7 Reasons Why Owning A Beater Is A Great Idea

1. It'll make your next car even more special

Let’s say you owned a 1.2-litre Volkswagen Polo, and swapped it out for a BMW 330Ci… your new ride is going to feel like an M3 after spending so much time in an underpowered box of misery.

2. You'll have more fun driving it because you won't care if it gets damaged

Anyone who has spent a lot of money on their dream ride will know the mild terror you feel whenever you drive fast. In a rubbish car, you won’t care about potholes or clipping kerbs, making every trip a more relaxed, enjoyable experience.

3. You get to park closer to the entrance

Whenever you go somewhere that involves parking your nice car in a public car park, you’ll leave it as far from the entrance as possible so there are fewer cars around to do you damage. In your old beater, you can happily park up right by the entrance, safe in the knowledge that if someone opens their door on your car the extra paint might actually improve the car’s value…

4. It lets you save for something more desirable

Not everyone is blessed with a bulging wage packet each month, so owning something cool while you save for something even cooler is often out of the question. Owning a beater allows you to continue driving while you save for what you really want.

5. It won't depreciate

Everyone knows that cars are money pits that do nothing but lose value, right? Well, to be honest, unless you’re very clever/lucky with your classic car buying, that’s generally the case. The great thing about buying a rubbish car for dirt cheap is that it’ll probably never be worth much less than what you bought it for.

6. You can practice fixing stuff

Generally, modern performance cars are incredibly complex machines, so if that’s your thing you’re probably not going to be able to fix and tweak many parts from your driveway through fear of causing some sort of cataclysmic problem. An old beater will likely have a very simple engine, leaving you free to learn the basics of how a car works.

7. You won't constantly have douchebags trying to race you

In my position I have the privilege of driving some wicked cars, but every time I drive something fast I get idiots trying to race me. In the Porsche 911 it was the guy in an Impreza I could hear about 10 minutes before I saw it, in the Audi R8 it was a group of bikers (and a Vauxhall Astra, bizarrely), and in the BMW M3 it was, well, pretty much everyone who saw me. And I’m guilty of it, too; recently while driving our Skoda Octavia vRS I chased down a guy in a Nissan 180SX, just because I think they’re cool.

On the flip side, driving something boring means you just blend in, so for those drives where you just want to relax, you actually can.