By Colin Wood
Sep 24, 2020
Maybe this resonates with some more than others, but it seems that there is a certain thrill in buying a car for pennies on the dollar and then attempting to drive it home–knowing full well the laundry lists of things wrong with it. (However, if that sounds like your kind of fun, you should definitely check out our $2000 Challenge Presented by CRC Industries.)
Of course, that's exactly what these folks did after they picked up a 1979 Buick LeSabre for $450 at a farm auction. As the video description says, they could have put it on a trailer and towed it home, but why would you want to miss out on the potentially fun team-building exercise in trying to retrieve a barely working car?
Also, what's the cheapest car you have ever bought, and what's the farthest you've ever driven it?
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9/24/20 11:52 a.m.
Ha, reminds me of driving home my $300 Buick RMW challenge car. 5 miles with no coolant and cracked head. But the A/C blew ice cold!
9/24/20 12:00 p.m.
I bought a 60 year old bus that hadn't been driven in 12 years and drove it 1100 miles home. Does that count?
9/24/20 1:18 p.m.
My record would be driving a $500 Ford Probe from Atlanta to Gainesville for the $2004 Challenge. It had considerably less drama than driving a $900 LeBaron from Atlanta to Cleveland a few years prior.
9/24/20 1:26 p.m.
I drove a $99 cadillac from cleveland to carlisle PA and won 2nd place 74+ cadillac at the gm nationals in 2003ish
9/24/20 1:31 p.m.
The 4 pack of beer escort was towed from Philly to Maryland, but then with a fuse replaced it was driven 30+ miles home. Brakes and motormount definitely should've been done first, but it was incredibly fun, if daunting.
9/24/20 3:17 p.m.
When my touring motorcycle broke down in New Mexico, I bought a $250 GTI and a trailer, and towed it home to North Carolina. Zero issues other than wobbly bent rims.
https://preview.tinyurl.com/y3c9hvlb for the whole story.
9/24/20 3:52 p.m.
$300 Merkur XR4ti with a blown head gasket, drove home.
9/24/20 4:09 p.m.
$200 nissan 200sx SE from Manchester, NH to DC. With my girlfriend at the time.
$Free RWD corolla from NH to Buffalo. We were going to take it from NH to southern FL, but my girlfriend ended up buying a brand new wrangler in nh, and buffalo was a last minute detour. Once we had 500+ on the Jeep, we did decide to throw it on a dolly since Buffalo to Naples is a long drive to do in a vehicle alone.
9/24/20 4:11 p.m.
I bought a 400$ Corolla sight unseen from another grmer in 2014 and drove it from southern PA to Minneapolis MN. I didn't even have tools, though I did need a new battery in indianapolis.
A year later, with absolutely no prep and loaded with all my worldly goods, I drove another 1600 miles to Florida.
9/24/20 5:06 p.m.
Co drove a free worn out mid 50s Buick or Oldsmobile convertible with no heat in sub zero January from McGuire AFB, NJ to Indianapolis in 1968. Traveling though a snowstorm, we were wrapped in blankets. Traveling on the old Pennsylvania Turnpike , we almost did not make it thru one of the tunnels because the lifters were not getting enough oil. We arrived late at night, ate, slept. Early the next morning, we pulled the engine from the car in an old drafty barn because he wanted the engine. Flew back to Philly that afternoon and returned to the base so we would not be AWOL.
Cheapest car was $1.00 for a 58 Chevrolet 4 dr with a 6 and Powerglide. Daily driver for over a year.
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