Possessive form of "one of [a list]"? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate:
Plural possessive with separate posessions

Which of the following is more correct? Or is there another form I'm missing?

We drove to the movies in one of my buddy's car.
We drove to the theater in one of my buddies' cars.
We drove to the theater in one of my buddies' car.

I suppose the fundamental question is: does this phrasing suggest "one of [the collection of cars owned by my buddies]" or "the car owned by [one of my buddies]"?


If you mean "one of the cars belonging to one buddy":

We drove to the movies in one of my buddy's cars.

If you mean "one of the cars belonging to one of my buddies" or "the one car owned by one of my buddies":

We drove to the theater in one of my buddies' cars.


I think that "We drove to the movies in one of my buddy's car." is incorrect because "one of" implies a plural, which is lacking.

Both of the latter two forms are correct. The first means "one of the cars belonging to my buddies", and would be appropriate, for example, if you are talking about buddies who are car collectors. The last means "the car belonging to one of my buddies".

My gut feeling is that in common usage, the last form "one of my buddies' car" would be the best usage, because we usually think of someone driving their car, or having a car, even when they have more than one. [I use "they" rather than "his" in the last sentence following post-modern usage.]