Exactly! Which is where I'm at now. When the price someone else will give me for a thing is higher than I value it then that thing is sold. Like I said, if someone put three grand on the table then as far as I'm concerned they just bought themselves a 2cv. And but for the wife that'd be the case.

It isn't about markets and money for me, the car cost me £2400 to build, plus the original car I started with was worth around £500 so there's my three grand more or less. If I started factoring in labour costs then the price would be silly, which is what's happening elsewhere as people are expecting to recover their labour for doing up their cars, thus pushing up the prices.

I built mine much in the same way someone might build the houses of parliament out of matchsticks, because I enjoyed doing it. I understand that businesses run very differently and need to recoup their costs, not to mention make a profit, but why should I? I enjoyed doing it!
Besides, if someone paid four or five thousand for something that I only valued at three then I wouldn't feel right, where most would be over the moon with the windfall I'd be feeling guilty for taking so much money. That's why I'm skint I suppose, but I can always look people in the eye.

That's very noble, O-N. Misguided, but noble

Only half-kidding (gulp - quick retraction... )

If your car fetched, say, £4k -which, in the scheme of things, it should, at least - then that is its value. By that I'm not suggesting that the 'value' of something is the absolute max you can wring out of it (it isn't - that fake Charlie was certainly overvalued, and that should be a cause for guilt...), but that I believe a general consensus would be that your car is worth that £4k (or whatever figure).

It would certainly be a noble gesture to pass it on for only £3k, but unless it was to, say, a particular individual you personally felt deserved to have it, it would generally be a self-defeating thing to do. 'Cos if you wished to get back into 2CVing later on and went looking for a similar quality of car as the one you sold, then - fat chance you'd get it for the £3k.

Like house prices, when you sell you need to get - putting it crudely - as much as you can. Because the house you then buy will be asking as much as possible.

Yep, I know all that DA and you're right of course. I've lived a funny old life one way and another, which has landed me at my age with no savings, no collateral, and no pension. More sentient men than I might consider that to be a disastrous situation, but I always think of the General that sent the following telegram;

"Surrounded by the enemy. He is North, South, East and West of me - Situation excellent! I can attack in any direction!"

With me, over the last few years I've lost my home, my health, my family, my livelihood, my son, and my liberty. There's only one thing they can never take from me and that's my spirit. Screw profits, and screw the rat race, I'd sooner live simply - but with honour. Damn shame more don't think that way.

Noble.

I took the 2cv out yesterday. Just a short 50 miles round trip but the weather was horrendous. The rear fog lamp was needed on the motorway due to the torrential rain and road spray. So not the best time to find that mine doesn’t work then. In wet weather I’m also still suffering from a part misted windscreen too, entirely down to not using any form of sealant when fitting the new windscreen I think. I’ll cure it, but as yet we’ve never had a day dry enough to do so.

I’m conscious that I need to spend a few hours attending to little bits on the car here and there. So conscious in fact, that last night I dreamt that I’d greased all four knife edges. Imagine waking up and finding you have to do them all over again. Apart from the bits of surface rust already mentioned in a previous post the car’s standing up really well, and I must be feeling guilty about my lack of maintenance to be dreaming about greasing knife edges.

Roll on summer. Thinking of summer, if my circumstances allow I’d quite like to do a bit more fettling of an old car. There are one or two potential problems with that though. First would be that our tenure at this address is not secure, so I could end up moving house in the middle of a restoration – nightmare! Next, if I were to use the garage for a new project where would the 2cv go? And finally, what sort of project?



I’ve been looking into alternative classics that could still be used daily. I quite fancy a Renault 4L, the nearest you’ll get to 2cv practicality. The thing is though, like 2cv’s they rot, and when they rot they rot big time. With the Renault 4 I thought I’d hit on a cheap solution to driving a classic without the ‘iconic’ price tag. They are still relatively cheap and plentiful in LHD at least, which is fine by me. I’d like one, but it would have to be very cheap, which virtually guarantees that it would also be very rusty.

To find a good one you’d have to either pay top dollar, or look to sunnier climes. Importing one from the south of France or Spain would just defeat the object of buying a cheap classic, so either way potential UK buyers are snookered.

So what else is there? What could I buy that would cost less than –say £1200, that would be solid with the minimum amount of welding needed, and could be tidied up nicely without having to completely rebuild it? Sadly the answer to all those questions is something like a 1999 Ford Ka or similar. Exactly - Not on your Nelly!

