The Integra had turned a small profit almost by accident. The Primera was the first time I tried to do it deliberately.
I bought it from a Turners end of life auction, which is exactly what the name suggests: the cars that have been given up on. The theory was simple. Buy something rough, fix what is actually wrong with it, sell it to someone who wanted a working car rather than a project.
The list of faults was longer than advertised. It always is.
By then I had learned something worth more than any single repair: a cheap aftermarket head unit changes what a car appears to be worth far more than it costs. Bluetooth audio was the one feature every buyer asked about, and units out of Alibaba had made it nearly free to add. That was a genuine market window, the kind that closes once everybody notices. For a couple of years, forty dollars of stereo was worth several hundred on the asking price.
I taught myself basic bodywork on the rust at the front, which mostly meant learning how much of it there really was. With the car nearly ready for its Warrant, I was doing the final clean, pulling the wiper blades off, when my hand slipped and went straight through the windscreen.
A professional replacement would have eaten the entire margin. So I found a screen at Pick-A-Part, removed it myself, and learned to fit glass because the alternative was losing money.
Every car taught me one new thing. This one taught me three, and two of them were only necessary because of the third.
