The rust often starts from underneath the car or on the inner fenders where there is no paint in the first place and the metal is exposed. Even so, painted areas can always chip because of rocks, pebbles, and even the salt itself, leaving the metal exposed for rust.

And yes quality is an issue, especially for Toyotas and Hondas which rust worse than any other modern cars for some reason. The Japanese can make their engines last 250,000+ miles but they just can't seem to make paint and steel that lasts that long

And when you say destroy, do you mean hit it with a baseball bat and shoot out the windows, or do you mean drive it crazily like off a hill or into a ditch or something?
Both ideas sound very nice
But my father would never approve as he has always had a paticular liking for this car and would want to see it die an honorable death. (And he is planning on repairing it anyway... eventually )

By the way, when I said "that ship has sailed" I meant were long past trying/caring to make our house and/or cars look nice.
The phrase in general basically means "an opprutunity gone or passed up"

Ahh, yes Antp I forgot to mention that, thank you
Here in the US, some states have yearly "inspections" as they call them, and do not let you register your car if there are body or mechanical problems. In those states, it is much more rare to see cars that rusty. As you can clearly see, our state does not have any regualtions whatsoever, so you see many old beaters out driving around (including ours )
When I have traveled to other states that do have inspections I have noticed a large absence of old cars of any kind at all, most likely due to most of them being junked for not passing inspections. Sad isn't it?

Yes we have that in Spain too, it is called ITV "Inspección Técnica de Vehículos", if your car doesnt pass it you have a time (i dont know if its a month or so) to repair it, if you dont do it something happens i think, might be that they dont allow you to drive the car? i dont know, there are many people, specially gypsis, driving vans that are in horrible conditions, that means that they have not passed the inspection, if the police gets you with a car that hasnt passed the inspection they can report it and youll have to pay an amount of money, for new cars until they get 5 years or so i think it is, you have to take it to the inspection every two years i think, for older cars, every year.

And yes i meant you get it and push it down a cliff! anyway even if im saying this about that car, i find it nice i like these old cars from the eighties with this squarish look

Indeed, they are nice

Finding old vehicles (that run!) in rural areas is always fun. Traveling to states like Wyoming, Idaho, North and South Dakota, and Nebraska can sometimes be like going back in time.