flivver

plural flivvers

1. CanadaUScolloquialdatedAn automobile or cart, particularly one which is old and inexpensive.

   Shortly after daylight a procession of mule-drawn waggons, broken-down flivvers, and buggies begins wheeling in from the countryside ...

   1948, Truman Capote, Other Voices, Other Rooms, Part One, 1

   2 more examples

   Billy being too poor to own a car, had hired a cheap flivver for the day, and was purposely ten minutes behind the time, but to his disgust found the procession not yet started.

   1920 July, Lyman Seelye, “Quite a Picnic”, in The Overland Monthly

   These workers were often joined by impoverished small farmers from Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri who pooled their resources to buy a flivver and follow the harvest into the Dakotas and Canada.

   1998, Nigel Anthony Sellars, Oil, Wheat & Wobblies: The Industrial Workers of the World in Oklahoma, 1905-1930, University of Oklahoma Press, →ISBN, →OL, page 180

   Synonyms: jalopy, tin Lizzie, banger, beater, bucket of bolts, bucket of rust, clunker, crate

   1. CanadaUScolloquialdatedoriginallyA Ford Model T.

      Synonyms: jalopy, tin Lizzie, banger, beater, bucket of bolts, bucket of rust, clunker, crate

2. USderogatoryhistoricalslanggovernmentA destroyer of the United States Navy with a displacement of less than 1,000 tons.