Sometimes a good beater, can be more cheap and cheerful fun than an exotic super car.
Hi, I’m Reece and I’m an addict. I think they call it “Price – Low to high” syndrome. I spend most evenings perusing the online classifieds for cars. Unlike a normal person, however, dreaming about Ferraris and Lamborghinis, I look for $h1tboxes. I really have tried to escape the habit, but that “Sort – Price Low to high” tab keeps screaming at me with the ferocity of a GT4RS’s induction noise.
Looking for a beater
So, there I am again. Looking at barely working lumps of metal with the same wonder that 5-year-old me would look at race cars. I could never figure out why the prospect of owning a cheap car appealed to me so much.
After some careful thought and rumination, I have decided that every petrolhead’s dream garage should contain a beater car.
Before I enlighten you and change your perspective on cars forever, let me clear some things up. Firstly, I define a “$h1tbox” or “beater” as being any car that you can be carefree about (basically anything extremely cheap… or French). The goal is for you as a petrolhead to treat this car as if you know nothing about cars.
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I am in no way promoting this as a replacement for a performance car. All I am saying is that perhaps there is a gap in your dream garage fleet that you overlooked.
So here is why your life would be enriched by cheap car ownership…
Firstly, lack of care. Us car enthusiasts spend a substantial amount of time and effort keeping our vehicles pampered and in perfect condition. Sunday mornings are spent washing and polishing, or we ship them off to professional detailers for makeovers. Even parking takes up mental space. I’m sure you’re tired of searching for the furthest corner of a multi-story lot to avoid bothersome dings.
With your beater, however, you can enjoy the bliss of squeezing your car in the tightest of spots. Dents gravitate from being a nuisance to adding patina. And your washing can be left to the rain…
And then we have mechanical sympathy… or lack thereof. Your beater need not be driven gingerly until it’s warmed up, there are no speedbumps in sight and the roads are emptier than your DMs. Just get in and have fun without a care in the world. You’ll also get to savour one of the best sensations in the motoring world – slow car fast. 60km/h in a tin can feels rapid. Especially on a twisty road and when you’ve had to use the entirety of the length of the N2 to get up to speed.
Go watch videos of cheap cars being driven hard at the Nürburgring. There are clips of friends giggling along for the entire 13.5 days that it takes them to get around. That’s because in a beater you don’t have to take yourself too seriously. Imagine you and your mates chasing sportscars up Franschhoek pass in a Honda Jazz. Nothing will be more exhilarating.
drive a beater in such manner, it will break
But surely if you drive a car in such manner, it will break you say? Well of course it will. That brings us to another benefit. You get to bring out your inner Ed China and do some DIYing. In your hypothetical dream garage filled with exotics, you can kiss goodbye to working on your own car. Are you really going to be doing the services on your McLaren F1 yourself? Nope.
When something breaks on your beater, you’ll be more than happy to buy some scrapyard parts or cheaper non-OEM alternatives. Then grab some mates over the weekend and hope that ChrisFix has a video on whatever you’re doing.
That’s the beauty of cheap cars. You can do everything on the cheap. There’s no need to worry about depreciation either – because it’s done that. Same for adding mileage – it has probably done all of those too. If all goes horribly wrong, you could also turn it into a budget race car for even more giggles.
What’s my ideal beater then? I’d say an E36 BMW with any 6-cylinder engine. Parts and scrap cars are easy to find, and the aftermarket support is substantial. I don’t see good ones getting any cheaper and even a rough example will be gobbled up for track use.
So, there you have it. Reasons why, amongst your RS6 and supercars, you really should have a $h1tbox in your dream garage. Stress free motoring and a whole lot of fun for much less money.
