jalopy

plural jalopies

1. USslightly datedAn old, dilapidated or unpretentious automobile.

   There's only a rough track and I doubt if that jalopy of yours will make it.

   2003, Terrance Dicks, Barry Letts, chapter 22, in Deadly Reunion

   3 more examples

   Dean is the perfect guy for the road because he was actually born on the road, when his parents were passing through Salt Lake City in 1926, in a jalopy, on their way to Los Angeles.

   1957 September 5, Jack Kerouac, chapter 1, in On the Road, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →OCLC

   "We ran into some real excitement," Frank said, and told his father the whole story of Chet's missing jalopy, the wrecked car which they suspected had been a stolen one also, and the attempted holdup at the ferryboat office.

   1959 [1927 June 1], Franklin W. Dixon, The Hardy Boys 01: The Tower Treasure, page 20

   Through most of those early years of restless travel, he dragged his two children and his long-suffering wife, Maryann[…] behind him like tin cans tied to the bumper of a jalopy that no car dealer in his right mind would take in trade.

   2009 November 20, Stephen King, “Raymond Carver’s Life and Stories”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   Synonyms: banger, beater, banger, beater, bucket of bolts, bucket of rust, clunker, crate