Learnt to drive on a VW Beetle, a Hillman Hunter, Dodge Coronet and Toyota Corona (early 80s). In fact the first car I owned without a carburetor was in 1997.
Licensed in 1982, drove a 66 Bronco. Three on the tree, linkage held together with baling wire, so I could always fix it. In addition to the choke, it also has a throttle control on the dash. Poor man’s cruise control, but man you had to pay attention. Also drove a 1970 Impala with a Rochester 2-bbl carb that I rebuilt a couple of times but never got quite right.
Although not an issue with that Bronco with the inline 6, I also remember how much the low pressure fuel lines on Ford V-8 trucks were prone to vapor lock at anything over 7000 ft on a warm day. Always had to have a damp rag to wrap on the fuel line to get going again.
Not only have I driven them, I’ve rebuilt them.
Learned to drive on a 1972 Chevelle, which was old in 1983, when I got my permit, but not too old. Plenty of 11-yr-old cars on the road. In the 1990s, owned a 61 Ford (older than me) with a single-barrel carburetor. Had to go on a hunt for a replacement accelerator pump for it. Jerry-rigged it once with duct-tape and a paper clip, and drove it like that for a week while I waited for my rebuild kit to come in the mail. The manual choke line was shot, and I installed an after-market choke line on it. Worked perfect.
Spent a lot of time working on that Ford, but it ran great; sold it after I had a baby.
I stopped changing my own points and plugs in the mid 80s, si I guess that’s when I stopped driving carbureted. The last car I owned was a 93.
Remember the condenser, too. The standard tuneup was points, plugs, and condenser.
Do cars even need “tune-ups” anymore? Other than plugs I think most of those old systems that were addressed when a car got a tune-up don’t even exist anymore.
I bought a 2020 Honda Civic last year and it doesn’t even come with a maintenance schedule. It has an on board computer that tells me when it needs an oil change or air filter replacement.
Started driving in '88, first car was a 1983 pontiac 6000 LE. Towards the end there were many times I wouldn’t have been able to start it if hadn’t had a carburetor (hold the valve open manually while starting).
My bestest most favorite car was a 63 Pontiace Bonneville (vista trim line, half a step down from the star chief trim line). That thing was a 20 foot long dream to drive. Start it up and listen to the rumble of that big old V8 coming through the Cherry Bomb mufflers, take it out on the freeway and float down the road a few exits, get off refill the tank and float back home, man I miss that car
Had a '63 Mercedes 220 with a Kugelfischer mechanical fuel injection system. Never had to work on it, however.
When my 1968 Volkswagen Fastback (Type 3) started behaving poorly, my dad and I each cleaned one of the carburetors. Only after we started did my dad remember we should have put lotion on our hands first. The carburetor cleaner strips oil out of skin as well.
That was the car that my godparents bought in Germany, drove it around, shipped it to my parents. My parents brought me home in it, without a car seat, and it was the first car I drove. I did not take my driver’s test in it, as it did not have a right wing mirror. It was legal to drive, but not the best idea for a driver’s test.
My dad gave it to a friend of his for parts in 1991. My dad had rebuilt the engine at least once. After 1985 it was our 3rd car, so it didn’t get driven as much as it had before.
When we got married, my husband had a 1980 Pontiac Phoenix with a carburetor. We didn’t get rid of it until 1995 or 1996, so about when WildaBeast got his driver’s license, we got rid of our last car with a carburetor.
Maybe? I started driving on my mom’s Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera and my stepdad’s Toyota Corolla from the 1980s, but I don’t remember the exact trim line or model year. I found plausible candidates for the exact car both with and without carburetors. I’m pretty sure I haven’t owned a car with a carburetor myself.
Heh, my first “married car” was an '82 Phoenix.
Loved/hated that car. Loved it because once I figured out how to, I could (relatively) easily fix just about anything on it. Hated it because it was a crappy “disposable” car that lasted 450,000 miles and was actually still going strong but had entered the nickel and dime repair phase, and I was tired of it.
