rust bucket

rust bucket

Any vehicle that is particularly old, unsophisticated, and dilapidated, especially a car; a clunker. Hyphenated when used as a modifier before a noun. When are you going to get rid of that old rust bucket and buy something you'll actually enjoy driving? I had my reservations climbing aboard the rust-bucket prop plane, but I have to say, it got us there with no issues whatsoever.
See also: bucket, rust
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

rust bucket

n. a naval destroyer; any ship. (Military.) Why don’t I ever get assigned to a new ship? It’s always some crummy rust bucket!
See also: bucket, rust
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • a light touch
  • a round robin
  • round robin
  • eleventh hour
  • heads I win, tails you lose
  • black market
  • good for nothing
  • good-for-nothing
  • first hand
  • a broth of a boy
References in periodicals archive
The fiasco at San Onfre is being replayed at rust bucket reactors throughout the US.
Over in Yorkshire, muchloved biker cop 'Smithy', proves there's no end to his knowledge and talents when he checks over a dangerous rust bucket that he suspects is running on chip fat.
Plans to scuttle the wreck were shelved last year after a study revealed it had deteriorated into a rust bucket and must now be removed.
However, with the country's financial difficulties becoming more and more entrenched, and the economy continuing to sputter like Al Bundy's old rust bucket, the stigma of being broke is beginning to disappear.
It has saved many a "rust bucket" and allowed me to restore firearms that otherwise would be worthless.
THE volcanic ash cloud nearly turned Iron Man 2 into a rust bucket and the world premiere had to be hastily rearranged in Los Angeles, but you cannot keep a good superhero down.
I can't remember how much I paid but it was a rust bucket and they should have paid me.
A gentleman on his hack approached and I thought this is it, get yourself and your rust bucket out of this town.
Whereas it is suggested that there is a PS40,000 cost to clean up vandals' graffiti (The Journal, October 26), surely a far more offensive act of cultural philistinism costing a reported PS960,000 of public funds was to erect the rust bucket known as the Angel of the North.
He said it had been "a rust bucket" long before the loss of his grandson.
is rust bucket is 50 years old, past its sell by date and ready for Wilkinson / Gillette depots.
ALTHOUGH the North East still has to address (and overcome) its undeserved reputation as a cultural desert, with cultural philistines having cemented this reputation through wasting PS980,000 of public funds erecting a colloquial Rust Bucket in Gateshead (ie the Angel of the North) and the Lego Men in Newcastle, and Newcastle City councillors in 2011 cutting funds to arts and libraries, the North East may still redeem itself.
There, he was a gentleman farmer, spending many hours weeding the garden, fixing the latest rust bucket and chopping wood, as well as talking over the issues of the day with all of his favorite neighbors.
For now Howard, always charge your car with electricity from renewables and make use of any recycling programs offered by manufacturers, rather than sending your old rust bucket to landfill for time eternal.