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Te Ao Hou, December 1957, Page 14

Otherwise listen for heavy thumps when going up hills (bearings shot), mis-firing when hot or cold or anything else out of the way. If the brake-pedal goes near the floorboards before the brakes work, it is wise to check the linings in the brakes themselves. If your car goes through these tests well, you will probably get a good spin from it, though no-one can ever tell for certain with any car, old or new. The best you can do is make sure you're not paying too much for a heap of junk which may have been prettied up so that it looks all right. Of course, all this applies to a car you'll maybe pay £400 or more for. If you want a jallopy to get you around for £100 or less, it probably won't pass one of the tests by any more than is needed for a warrant of fitness. The thing to do then is to pay your £100 and forget it, enjoy your jallopy while you've got it, and don't be heartbroken when it finally folds up. You'll probably get a lot more fun out of it than the man who pays more than he can afford for a more expensive job and worries about paying for it and keeping it going. Keeping an old heap on the road is a story by itself, so I'll leave that to another time.