Hoopty?

[Bruce Dykes]

It means car.

It's mostly synonymous with 'beater,' but not necessarily with the same
degree of mechanical deterioration. The essence of hooptyhood lies with the
car being both used and cheap.

The oldest hit I've seen on Dejanews is August 2000. I first heard the term
from a girlfriend about a year ago. Steve Jackson's Chez Geek
(http://sjgames.com/chezgeek/, 2000) features a "Harold the Hoopty Car"
card, and offers this definition on his website:

Hoopty: The sort of car favored by characters in Shaft movies. Usually a
large, domestically produced automobile. Tinted windows are a plus.

Although website usages seem to track my definition, e.g., High School
newspapers with the "Hoopty of the month," an Australian page devoted to the
loving restoration of a VW Notchback, and a guy in LA wanting to buy a
$200-$300 car to practice driving with a manual transmission.

bkd