Practically Classics Forum

40 miles a day is quite a lot for a commute in my book. I agree with Rich that a classic diesel would be an economical and reliable workhorse. Mercs go on forever. I was in a taxi in Munich that had 800,000 km on the clock and that was a petrol! Merc 190 perhaps? Or a Peugeot 405 diesel, the old indirect injection Pug diesels may not be very refined, but they go on and on.

http://www.leboncoin.fr/voitures/452893699.htm?ca=18_s
this needs restoring but if the milage is correct its just run in..

That is a good looking old Merc At least you know if you have a crash in one of those there is more metal between your ankles and the front bumper than most cars have in total!

I remember stumbling upon a website a few years ago called "Bangernomics", all about motoring on a shoestring.

The chap responsible for the site was very taken by the VW Polo, refering to it as "the new Morris Minor".

Perhaps not as comfy as the Merc', but easier to park and nippier in traffic. I guess that road tax would be a bit cheaper too.

Depends what your priorities are apart from a requirement for interstellar mileage capability.

Polos aren't all that durable in some respects. The face of the block in the old NSU-derived engines corrodes and causes coolant and oil leaks from the passenger side rear corner of the HG. Chemical metal won't fix it - the block needs to be refaced - and once the pitting becomes severe, you'll be leaving a good litre of oil underneath it every few dozen miles. The quality and change frequency of the coolant makes no difference and this usually starts happening at between 60,000 and 80,000 miles though if you can live with the massive haemorrhaging, the engine is otherwise a good, strong one.
Then there's the rot. Fuel tanks, filler necks and the rear seat pan above the tank can all cause heartache even though the outer panels tend not to be too bad.
If you're looking at things that new, then a K10 Micra or a Toyota Corolla would use less juice, last better and be cheaper to mend than the Polo, but these all take us out of classics into bangernomics territory and the best candidate for that must surely be the last of the line, Washington-built Bluebirds, IMHO. Car magazine described them in GBU as "a sort of Japanese Morris Oxford" which I always thought was very kind of them considering how rude they were about some cars.

If you are going that new then don't discount the MK1 Ford Fiesta. That is approaching classic teretory, the engines are bomb proof but they do rust like nothing else on earth. They handle nicely, even the 1.0 is fairly nippy as the car weighs nothing. You could bolt in the seats from something newer and they wouldn't look out of place (eg from a 2000 onwards fiesta or focus).

Morris minors are good cars but you'd have to get one in top condition in the first place. I recently had the misfortune to own a riley 1.5 (effectively a minor with a B series engine and a bit more bling). It was the worst car I Have ever driven, would never start from cold, rusted like you would not believe and the 4 speed box was ready for a 5th at about 45 mph.
My idea of hell would be to have to commute daily in that pile of junk.

If this hypothetical car was required to run for 30 years as previously stated, then it has to be something reliable, solid, affordable, with good parts supply and not too many electronic components. I think I would be looking hard at a 1980s Audi 80/90 turbo diesel (or its Passat twin).

Mechanical fuel system, many shared components with other VAG products, comfortable to drive, reasonably nippy and quite good at resisting rot. They also come from an era when VW/Audi had decent build quality rather than just talking about build quality as they do now.

I drove them a lot back when they were new and they left a positive impression (apart from one 80 that had a heater that smelled of curry)

A mate of mine who is a mechanic would agree with you there. He has always maintained that the AUDI 80/90 were the high tide point in VAG quality and that it was downhill from there. He always buys Honda's because in his words: "we rarely see them in the garage because they don't tend to go wrong". My accord is the best car I've owned. Unfortunately, classic era Honda's have mainly rotted away now.

I'll also add the bigger brother the Audi 100 / 200 of the same era.

Not bad at all fuel wise on a run down the motorway (bit heavy around town) , bags of room, the last one I had was a rebuy economic writeoff which with a £100 of breaker parts was eventually sold to someone else with 250000 on the clock still running fine

Parts bin the same as the other audi's / vw's of the same era