It has been quite, no, very disappointing to realise how hideously undesirable the Nissan Bluebird is. What on earth is wrong with our society when a fully functioning, even quite pleasant car is worth less than a decent hi-fi system?

It isn’t just the Bluebird either.  A scan of Ebay reveals that stupendous bargains are all around. A pal has just won a 52,000 mile Ford Mondeo Mk1 V6 for £400. A creamy smooth V6 powered express that while admittedly is no Jaguar, isn’t that bad either. Ridiculous. Why did I buy the Bluebird when I could have bought that?!

The farcical Scrappage Scheme brought a temporary end to cheap motoring. Far too many people were seduced by the alleged £2000 discount on a brand new car and over the space of a few months, many worthy cars were scrapped. Nice one Labour! Peter Mandleson did very little to improve my view of him with that one.

Happily for lovers of cheap old autoshite though, the good times seem to be back. Now it seems pretty easy to spend less than £500 and still get a car with low miles, lots of service history and plenty of life left in it. The insatiable need to own the latest and fanciest drives second-hand values ever lower.

This is very worrying because all of these lovely, overlooked cars seem so affordable! For a couple of month’s finance on a new car, you could buy a new ‘old’ clunker every couple of months. I do like a bit of retail therapy, though thankfully I’m skint enough to be prevented from buying anything else just yet.

Because that’s the next bit. Just buying a cheap car isn’t enough for me. I still have to look after it as if it was worth many times more. I paid £375 for my BX but give me a few more months and I’ll probably have spent more than that on upkeep.

It might seem foolish, but the cheap times will surely not last. Already, BX values seem to be rising…