My father’s cars were very boring. My early memories are of a gold/tan station wagon. Think it was a Rambler. It was replaced by a behemoth of a car - a dark green over woodgrain vinyl AMC Ambassador wagon with the cop engine package. What was it, a 460 ci V8? Absolutely huge, at any rate, and in Chicago, soon became more rust than car.
It dies not long after the marriage and is replaced. Mom gets an Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera (not the gargantuan land-yachts of the 70’s, but a fairly basic 4-door sedan) and pops gets himself a VW Rabbit and disappears from our life.
My father had a green Pontiac Sunbeam he got for graduating grad school. Sadly, it was totalled when he hit a deer going cross country. I believe it had a rumble seat for my brother when he was tiny, but it was before I was born.
After that, let’s see. After the beige Beetle from Grandpa blew up, our family car was an orange Datsun B210. It was tough for us to crawl into the back. It was replaced with a white Nissan Sentra. This was replaced by a red Nissan Sentra. Both were really hard for my 6’4" bro to climb into the back. Then a gray Toyota Tacoma and now a four-door maroon Toyota Tundra.
Heh, that is just like the Datsun we had–only ours was orange as mentioned. Pop insisted on a manual too. Pop paid $3800 cash (we had to walk to the dealer to pick it up–no other car). He considered it time for a new tiny manual when he slipped into the other lane and the back end got smushed. I think the Sentra was $6000.
Yeah, I wouldn’t be comfortable in my father’s, either, but he put a cap on it for him and mom to go tent camping.
My Pops had a 1976 Limited Edition Tans-Am. Oh, was it bad-ass! Some of my earliest memories are of him smoking the tires and jumping hills while taking me out for a ride
My dad had a Fiat Spyder. Now its mine and I still drive it. I plan on giving it to my kid someday. Runs awsome.
He had a cherry BMW 325i Convertable when he died, but my nephew ended up with it and killed it in short order. :mad: I would still have that too if I got my hands on it.
The earliest car I remember is my Dad’s MG Midget. He was a member of the Sports Car Club of America, and used to do races and rallies in that and our later cars. As time went on, we had a couple of Porsches (both 911s) and a couple of BMW’s - a Bavaria and a 2002.
These days, he just sold his Audi A4 for another Porsche.
My dad had a bright red 1969 MGB convertible for a couple of years–he overhauled it, then sold it. It was a really cool car, but I never appreciated it because the engine was LOUD, and convertibles are no fun for people with super-long hair.
My dad bought mostly boring practical cars during my early youth. Let me see…there was a 65-ish Dodge Coronet 500 and then a 68-ish Coronet 440. Came the '73 energy crisis there was a Chevy Vega (!) which was followed by a Ford Tempo a couple of years later. Then, inexplicably, but fortunately, he went to buying BMWs. I think he finally was convinced by my mother that, as a doctor, he had a position to keep up. From there drifted back to a final brace of more sensible sedans, only now they were Infinitis rather than Fords or Dodges.
Before I was born, my dad drove a white 1967 Corvette. He was friends with the police force in that town, and he would call them up and tell them, “I am taking the Corvette out now.” And then he’d get out on the freeway and open 'er up, and no one would pull him over.
I was born in 1975. The car he drove until I turned 14 was a blue station wagon with a giant rust-spot on the hood. The fake wood panelling along the sides was faded and peeling from the time my older sister decided to helpfully wax the car. One magical day, my parents announced that they were trading in the station wagon for a different car. Oh joy of joys! Us kids speculated about what it would be like to be dropped off at school in a car that wasn’t desperately embarrassing. Two weeks later my parents came home with the new car.
Nope. Nevah. He had a Henry J back in the 50s and then progressed through a pathetic array of land yachts. He’s currently driving the big-ass Mercury Marquis.
I feel your pain. During the conversion from the white two-door Sentra, there were whisperings of a Toyota Camry. Four doors, we thought! No more would I have to crawl through the passenger side to get to my seat behind the driver (Pop, who didn’t want his seat moved/flipped forward, necessitating the trek from the passenger side). And it looked so exciting and classy in the brochures! I was at the door at one point and saw a sedan coming down the street and for one fleeting moment thought Pop was surprising us (Pop never surprised us).
But he couldn’t get one with a stick and no power stuff so…a red two-door Sentra it was.
My father has a collection of about 20 different cars that are driveable and in nice condition. He also has 100 or so in various states of of disrepair that he either hopes to restore or use for parts. The most impressive of the nice cars is a 1936 Packard Dual Cowl Phaeton. V-12 engine and a mile long. The oldest is a 1923 Model T 2 ton flatbed and the newest is a 1976 Corvette. The collection also includes a 56 Chevy convertible, 57 Chevy Bel Air fuelie, 40 Ford sport coupe, 38 Chevy, 34 Ford 5 window coupe and my favorite, a 56 Olds with dual quad carbs. He also has one of the first Buick Rivieras built (1963 serial number 100004) and a late production run 67 Mustang that has a 302 installed because the Mustang assembly plant ran out of 289’s. The 302 was intended to be used as one of the new features of the 1968 Ford lineup of new cars. My dad was a good friend of Harold LeMay, owner of the largest privately held car collections in the world and is currently helping with the soon to be built LeMay museum.
My Dad never had the cool car b/c Mom always got the car and it was decidedly uncool. Now his succession of motorcycles, those were cool. I think I was the only girl lugging a helmet to my locker every morning.
My son begs for me to drop him off/pick him up from school in the 1973 Corvette lounging in the garage. If it didn’t leak more than a new born baby, I probably would. Instead, the boy gets the smokin’ Subaru Forester ride.
I remember my dad driving a bright blue tiny truck when I was a little one, then we got a conversion van for vacations. He has a black Chevy dually now, all flamed out and everything. But he had sport bikes when I was a kid, then he moved to boats, now it’s a badass oldschool looking Harley. Don’t know what kind and he’s not here to ask, but it is beautiful. Dad’s always been more into bikes and boats than cars - my brother is the car person, he’s 25 and has owned around 18 different cars since he was sixteen.
Before I was born, Dad drove a white '61-or-so Continental with power windows, until he got tired of my siblings having window races.
When I was born, he drove a green '64-or-so Ford van and was continually working on a green Studebaker Lark with a perpetually flat tire. Asided from a little red Fiat Spyder, those were the last vehicles he owned that could be considered cool. He soon sold the van, had the Lark towed, bought a '70 Ford wagon for family trips and a '71 Pinto for commuting.
We moved cross country in a '73 Plymouth Fury III at the height of the '70s oil crisis. I still remember Dad making sure he was in gas station queues that went downhill.
He bought a diesel '84 Caprice Classic Estate Wagon when I was in high school. Only cool thing about that car was the original owner had ordered it loaded.
My dad was a race car driver, and a sports car nut, so that’d be a resounding yes.
he raced an Elva 6 in a 1963 Mid-Ohio - Sports Car Race.
he also owned an Isetta dealership. In Akron no less! I remember riding around in a different coloured one every week when I was 3 or 4 years old.
Jaguars, BMW’s, Mercedes, I’ve lost count.
Oddly, I drive a minivan and have very little interest in or knowledge of cars. Probubly because my mom divorced him when I was 6 years old and I never saw him again.
