your best $500 car

[Tdbo]

Bought a 1986 Chrysler Town & Country Wagon for $250 from an estate sale. Put 100K on it and sold it out of my front yard for $1300. Not the most technologically advanced car but it was dependable and when it needed parts, they were cheap.

 

[waynlewis]

Bought a few below $500 cars myself living in NY, can't remember the exact yrs but was '88 through '95. Cars were in order....
'77 Mustang Cobra hatch $85 at a police auction - sold it for $300 months later.
'82 Camaro for $200 - later traded it for a '77 Trans Am - and sold that for $600.
'71 Challenger 340 for $300 - kept it for a few yrs and then switched engine and trans to a '73 Challenger body I got for $200. Lost that in a bad crash and got $3000 ins money.
'85 VW Jetta for $500 - kept it for a few months and then sold it for $800.
In '97 I bought a '85 Mustang GT at a another auction for $250, kept that for 2yrs and then sold it for $600.
Early '09 I bought a 95 Civic dx for $250, put $400 into it and still have it today. Runs great and is the step-daughters daily.

 

[nwjones18]

1987 Suzuki Samurai. The transfer case was stuck in neutral. A $8 'shifter sheet' fixed it. Can go just about anywhere a 4-wheeler can and it has heat and a radio!

 

[Spyder7]

'79 VW Rabbit back around '92. She was asking 1,050 and I think we agreed on $800. Needed a new battery. Other than that I replaced the fan belt and water pump in 2 years of very hard driving and extreme weather. Car was as simple as dirt, and with the weak battery, it was light enough I could get it rolling myself to jump start before I replaced it. Lot of fun to drive with its 4 speed manual, and almost impossible to kill. Sold it when I moved and couldn't take it with me for $500.

-Spyder

 

[CROWNVIC4LIFE]

Bought a 86 Crown Vic from someone in my condo complex for 500 bucks as a second car...The owner spent 1100 bucks the year before fixing the A/C..It needed paint badly put otherwise it was awesome...It had 180K miles on it...I sold it 6 months later for 500 bucks to a friend as it was cheaper to rent a car when I needed one then keeping a second one....He still has it.