When three doesn't go into one

THIS time tomorrow, I could be completely car-less.

Admitting you own not one, but three cars, isn’t the status symbol it sounds like if you’re actually relatively poor, a problem made worse by the fact most of whatever you earn is almost immediately transferred to the cash registers of Halfords and PartCo. Certainly, arranging to restore one, sell another and MOT a third in the same week is naïve bordering on stupid.

Eagle-eyed readers of tomorrow’s Champion might spot the following hiding in the Classifieds section, which is how this week's agony of owning three old cars at once began:

A reg - 1983
Classic Mini Mayfair Automatic
As featured regularly in The Champion’s “Life On Cars” column. MOT Jan 2011, tax Mar 11, needs minor repairs, just 33,000 miles
£800 ono
07581 343476

Yep, I’ve decided, after no end of deliberation, to sell the Life On Cars Mini, meaning it’s available to anyone looking for a cheap starter classic provided they’re not afraid to use a spanner. It’s not going to make me terribly popular but precisely because I am afraid to use a spanner and because I’ve had my two years of fun with it, it’s time someone gave it a better home.

In true Mini tradition, it’s decided to reward me by breaking down just before the ad appears, so it not only needs a speedo cable, a choke, a rocker cover gasket and at least two new body panels, but it now won’t start at all.

The MGB, the bargain sports car I bought back in the summer, is in much better nick and just needs the spot of Quantative Easing selling the Mini is going to allow for, but as you read this it’s hidden away in a garage, untaxed, uninsured, and waiting on a shipload of shiny parts before it can rip up the country lanes of Lancashire again in anger. It’ll be fantastic to drive. This Christmas.

All of which leaves the £100 Renault 5, which despite being given no attention whatsoever has ploughed on faultlessly through all weathers, never once complaining that mileage-wise it’s been around the fattest part of the Earth four times.

But that’s due in for an MOT tomorrow and - despite being faultless everywhere else - there’s one patch of problem corrosion which my expert mechanic mate reckons will almost certainly cause it to fail, leaving me with the prospect of owning an MGB that isn’t finished yet, a Renault that isn’t roadworthy and a Mini that’s either broken or in the hands of a lucky new owner.

Last time I risked this situation Peugeot came to my rescue by letting me road test a cabriolet I wasn’t expecting, but the chances of finding a 308CC outside The Champion offices tomorrow are slim to non-existent, largely because I haven’t asked to test anything.

I fear next week’s road test could be called Fire Up The…Bus.

UPDATE, OCTOBER 20: News from a mate in the world of MOTs reveals the Renault’s patch of corrosion would have meant it failing, so it’s been pulled out of the test at the last minute.

Had two calls already from Champion readers about the Mini, a car which burst into life last night but is now back to square one because the chilly weather this morning did mean things to its battery.

Am now faced with one car that’s roadworthy but only until November 6, another that’s (still) broken and (still) up for sale, and an MGB which isn’t finished yet.

Commuted to The Champion office by bus.

UPDATE, OCTOBER 21: The Life On Cars Mini has been sold! More information when I've got over being gutted to see it go...