How do you define an "old" car?

IMO Mark that is really relative. Compared to what? My Corolla was manufactured in May 2006. 10 Years+ 'old' It uses no oil, starts first time every time, I don't consider it old at all. I would not hesitate to drive it to the moon. Depends on quality of engineering, quality of build, and super-high performance $250,000 cars are 'old' before a basic daily driver.

the amount of miles and how it was driven basically wear and tear bust mostly miles

Hey Jim, I can read through typos easy, happens all the time. But yours, in context, made sense... in the opposite way.. not picking and nit picking, the letters right next to each other. Good you cleared that up. Can't imagine an older car getting a break. In Calif it's odd, like a colonoscopy. They don't care if it has a busted windshield, lights, anything like that does not get inspected. They stick a probe up the tail-pipe and measure the, uh, emissions, have a 10 second look under the hood to make sure it's not thrashed. and if the machine says you pass.. you pass.