What's your favourite shitbox you've owned?

"Earnest The Betrayer" (hnnngcars) 10/01/2015 at 00:10 • Filed to: Favourite, Shitbox, Ever

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Meet Ellen, the ‘99 Mitsubishi Eclipse I used to/technically still own. Gutless like a jellyfish, tranny decided when it would and wouldn’t work, and it started with nothing more than a teaspoon I kept in the glovey (I used the spoon for ‘other’ purposes as well)....and then it got stolen. Someone towed it off the driveway between repairs and no one saw it happen. I still have all the papers saying its mine so technically I still own the piece of shit. I still miss this thing on a daily basis; I don’t know why because it was trouble from mile 1. What was your most favourite shitbox?

sony1492 > Earnest The Betrayer 10/01/2015 at 00:17

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The joys and perils were unmatchable.

camaroboy68ss > Earnest The Betrayer 10/01/2015 at 00:25

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Haven’t really had a shitbox, but the car that gave me the most headache was my 97 Camaro Z28. I learned to never ever ever own a LT1 Camaro again after having that car.

daender > Earnest The Betrayer 10/01/2015 at 00:49

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The HHR. It was my learning car, and my first car, that was bought by my parents despite every warning flag being waved.

First-year model? Check

Base model? Check

It was a damn rental car in Hawaii? Check

Bought it at night on a whim and trading in the reliable first-gen 2001 Honda CR-X? Check

Turns out the thing has numerous dents that weren’t noticeable because it was bought in the night? Check

That said, I loved hooning the shit out of it for my first season of autocross (first-place in H-Stock!) and it made a great car to get through senior year in high school and freshman year of college.

Bandit > Earnest The Betrayer 10/01/2015 at 00:49

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You know you have a shitbox when you get to take pictures like this

beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard > Earnest The Betrayer 10/01/2015 at 01:08

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I used to have an 83 Toyota Corona. Ugly. Faded. 300,000kms. Gutless.

But it was rwd and manual. And when I sold it for profit at 400,000 it had only cost me a few oil filters, timing belt and a fuel filter in maintenance. Solid as the proverbial brick shithouse.

Mr. Ontop, No Strokes, No Smokes...Goes Fast. > Bandit 10/01/2015 at 01:26

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Distraxi's idea of perfection is a Jagroen > Earnest The Betrayer 10/01/2015 at 01:28

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My Renault 4 I drove round Europe on my gap year, many moons ago.

Paid 50 quid for it. 10 years old and had spent much of that as a postie’s car in London. Blown head gasket, substantial lean to the right, rust all over, only one straight panel (and that wasn’t the roof).

Did 12,000 miles all round Europe in it. Slept in it, offroaded it, waded it, parked it illegally in every major city, pounded down the unrestricted autobahns flat out at about 55mph.

Gave me no trouble except continually needing the water topped up due to the head gasket, and the reverse selector arm dropping into the gears in the middle of nowhere in Sweden, locking the front wheels at 50mph. Which I fixed in the middle of the road by removing the gearbox lid (they’re toploaders), yanking the mangled arm out of the teeth, scooping out as much as I could of the aluminium swarf, sticking the lid back on and driving on. Did the last 3 months of the trip with no reverse.

Junked it near the end of the trip after I left it in a school carpark for a while and the kids vandalised it: replacing the broken lights would have cost more than the car was worth.

Most loveable, comfortable, rugged, willing heap of crap I’ve ever owned. And I’ve owned some heaps of crap!

(generic photo, not my actual car)

Opposite Locksmith > Earnest The Betrayer 10/01/2015 at 02:07

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WTF are the other uses for your glove spoon

Decay buys too many beaters > Earnest The Betrayer 10/01/2015 at 02:18

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The scoot. Cheapest, slowest least reliable vehicle I’ve ever owned. It’s also right up there near the top for most fun. Guess that’s why I own 3 identical ones for parts...

After that it was my old Jetta. I tried, but could not kill that damn ABA engine (this includes multiple forays onto the highway and bouncing off the limiter in second). She was the most reliable rallycross car I’ve ever owned.

