Jalopy

A decrepit car is one that is often old and damaged and is in a barely functional state. Numerous slang terms are used to describe such cars, which vary by country and region, including jalopy and banger.

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, some owners choose to keep the vehicle. These old, neglected and often barely functional cars have been used not only for transport but also as racing vehicles. Their use has earned them a place in popular culture.

During the 1930s, the market for used cars first started to grow and decrepit cars were often a poor man's form of transport. Cheap dealers could obtain the cars for very little, make aesthetic adjustments, and sell the car for much more. Early hot rodders also purchased decrepit cars as the basis for racers, and was called banger racing in the United Kingdom and jalopy racing in the United States.

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.

Numerous slang terms are used to describe such cars, which vary by country and region, including hooptie, jalopy, shed, clunker, lemon, banger, bomb, beater, rust bucket, voodoo, wreck, bucket, death trap, disaster on wheels, or rattletrap.

In Australian slang the terms rust bucket, bunky, old bomb, paddock basher or are used to refer to old, rusty and/or rundown cars.

In British slang the terms old rust bucket or simply are used to refer to decrepit cars but the favoured term is old banger, often shortened to . The origin of the word is unknown, but could refer to the older poorly maintained vehicles' tendency to back-fire. The terms shed and cut and shut are also used, although a cut and shut refers specifically to a car made by welding the front of one car to the rear of another, usually after both original cars were damaged.

...
Wikipedia