Bored ?..... do this !

[OriginalBigAl]

Miserable weather here at the moment and in a boring hour I thought I would frighten myself.
I made an approximate spreadsheet of all the cars I have owned and how much I have lost in depreciation, tax, fuel, insurance, tyres and repairs . Exact figures not available so an estimated and hopefully honest guess has to suffice and I have not adjusted for inflation , just actual pounds at the time.
Over a 46 year period ( and remember I have had loads of crap cars ) I came up with a figure of 96000 pounds lost/ gone. Not to bad as it represents around 40 quid a week costs but obviously skewed because it was not 40 quid in 1979 as it is not now. Also skewed as I have got included 10000 depreciation on the MG ( the biggest single amount.
Thrilled by my mathematical reasonings I did the same for all the motorbikes I've owned , over a 18 year period ( 1984 - 2002) and that came to 31000 pounds , or around 31 pounds a week .
I would imagine that I would be on the lower margins of the graph should others feel inclined / bored to do a similar project and publish their approximations here.
My wife has just seen this , snorted , and said I should do another for long term beer intake and wall wetting. Well really!!!

 

[MG Clive]

Good work BigAl, I've got a list of all the cars I've owned since my first car in 1978, but I wouldn't know where to begin working out how much I've lost on them, and maybe I shouldn't do it anyway.

 

[salty]

It would be frightening, if somehow I suddenly knew, how much I'd spent and lost, on cars and modifications, over the years. But you know what, don't regret it whatsoever. Enjoyed every minute of it.

 

[T1 Terry]

On one project along, that will never be finished, the hrs and $$ are staggering ..... Converted a front engine 1980 Beford 500 diesel 33ft passenger bus into a rear engine 351 Ford Cleveland with a 4 sp Alison auto, 36ft motorhome. Roof raise 1ft, body lifted off chassis by further 8" to remove wheel arches, flat floor front to back. Added 3 ft into the chassis and double walled the chassis to strengthen it. Recovered in 1mm aluminium sheet front to rear and roof, moved door from front left corner to 1/3rd way down the body ...... there was a Photo Bucket account that showed the timeline as the build progressed ... just found it now and it has been completely scrambled and all the captions are gone ..... that is the only record of all the work involved ......

It's parked in the back corner of the workshop yard at the moment .... a testament in learning project management and stopping project creep ....

T1 Terry

 

[Roldorf]

Just think, without all those cars you'd have stayed at home and been a really boring old git.

 

[Anon70]

Now factor in all the fun moments and subtract all the won't be doing that again moments to determine a man maths rating for all the vehicles

 

[OriginalBigAl]

Now factor in all the fun moments and subtract all the won't be doing that again moments to determine a man maths rating for all the vehicles

Apart from the MG only four were over 3 grand and all of these 87 Polo, 88 Lancia Prisma, 90 Sunny 97 Corolla . are in the won't be doing that again, category. A few lie in the 500 quid region and were great fun even on their last trips to the scrapyard. The most fun was a 82 1.0l Metro which burnt out its contacts and condenser every 300 miles . It got to the stage where I could change them in the dark in 20 minutes then " tune " it by advancing /retarding the ignition by ear!. Ok hand and a spanner. 25 quid tyres on each corner and no fluid in the rear suspension , nearest thing to a go-cart there was. 80% All the bikes 95% except a 750 GPX , we never did gel, evil git of a thing.