Earnest The Betrayer > Opposite Locksmith 10/01/2015 at 02:19

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I USED TO consume a fair amount of cocaine (still hard from being bricked) and sniff my prescription pills. Now I just get stoned and don’t take my prescription; life’s better not being so fucked all the time.

banjo cat ghost of oppo past > Earnest The Betrayer 10/01/2015 at 02:44

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Oldsmobile Bravada, just like this. A gussied up Chevy Blazer, she was basically like a tired hooker in her best evening ware. No car saw nearly as much early college mayhem. MAYHEM. It had the gas mileage of a Hummer with half the acceleration and an interior comfort close to a...Lincoln Town Car, with heated leather. So really not bad.

Purely out of spite for owning an SUV I put blue neon lights behind her grille and under each tan leather seat that pulsed with the music. The party wagon was born. Cue the German techno song from Super Troopers because that definitely got play.

My college buddies loved the party wagon and so did I, for a time. It moved three of them out of college apts along the east, trailered my friend’s skanky Mazda MX6 to his auto college, and went to dozens of campuses up and down the east coast...for partying. All while attaining about 9mpg. West Virginia’s campus and penny pitchers, man. That is why we moved that friend out.

It survived my first (of many) college Dave Matthews concert(don’t judge) “because Zach has the party wagon so the beer pong table is going on top of that along with most everyone’s camping shit.” All I remember was nearly being kidnapped in the parking lot by some hippie because we were groping each other half the show then suddenly blue lights come out of left field with Aphex Twin’s Windowlicker blaring and its my MX6 friend driving my car and he tells her “he’s with us th-THANK you he’s with us Zach get in the car.”

My girlfriend loved it...especially in the driveway of her crazy pentacostal mother’s house. Was really happy to finally have a car with such massive interior space, for that.

Oh OH I also kinda sorta used it’s 4WD buttons to evade campus police when they blocked off this culdesac because of an out of control frat party. I tore ass up the snowy backyard slope of Cornell’s richest frat...tore up a bunch of turf too but I got to another access road and no one followed me.

I do actually want a 2 door Blazer so I can sort of recreate it.

911e46z06 > Earnest The Betrayer 10/01/2015 at 02:53

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Since I was 13 or so, I’ve always been lucky enough to have good-paying jobs, and as such, money has never been much of an obstacle for car selections. So, I don’t really know if you could call either of these a shitbox, but here we go:

I own 11 cars at the moment, and objectively speaking, some of them are very good. Fast, powerful, beautiful, rare, I have all that. But by far my favorite to drive, and my favorite to be seen in, is my ‘70 bus. It’s worn down to probably 20 horsepower or so, the clatter the motor makes is deafening, the brakes are non-existent, and the transmission linkage is hanging by a thread. On a 6-mile-long, dead-straight road, a top-speed run yielded a result of about 40 mph. But, damn, do I love that thing.

I scored this ‘97 Tahoe for about 3 grand. It was in good shape aside from a couple dents and dings, but it’s nothing special. Just your regular old Tahoe with a 350. I needed something capable and reliable, but that I could beat to shit. And after a couple grand worth of mods, it’s fit the bill perfectly. I’ve slid it sideways down a cliff, which did this to the exhaust:

I’ve winched a lifted F-350 towing a toy-hauler loaded with a dune buggy out of axle-deep sand with it. I’ve run 50/50 gas and water through it down in the bowels of Baja. I’ve towed 12,000 pounds worth of boat and trailer with it. I’ve put it through hell and back dozens of times, and it’s come through it all without so much as a hiccup. It’s like your buddy who breaks his leg in the afternoon and goes out drinking with you that evening. It’s an unstoppable force of nature, and I absolutely love it.

911e46z06 > Bandit 10/01/2015 at 02:54

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That’s no shitbox. It’s a project.