Oh, absolutely. Had a 1977 Pinto, 1980 Mustang, and 1983 Mustang. [sarcasm]I have fond memories[\sarcasm] of rebuilding them and messing with the chokes every winter. Those stupid bimetallic spring chokes never worked right.
Of the various European cars I have owned and driven, the first one (a 1966 model) was simple enough that I could work on it, and also occasionally adjust the carburetor settings with the help of some device. The two next (1972 and 1990 models) were also carbureted and had a manual choke, (This separates the generations; younger drivers won’t have seen or used one).
I never bothered fuddling with the carburetor to start any of them, but it took a while to get the optimum choke settings to start easily, especially on a cold day. The main problem was flooding the carburetor if the engine did not catch you you kept on cranking,.But that could be dealt with.
Next up was an old 1993 Audi 80 that had fuel injection, hence no choke. To my great relief it nearly always started easily, even on a very cold day. You cannot adjust the engine settings on modern cars, but then you don’t need to. As with the two Fords I had after that, the engine warms up much more quickly. No more of waiting half a minutes for the engine to warm up, moving off slowly and remembering to push the choke back in, usually in two stages.Life is so simple nowadays, you just drive off.
I never owned a car with twin carbs, but those who did, and especially owners of British cars with twin SU carbs, seemed to spend a lot of time adjusting them.
I notice that fewer cars now bother to advertise that they are fuel injected or turbocharged, these features have become so common.
1986 Mini Metro Venden Plas ( luxury addition of a tape cassette player!)
It survived 4 teenagers learning to drive in it and was quite fun with a 1.3 engine , although I was jealous of my friend who had the Peugout 205 Gti with the 1.6 engine , quite comical. I think they put a 1.9 in that car at some point which was utter lunacy.
My first, and near favorite, car was a 1932 Cadillac Roadster. It had a carburetor attached to a 35 gallon fuel tank. Got a solid 8 1/3 miles to the gallon. But, gas was only .18 a gallon and I made .35 an hour at the California Academy of Sciences. The carb had a hand throttle for setting the idle. The fuel gauge was linear and accurately calibrated in gallons.
Upon reflection, it probably wouldn’t be much of a favorite if I had to drive that thing today.
Around here a gallon of gas is a little less than 1/3rd the hourly minimum wage. And is more like 1/6th of the new minimum wage we just enacted that hasn’t taken effect yet.
I’m not sure you were getting quite the bargain it seemed like at the time. 
Analysis wasn’t my strong suite. And you make a good point for folks who get nostalgic for the good ole days when gas was cheap.
Then again, assuming you were a kid still living at home, the cost of anything / everything you bought was effectively massively subsidized by all the stuff your parents provided unnoticed and unasked. So you were doin’ OK all things considered.
My first paying gig paid $2.00/hr. at a time when $2.10/hr. was the legal minimum. The school district was immune to that particular law. Anyhow, it put so much spending money in my pocket that I felt pretty rich at the time.
This was before I was driving & paying for fuel. Once that happened I quickly moved on to higher paying pastures: $4/hr. Woot!! Just call me Daddy Warbucks!
Talk about bad timing though. The year I started driver’s ed gasoline was $0.25/gallon except when there was a “price war” and it was $0.15/gallon. By the time I graduated driver’s ed 4 months later, the first Arab Oil Embargo was in full swing and gas was $1.50/gallon or more; when you could get it at all. Damn!
That was a Pontiac, right?
It was 1953 and gas may have been closer to .10 than I remember. But, I really didn’t have money problems. That year I drove down to Monterey to watch the sports car races on the 17 mile drive. Don’t remember the tank of gas was a problem. Like you say, I had low overhead,
The carburetor world was different. Major roads were the dangerous 3 lanes, the rest were 2. Older carbs would vapor lock. There were always cars pulled over with some guy under the hood. No power brakes or power steering.