Bought an Anglia for £80, ran it for 8 months and sold it for £75 after spending nothing.

Bought another Anglia, 1200 this time with a much better body, paid £90. Had to put an exhaust on that one, seem to remember it being £5. Sold for £95 6 months later.

My best buy was probably a Triumph Spitfire. Had a budget of £2500 in 1978 which would get me a 1 year old example complete with rust and a nice musty interior. Saw a 1 week old one in the local weekly liar for £2900. Bit higher than my budget but it was £500 less than the list price at the time. Went to see him, car exactly as a 2 week old car should be. Story was he had got a job with a company car thus his new purchase had to go. Offered him £2500, turned it down. 2 weeks later car still being advertised for sale so rang him again, he seemed willing to talk but I stuck with my £2500 offer. He said he would think about it and rang back a few minutes later saying £2600. I knew I had him well and truly on the line and offered £2550 which he accepted. Kept it for 2 years and spent nothing other than servicing. No rust and no musty interior. Sold it to a hairdresser for £2500.

In 1976 I bought a Mk1 Cortina from my dad's friend for £30. Ran it without any major repairs for a year and got £10 trade-in when I bought my next car from a dealer.

The guy I bought it from used to always have 2 or 3 cheap cars and do his own repairs. If one broke down he would just jump in another. I guess insurance was a lot cheaper in those days. One of my mates bought a Mini Cooper, I think it was £80, from him and ran it until it rusted away to its death.

My Cortina had a number of "bald patches" on the ring gear so I had to try to park it facing downhill so that if the starter motor didn't engage I could put it in 4th, roll it forward a few inches and try again.

I bought a 2003 Alfa Romeo nine years ago for £1600 of Ebay, it is still going strong, never failed an MOT, only broken down once that was fixed by the mechanic in the car park and has no advisories. Only downside is it does 23MPG.

The low mpg is more than offset by the miniscule depreciation and, surprisingly for an Alfa, decent reliability. There's a local specialist round the corner from me, and I always admire the lovely-looking (and sounding) petrol versions, especially the GTs and Breras. I never plucked up the courage to ever buy one (probably the Brera 1.75 TBi as its still quick but uses far less jungle juice than the 2.2 and the 3.2 V6) even when I could technically afford to (and live with it). Not now though, money's more tight. :-(

Always a good fealing when you buy a cheap good'un, laughing at all those around you shelling out £10Ks every three years for something not much better, just to keep up with the Joneses.