Noah - Now with more boost. > Earnest The Betrayer 10/01/2015 at 03:35

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This rusty shitbox was my first car. It had one foot in the grave when I bought it and I hooned the piss out of it. Definitely the most fun I’ve ever had behind the wheel. It started every time and sounded outrageously good, but needed outrageously expensive body work

Earnest The Betrayer > banjo cat ghost of oppo past 10/01/2015 at 04:04

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Brilliant storytelling man. Oh the stories I could tell about this Eclipse......

sn4cktimes > Earnest The Betrayer 10/01/2015 at 04:28

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1989 Honda CRX si = fat little go-kart. Was super easy to flick through corners. Looked like crap, had an infinite and impossible to remove amount of broken rear hatch glass scattered throughout the interior. And could hold (not legally) me, my gf, and 6 of her friends (two seatbelts total). Was entirely worth the $1500 I couldn’t really afford at the time when I was 19. (Oh man, I’m 32, what have I done with my life, I need to go buy an old Datsun, or mini truck, or something ridiculous before it’s too late!)

Tohru > Earnest The Betrayer 10/01/2015 at 05:18

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My ‘89 Bronco. I got it to replace my first car, a very nice ‘92 Caprice that I slammed into a tree at 60mph with. The Bronc was the opposite of that car. Blue and gray Ford two-tone, which meant that half of it was primer and another third was surface rust. Dust *everywhere* - inside the gauges, 1/4” thick on the top of the radio inside the dash, big poofs of it anytime you hit the cloth bench seat. 33x12.50x15 tires on stock steelies with no suspension or body lift - it had the dimensions of a Tonka truck, rubbed at full lock, and the speedo was WILDLY off.

It had a massive black Laverne grill guard on the front. I put American flags on each corner of it like a diplomatic car, and because I was still in high school I ziptied a Pikachu plush that I made look bloody and bruised with Sharpie.

It had a 302 with a bad rear main seal - in 9 months of ownership it leaked out 15qts. of motor oil. With the 302 and the 33’s the fastest I ever got it was an indicated 75mph - after doing that for 20 miles it ended up belching a gallon of coolant all over the parking lot at work.

Still, it always started every time, all the windows worked, and it was one of the best vehicles I’ve owned. I traded it for an ‘81 Honda CB900C and regret it. The day the new owner picked it up, both rear axle seals failed.

shop-teacher > Earnest The Betrayer 10/01/2015 at 07:18

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I’d say my favorite shitbox was a 2-tone grey ‘89 S-10 extended cab. It looked just liked this one, except mine was covered in rust and bondo. Every time you shut the tailgate, bits of rusty bed floor would fall to the ground. I got it in a straight trade for an also rusty ‘93 Legacy wagon that leaked a lot of oil, and was nearly impossible to shift when cold.

In addition to the rust, the truck had four bad mismatched tires, a cracked windshield, and no radio. Of course I focused on the radio, and picked up a CD player for $38 from Walmart. I never bothered with the tires or windshield. I don’t have any great stories with the S10, but he was a happy an eager little truck, that did anything I asked of it. I ended up selling it for $1000 to my friend, who used it as a work truck for his restaurant exhaust hood cleaning business for 5 years.

I miss having a beater that I didn’t care about or have to lock.

Firewrx234 > banjo cat ghost of oppo past 10/01/2015 at 07:57

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Oddly enough, my fave shitbox was a 2-door Blazer :)

See my reply to the thread.

Firewrx234 > Earnest The Betrayer 10/01/2015 at 08:05

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My favorite piece was a 1998 Blazer 2-door

This thing was mint in almost every way. Except that it sounded like a massive truck because of the radiator fan that ran at all times when started. And it was slower than everything on the road and I got 12 mpg on a good day going down hill with the engine off...

BUT this thing got through everything like a tank, drove as straight as an arrow and never left an ounce of doubt in my mind about going anywhere. I could haul anything in the cavernous hatch. And go anywhere with the 4x4. I almost regret ever getting rid of it but unfortunately I needed better fuel economy at the time. I learned later that a clutch for the radiator fan was the reason for the loud truck noise as well as the worse than normal fuel economy and low power. I can only imagine what that would have done for the little Tonka truck ;)

nerd_racing > Earnest The Betrayer 10/01/2015 at 08:09

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My 95 Ford Aspire that I swapped a 1.8L Single cam 16 valve into from a protege and a transmission from an 88 Tracer. The car had roughly 103 hp (factory was 63) and I used every single one each time I drove it. slow cars fast is way more fun than fast cars slow. I had maybe $500 in the whole car with cost and modifications.

