did have a tiny sports steering wheel and tach mounted on the dash.
Engine was dead easy to take out as well. Handy because you had to do that every few weeks to fix the bugger.
That got pretty rotten. I pop-riveted some patches over the structural rust holes and put lots of under-seal on to hide the rivet heads. But eventually I had to get shot of it.
Then I had my first Mini. Bought for £100. It was on a Q plate. I drove it for a few months after the Charger went missing and I was waiting for the Challenger to arrive from Texas. The insurance company wanted an engineers report before giving me a policy but I was covered. Sold it for £100 and cancelled the insurance before I needed the report because the Chally had arrived.
Since then I have had another Mini. Another bit of junk.
But then I was living with Diana and she is a good little earner so first we got a Rover Metro that was just a couple of years old (our first "new" car) and later the Neon which was just 9 months old when we bought it in 1999 and we still have it to this day. Had a 1999 Jeep too for a couple of years that was not too old. Never owned a brand new car though.
The Neon has been the most reliable car I have ever had. Head gasket (known design fault) and water pump have been the only major things gone wrong and the pump was my fault because I cracked it by using the wrong bolts.
Recently I have had to replace the petrol filler tube (rust) and just the other day the radiator. It owes me nowt really. Going to replace all the brakes and front discs in the near future. Might treat it to a pair of tyres for the MOT (it gets real ones!) in April.
wish i still had it now though $$$$$$$