flivver n.

"cheap car," later (after 1914) especially "Model-T Ford," by 1905, of uncertain origin. The word flivver was noted c. 1910 as a new theater slang word come into common use: "A flivver is something that is not a success, perhaps not an outright, hideous failure, but certainly a long way from the top." [Boston Globe, Feb. 20, 1910] A character in a comical column from The Philadelphia Inquirer of Aug. 16, 1909, says it is "... from the verb 'to fliv,' meaning a foul, a bungled miss."