The '76 camaro was "too dangerous". The '86 escort had been owned by an old couple who only drove it to church on sundays...a much safer car for a teenager.
It was 10 years old and only 18k miles. But, the previous owners didn't have a paved driveway, so it had been parked on their lawn the whole time and the entire undercarriage was rusted out.
I cut my hand on it the first day and needed a tetanus shot. I found out the rear wheel wells were rusted out the first time it rained because my backseat flooded. The brakes rusted out on me three times that first summer. The first was when I was looking at them, I picked at a rust flake on a nut on the hydraulic line and it started leaking brake fluid. The second time, one of the rear brake pads came unglued while I was driving and bound up the entire wheel so it wouldn't spin. The third time, I hit a low-flying sparrow on my lunch break and, for some reason, that caused the brakes to give out...
Batteries, distributor caps, throttle bushings, rotors...I eventually put about 3x more money into it than I had paid for the car to start with. Of course, that included a new stereo, woofers, and self-installed alarm system. I figured the woofers would help shake the rust off. I guess I set the vibration sensor on the alarm too high, though. Every time a lawn mower went past the car, the alarm went off. At one point, one of the wires came loose and the alarm would go off while I was driving down the street, so I just pulled over and yanked the whole thing out.
Eventually, the main coolant line under the engine rusted out while I was on the highway and it blew the head gasket. I pulled over and left it on the side of the road (it was a Ford, after all). It was a fun little guy...
Edit: Oh, yeah, it did at least manage to tow a uhaul trailer down to college one year. I ran over a turtle crossing the highway on that trip. I was surprised the turtle didn't win...