rust bucket

noun

1. slang.
   something that is run-down or dilapidated, esp a very badly rusted car

adjective

1. informal.
   run-down or dilapidated

   rustbucket factories

Example Sentences

I had passed my driving test and, without success, tried to convince my two best friends to drive to Spain in the rust bucket that was my appropriately named Triumph Toledo.

From Seattle Times

We sit at the dock for more than two hours aboard an old rust bucket — albeit a rather comfortable one.

From Washington Post

Traveling in a camper van was something our two teenage sons had wanted to try since watching the “Ben 10” cartoon show, in which the hero’s grandfather drove around in his RV, “Rust Bucket.”

From Washington Times

At this point it is clear that most congressional Republicans will stay aboard the rust bucket USS Trump, which has been taking on water from the beginning, until it actually begins to sink.

From Washington Post

But it is Ridley Scott’s original “Alien,” forty years old this spring, that remains the benchmark; like Scott, Denis delves into the group psychology of a beleaguered crew, housed in an interplanetary rust bucket.

From The New Yorker