Cars owned with low expectation, that turned out to be really good.

oldagetraveller1

Best and most reliable was a 1990 Peugeot 505 GRD, 2.5 litre Diesel Family Estate. Someone's trade in for whatever reason, 6 months old and 7k miles.Owned it for 10 trouble free years and 125k miles with only routine servicing, brakes and tyres throughout.

No boy racer mobile and with an engine sounding like Farmer Giles' tractor. What an excellent mode of easy going, comfortable transport though.

Goudy

1990 Citroen AX 14 DTR.

I paid less than it would have cost the owner to have it towed away and all it needed was an air leak sorting out from around the fuel filter. (I just bypassed the standard filter with a bit of fuel hose and an inline filter, cost less than £3).

I remember I bought it up Wembley somewhere and I could hear Michael Jackson rehersing his show at the time.

60mpg minimum no matter how hard you drove.
Really comfortable (for a small hathback) as it came with Citroens well padded seats.

Wasn't fast and was a bit noisy when flogged hard but me and a girlfriend toured Europe in it three years in a row.

We went as far as Poland to Portugal on a budget that probably wouldn't get you into a Travelodge these days for a couple of nights as it wasn't adverse to a drop of used cooking oil.

At the time I had pretty much unlimited access to the stuff but when we were away we'd pop around the back of restaurants and hotels to ask for it which I'd filter through the leg of an old pair of jeans.
Most took pity on us and would offer to feed us or give us some food.

You just haven't lived if you've not toured Europe for free eating at Michelin starred restaurants!

saker75

I had a Fiat Marea (never heard of them? Neither had I until I saw one on a forecourt!) in the early 2000s - it was light, nippy and really comfortable. Very reliable too. 
My current Mondeo estate is one of the most boring cars I've ever owned. But it's great. Very reliable, great for long journeys and has all the kit I need. 

jimbo6977

Fiesta, R or S reg I think it was, given to me for nothing by a friend who got no takers when he asked £200 for it. Drive it all over France for a year. Only repair was a replacement door mirror assembly for £25. Unfortunately I killed it by overloading it during a house move and ruining pretty much every suspension part. 

NBLondon

1978 Vauxhall Chevette estate bought for £400 when I was a student.  105,000 on the clock, had been repainted (by hand - not resprayed) but it got all my junk from home to uni for a couple of years and I got £300 trade-in for it when I was working and treated myself to an Astra.

Clive_Woody

Skoda Fabia Estate - having grown up hearing endless Skoda jokes we were a little reluctant to buy one ourselves, but from there first test drive we were very impressed. Being an estate it had plenty of room for us as a growing family and was cheap to buy, cheap to service and very reliable.

We’re now on our 4th Skoda (petrol Octavia vRS estate - bit more fun than the diesel Fabia)

tommyedinburgh

My current 2010 Yaris - bought it as a stop gap in June 2020 for £1450, every panel has a ding or dent hence the reason I got it so cheap. It does however have a FSH and it just runs and runs. 

GunJack

OMG, where do I start??

Having done Bangernomics for many, many years, I could probably list half a dozen cars I've had that fit into this category...but probably the biggest surprise of the lot was...

a 1987 (E plate) Lada Riva 1600SLX !!

Bought as it was probably the cheapest thing (but dearer than Bangernomics) available that the local council would license as a taxi (pretty much all private hire around here) for part-time extra earning, but I never made taxiing in it due to the sudden increase in insurance at the time, it was our family car and I did pizza deliveries at the weekends. This was in the early 90s and fast food delivery was very much in it's infancy.

I did 100k miles in 4 years in it, went all over the country for gigs, holidays, etc., commuting to the main job and hammered every weekend on the pizzas, it ran on unleaded-only (none of the every 4th tank of 4 Star like so many others), did around 43mpg, had sofa and armchair-comfort seating, would cruise all day long on a motorway at 70, was rear-wheel drive so a bit fun and when some idiot in a ford pulled out into me, I had a broken headlight and his was more or less written off