She spun out on ice in canada one black friday though. :/

BJ > Earnest The Betrayer 10/01/2015 at 09:49

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Early 90s (or late 80s, I don’t even remember) Dodge Aries K sedan, silver on gray, 3-speed auto. Simple, effective, cheap on gas and surprisingly good in the snow on all-season tires. It eventually started having trouble so I sold it to an uncle who had time and skills to deal for broken cars.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Earnest The Betrayer 10/01/2015 at 09:51

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My civic was pretty janky. Honda civics are supposed to be super reliable tanks but seeing as I found mine for $900, there was not much to expect out of it. Autotragic trans decided to grenade itself on the NJ turnpike one day, head gasket failed another, and I replaced nearly every part in the car at least once. I did drive it nearly 70k miles in the time I owned it but thankfully parts were cheap and maintenance was simple because it surely needed it. I still managed to sell it for $1300 so I considered it an appreciating asset lol.

banjo cat ghost of oppo past > Firewrx234 10/01/2015 at 10:09

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Its beautifull....Wow clutch fan? really?? I’m 95% sure I had that same problem towards the end of our journey together.

But yeah I’m totally putting the Bravada grille on a ZX2 Blazer and painting it battleship grey. Boom.

banjo cat ghost of oppo past > Earnest The Betrayer 10/01/2015 at 10:19

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I learned how to drive stick in an eclipse just like yours in highschool-stalling 20 times with four drunk fiends crammed in trying to give me instructions.

I have a 1st Gen Eclipse I keep as a project...hah actually it was the car I bought right after the Bravada I was so hungry for another sports coupe!

It has never ran long enough to make any stories.

wiffleballtony > Earnest The Betrayer 10/01/2015 at 10:39

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1995 Ford Taurus GL. The one pictured isn’t mine but it is the right color. It’s probably the crappiest car I’ve owned but it was also my first car which is probably why I am sentimental about it. Trying to remember anything noteworthy about it is drawing a blank, which is probably indicative of 90s domestics. It died a sad death at the hands of a minor accident writing it off only a year or so after a transmission rebuild. It ended up being replaced by another much newer Taurus that was objectively better albeit slower and heavier that I never appreciated fully until many years later.

Firewrx234 > banjo cat ghost of oppo past 10/01/2015 at 10:41

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That’s fantastic. And as far as the clutch fan goes, it's pretty common and you can tell if one has the problem about a mile away lol.

And yeah I thought this was the best looking one in town! And if you notice, the previous owner rhino lined the entire bottom portion in between the bumpers and over the bumpers bc the bumpers come stock as black and that portion in between is usually painted. It just adds some continuity.

Firewrx234 > banjo cat ghost of oppo past 10/01/2015 at 10:50

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Here’s a link to a video that shows something similar to what my blazer did

Urambo Tauro > Earnest The Betrayer 10/01/2015 at 10:52

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I spent many miles behind the wheel of a crappy Chevy C1500. It was a company car , not mine. It was hurting for maintenance in a bad way. The compression was so bad that it would roll downhill while parked in gear.

I discovered that if I held the throttle wide open while downshifting from 5th to 4th, it would perform a perfect rev-match. It just didn’t have enough power to rev high before I engaged 4th gear.

marshknute > Earnest The Betrayer 10/08/2015 at 23:39

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The only shitbox I ever owned was an E46 BMW 330xi. Hardly shitbox-worthy when it was new, but by the time I bought it, literally everything was wrong with it. All the things. Every month it required another $1400 in repairs.

Then I tried driving home from college (450 miles) in an epic blizzard. AND THE FUCKING HEATER BROKE!!!!! And then the windshield washer jets broke, so I couldn’t clear the slushy snow gunk off of the windshield. Oh my fucking god!

Thankfully I was driving home for winter break, so I had my ski clothes packed in my suitcases. I changed into all those layers at a gas station and drove the rest of the way. It was soooooo damn cold.

I traded it in the next day. Didn’t even bother going to Carmax to get a “competitive” offer. I just wanted to be rid of that unreliable POS.

Yes, this is the best photo ever of an unreliable POS.