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My very first car was 'free', given to me by a cousin who is married to a wealthy lawyer. It was a 1963 Cadillac convertible and by the time I got it in the '70s it looked like a jalopy. But it has the most comfortable leather seats imaginable. There wasn't a body panel that wasn't scratched or dented on it. But oh, was it fun to drive! - and it got me hooked on convertibles. I think I related the story here about starting it on a subfreezing morning and having the rigid steel fan blade go right through the hood because the water pump shattered. (I thought a bomb went off under the hood when it happened!) I replaced the water pump when the weather got warmer but it left a good sized leak in the radiator. I used to carry jugs of water with me so that when it overheated I would refill the radiator and keep going. I drove it for several years, as it was dependable and I couldn't afford much else.
Eventually the motor bearings failed. I had had the transmission rebuilt just before it died, so I did the logical thing: I found another '63 convertible that needed a transmission and transplanted it. The replacement car was under $100. My friend and I drove that one cross country and back and virtually nothing went wrong with it except for replacing tires. That was in about 1976. Gas was about 85 cents a gallon. I sold it to my friend and he drove it a few more years until... the water pump failed on it. He couldn't get the bolts out so he junked it.
Another car I got for 'almost free' was a 1971(?) Toyota Corolla with a manual tranny, for under $100. It had a major oil leak in the main seal. The body wasn't pretty, either. That was during the late '70s during the gas crisis. The oil leak got progressively worse while I owned it and eventually that motivated me to sell it. I never did fix the leak but I was able to sell it at a hefty profit due to the demand for gas thrifty cars.
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