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A decrepit car is an automobile that is often old and damaged and is in a barely functional state. There are many slang terms used to describe such cars, such as beater, bomb, clunker, chod, flivver, hooptie/hoopty, jalopy, old banger (most commonly used in the UK), shitbox, or junk car.
Age, neglect, and damage tend to increase the expense of maintaining a vehicle. The vehicle may reach a point where this expense would be considered to outweigh the value of keeping it. Such vehicles are generally stripped for parts or abandoned. However, abandoning a vehicle on the road as a parked car is illegal in many jurisdictions and if a vehicle remains parked, the local authority commonly towing it to the Wrecking yard. Some owners choose to keep the vehicle. These old, neglected, and oftentimes barely functional cars have been used not only for transport, but also as banger racing vehicles. Their use has earned them a place in popular culture.
A jalopy was an old-style class of stock car racing in America, often raced on dirt ovals. It was originally a beginner class behind midgets, but vehicles became more expensive with time. Jalopy races began in the 1930s and ended in the 1960s. The race car needed to be from before around 1941. Notable racers include Parnelli Jones. In the 1960s, the Ministry Of Transport Test (MOT) was introduced, in an effort to increase road safety. Many decrepit cars that were missing important parts, such as functioning brakes and lights, failed the MOT and were scrapped, ending the age of the decrepit car in England.
The term shitbox may refer to an unprepossessing but probably roadworthy vehicle, celebrated in the biannual (autumn and spring) Shitbox Rally, an Australian fundraiser for cancer charities.
Ingenious means by which desert people keep clapped-out vehicles running was celebrated in the 2001 ABC television series Bush Mechanics.
The word jalopy was once common but is now somewhat archaic. Jalopy seems to have replaced , which in the early decades of the 20th century also simply meant "a failure," and is still often used to refer to a Ford Model T. Other early terms for a wreck of a car included heap, tin lizzy (1915) and crate (1927), which probably derived from the WWI Aircraft pilot' slang for an old, slow and unreliable Airplane. In the latter half of the 20th century coarser terms became popular, such as shitbox.
The origin of jalopy is unknown, but the earliest written use that has been found was in 1924. It is possible that the longshoremen in New Orleans referred to the scrapped autos destined for scrapyards in Xalapa, Mexico, according to this destination, in which they pronounced the letter J as in English. Another possible origin is the French language "chaloupe," motorboat, perhaps imitating the sound an old car would make.
A 1929, definition of jalopy reads as follows: "a cheap make of automobile; an automobile fit only for junking". The definition has stayed the same, but it took a while for the spelling to standardize. Among the variants have been jallopy, jaloppy, jollopy, jaloopy, jalupie, julappi, jalapa and jaloppie. John Steinbeck spelled it gillopy in In Dubious Battle (1936).
The Georgia Institute of Technology, an engineering school in Atlanta, takes pride in the practice of engineering students maintaining antique cars, and the school maintains the Ramblin' Wreck, a popular mascot of the school. Their college radio station, WREK, is also named after the iconic car.
The term was also used throughout the history of Archie Comics, specifically referring to Archie Andrews' red, open-top antique car "Ol' Betsy".
In 2009, the term clunker was heavily used in reference to the Car Allowance Rebate System in the United States, which was also known as the "Cash for Clunkers Program".
Decrepit cars used on Indian reservations in the United States and in Canada are often referred to by their owners as reservation cars or rez runners for short. The culture of the rez car was explored in the documentary film Reel Injun, and also figured briefly in the feature film Smoke Signals. Keith Secola (Ojibwa) recorded the song "NDN KARS" describing such a vehicle in 1987. Originally appearing as a cassette release, it was used in the Native critically acclaimed film Dance Me Outside. It is on his album Circle (AKINA Records, 1992). Activist Russell Means's humorous poem "Indian Cars Go Far" (1993) also describes the "Indian car" as a decrepit vehicle.
(2026). 9780143039631, Penguin Classics. ISBN 9780143039631 The term was used extensively in the book On the Road by Jack Kerouac, first published in 1957, although written from 1947.
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