12 years ago I was a student with no money and need a car for work. I had a battered old neglected fiat pinto with blowing exhaust, half the electrics didn't work and the other half were bodged (there wasn't that many electrics on it) a dead battery and a NSFW headlamp that would flicker as u accelerated. you had to bump start it every morning unless someone with jump cables was around. Thank God I can afford to run cars that are in better condition these days.

Back in the 80s a fire service work colleague of mine was notorious for the ramshackle condition of his cars. In those days, of course, it was still possible to find an MOT tester who wasn't too particular, but even those guys couldn't possibly have passed one of this chap's infamous sheds.

For example, a mark 1 Cavalier, one entire side of which was made out of filler, and a Nissan estate on which none of the door locks worked, meaning that driver, front and rear seat passengers all entered and exited the car by climbing in and out of the windows. But the best story about him was the time he was reversing out of the cul de sac where he lived when the gearstick broke off. Completely nonplussed by what would have been a disaster to most of us, he blithely reversed all the way to his destination, a distance of about two miles.

And then there was the time a friend who was meant to be driving him to a plastering job let him down. Again nonplussed, he put all his gear in a trailer , did some miracles with bits of rope and towed it to the job with his motorbike.