We've been discussing Bangernomics lately, a principle I've been sticking to for a while having been hit by some rather high depreciation on a fairly new car, and instead turned to running older cars, though usually spending the top end of the bangernomics budget, and getting something supposedly unattainable, the Golf GTi was bought when setting out to find a cheap runabout, the Audi Cabriolet, is rather a lot of car for a £2k budget. Roll back 5 years ago, my Golf GTi was starting to suffer from 10-20k a year being put on it, not having the time to take her off the road, and extra pressure of me also running my dad around as he'd not replaced his written off 944 (serious high end bangernomics £3.5k). I was starting the hunt for an Audi Coupe, but then got offered a 70k freshly MoT'd 95 Escort Si for £650 and decided to take it. It was horrid, and I carried on the hunt for the Audi Coupe. A few weeks later I found myself looking at eBay one Friday afternoon at a 14 yr old Audi 80 2.0E saloon, 80,000 miles from new, one owner, all the MoTs, lots of service history, freshly MoT, sitting at £300 with a few hours to go, and it's in Chesterfield a mile from work.... BONUS. Taking dad home that night even negotiated a deal that he'd buy the Escort off me for not much less than I'd paid 4 weeks earlier, so we could get him back on the road too. Read the rest of this entry »