Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a decrepit car.

1929		Hostetter & Beesley It’s a Racket! 229: Jaloppi — A cheap make of automobile; an automobile fit only for junking.
1931		‘Und. “Lingo” Brought Up-to-Date’ L.A. Times 8 Nov. K3: JALOPPY: Automobile.
1937		E. Anderson Thieves Like Us (1999) 89: It was an old one-light Jalope that got me.
1937		J. Archibald ‘Crash on Delivery’ in Flying Aces Nov. 🌐 You still think I stole them marks when you hit the cow with the jilopi.
1938		C. Odets Rocket to the Moon III i: I tinker with my motors, the little boat and the jalopy.
1940		J. Archibald ‘No Place Like Homicide’ in Popular Detective Apr. 🌐 He got into his jaloppy and drove away.
1940		F.S. Fitzgerald ‘Pat Hobby Does His Bit’ in Pat Hobby Stories (1967) 98: To a sordidly commercial glance the jalopy would not have seemed worth saving.
1942		N. Algren Never Come Morning (1988) 17: Where we goin’? Whose jollopi?
1944		C. Himes ‘Let Me at the Enemy’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 38: Well now that made me mad, them sendin’ that loppy for me. [Ibid.] ‘A Penny for Your Thoughts’ 59: He rode that little joppy like a hill-country cowboy on a Spring roundup.
1953		B. Behan Scarperer (1966) 83: Then he’ll dump this jalopy and we’ll pick him up.
1957		C. Himes Imabelle 64: All you need these days to buy a Cadillac is have a jalopy to turn in for a down payment.
1958		R. Chandler Playback 117: Goble and his dirty little jaloppy ought to show up.
1958		E. Gilbert Vice Trap 7: Get in the jalop.
1965		C. Himes Rage in Harlem (1969) 64: .
1979		E. Torres After Hours 10: He came up 111th Street in his jalopy.
1980		L. Mantell Murder and Chips 76: The driver of an old beat-up jalopy of unknown make.
1985		T. Murphy Conversations on a Homecoming (1986) 25: I hadn’t even bothered to let back the seats of the auld jalop.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 308: ‘But I said to Dick, who was in the same jalopy as me, to please not tell Ted I had worked this sly trick’.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We have No 235: Bearing down in cars and minicabs and beat-up old jalopies.
2003		N. Griffiths Stump 8: They are driving a Morris Minor, jalopy dilapidated.
2010		A. Steinberg Running the Books 85: Driving his jalopy directly through Hurricane Katrina.
2015		P. Beatty Sellout (2016) 84: We were caught up in a slog of uninsured rust-bucket jalopies [...] their trash-bag windshields flapping in the wind.
2018		C. Hammer Scrublands [ebook] ‘I’ll get the bus down to Bellington [...] see if I can buy a jalopy’.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 191: Juan the fry cook’s junk jalopy was parked just ahead.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 240: ‘[Y]our father’s splendid cars... jalopies’.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1951

Kerouac On the Road (The Orig. Scroll) (2007) 206: Gaunt crazy jaloppy Americans.

3. a truck.

1944

J. Archibald ‘Meat Bawl’ in Popular Detective Aug. 🌐 Willie rolled against the other side of the truck and hit his head on something very hard. He was still a little groggy when the jalopy stopped.

4. a worthless or unattractive person or object.

1935		S. Kingsley Dead End Act II: They socked that young jalopee in the eye.
1936		Wentworth Amer. Dial. Dict. 326: Jollopy, orig. a stout woman.
2000		Indep. Rev. 6 Jan. 13: An ingratiating jalopy of an action flick.