Beater With A Heater
The concept of having a beater car to use in certain situations is not unique to North America. This writer remembers talking to a tour guide in Rome over three decades ago and naturally, as a young gearhead, asking the guy what kind of car he drove.
[Images: Sue Thatcher / Shutterstock.com, Tupungato / Shutterstock.com, Lincoln, Ford]
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The man laughed and pointed to a completely knackered Fiat Panda (the old boxy one that Giugiaro designed), painted white and with a dent in just about every body panel. “That is what I bring into the city. It is destroyed,” he chuckled. Apparently there was an Alfa GTV6 at home in his garage.
That was a car which he enjoyed driving around the countryside. We’d like to imagine it was painted red and, despite all the typical Alfa Romeo gremlins, was a cherished road companion. More so than that old Panda, at least - though it can be argued that beaters are revered in their own special way.
Many of the readers and writers at this site may have driven a hand-me-down car as their first set of wheels. That was certainly the case for this human hammering away at the keyboard for the post you are reading, with a 1989 Ford Escort LX being the vehicle in which he passed a driving exam and piled on way too many miles before it met an inglorious end after being sold to a stranger two years later amid some engine problems.
In fact, the mill’s blow-by was so bad that during its final multi-hour highway slog, it demanded no fewer than four stops to fill the thing with motor oil (used, of course, harvested from garages which used to give it away for free back in the day - new oil would have been a waste of both product and money). At least it was well undercoated to guard against Rust Belt oxidization. A GT is shown in one of the photos here and was the subject of some envy to an LX owner.
Not everything with high mileage can be classified as a beater. Close family members have a 13-year-old Lincoln MKX with well in excess of 300,000 on the clock, a feat achieved not through negligence but thanks to fastidious maintenance - some of which was done at the dealer but the majority handled by a trusted local mechanic.
While some of the ancillaries may have not been repaired (who needs the power outlet in the cargo area, anyway) every single thing which keeps it running well gets done on the dot. Our very own Murilee has mused on this many times after finding a high mileage example in the junkyard - and they’re exactly right.