It’s true though isn’t it? There aren’t really any cheap classics anymore. Classics used to be just old cars that you got cheap as they were discarded, and the current crop of cheap discarded cars are the ones wearing S,T,V, and W registrations. Of those there’s only the MG Rover 75 that has any chance of becoming a classic, and while it might be a rolling Worthers Original it’s still a modern car.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/2000-ROVER-75-CLUB-SILVER-1-8-11-Months-M-O-T-69-000m-/230580833459?pt=Automobiles_UK&hash=item35afb04cb3

I feel like I’ve been playing ‘musical cars’ and the music has stopped. Unless you’re able to fork out a couple of grand upwards you’re not allowed to play anymore, so you just keep what you have.

Something mechanically and bodily sound that just needs a re-trim and a respray that’s what I need. That way if I do have to move house there won’t be dismantled bits everywhere, just a car in primer to shift. And it should be cheap, no more than a grand I’d say, and ugly, that always keeps the price down.

Any idea’s?

Your budget would get you a decent Trabant or a Reliant Robin/Rialto. Both of which are on my list of 'cars to drive when you've been priced out of 2cvs'. Trabants make 2cvs look complicated and are hilarious to drive, grip like an original Mini and you can rev the bollocks off them with their Crazy frog-esque two stroke. I seriously want one, and am wondering why I bought a 406 instead.



Reliants are top fun, if, like me you like a car you can steer-from-the-rear they are proper drift machines, and wet roundabouts are excellent fun in them, you can almost hear the laws of physics bending when you watch a decent robin pilot get one sideways.



There's the Renault 4 of course, but they are rot boxes, and whilst I'd like one I think I'd have to get one from the Sud de Francais rather than buy one in the UK. Good ones over here seem to command +£1500 prices which seems odd for something nobody cares about.

I notice this one's been in the dry, dry desert and it's still managed to rot...



Rear wheel drive Skodas are also top cars, but getting a bit thin on the ground here, they are worth nothing in Czech and Poland, so your budget would get you one from there including the (no doubt) brilliant road trip home. The bonus being they are so cheap (£80 gets you a rot free one from a scrapyard) you can break down on the way home, get a bus back and buy another, or pick up a couple for spares if you can find a suitably adventurous co-pilot.



Plus if you got a RWD Skoda Rihanna would wear hotpants and touch her arse for you like she is for the owner of the orange one here.

Maybe you should look at something more modern. The thing about increasing values is that it driven by supply and demand. It is the same with 2CVs, the really nice cars are proper money, but there is lots of tat out there that can be had even now for beer money. Inevitably time takes its toll, if it is on the road it will deteriorate.

The other issue is that cars get more expensive to run as the spares supply moves from the general get them in, strip off the useful bits and weigh it in type of breaker to the marque swpecialist who will keep breakers around for years.

If you look on Ebay and the like at the moment there are loads of very cheap, very sound cars around. You can pick up S class Mercedes with MOT for a few hundred quid, that was a highly desirable £60K car 20 years ago. There are all sorts of beer money cars, Land Rovers, Opel Monza, Saab 9000 turbos, Volvo 240 and 940, Citroen XM, Mercedes 190 and W124, Porsche 944 it is just a question of finding something that floats your boat.

I think you're right. Earlier I talked about those young surfer dude's wannabe's pushing up the price of old VW Beetles in another thread, and to stretch the analogy I think driving classics is a bit like surfing. You can only ride the wave once, then it's gone and you have to look for the next wave. The 2cv wave lasted for fifty years, and I managed ten of 'em, but now I'm looking around for the next wave.

I wouldn't say no to an early Skoda, but only if I can touch her arse instead of her touching her own.

Land Rovers appeal. Clunky, basic utilitarian stuff always does for some reason. I'd quite like some form of van too, a juvaquatra perhaps? And if I bought one off Goldie here there'd be plenty touching of nether regions absolutely guaranteed, with her it's mandatory if you're brave enough.

What a wonderful way to spend a few minutes: click on to eBay > cars > classics > 'Ending soonest'...

£1200 in pocket - what'll I buy?!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1976-TRIUMPH-TOLE ... 3cb4b8b8d5 Classic looks. Ok, a sluggard, but imagine this in signal yellow (or red...), black roof, blacked grille...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1962-VAUXHALL-VIC ... 45f852dbcc Almost a - cough - American interior.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/RELIANT-SCIMITAR- ... 35afb16061 Truly worthy of the 'classic' tag.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1978-TRIUMPH-DOLO ... 4156734821

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TRIUMPH-TOLEDO-po ... 3f0704c20b 'Ello 'ello - tax free motoring.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Wolseley-1500-/25 ... 3a62d35138 Sweet thing.

I like the second red dolomite but there's nothing needs doing to it. Funny how the word 'Automatic' kills an old cars value isn't it? That looks a nice little runabout. I'll have to approach this with an open mind I see, some interesting motors there DA.