While browsing Snopes I came across an item about the death of 18-year-old Nicole Catsouras on Alton Parkway. Apparently the extremely graphic photos are being emailed with a warning against drinking and driving. Snopes says alcohol was not suspected as the cause of the collision. It’s also unclear weather the Porsche 911 Carrera belonged to Nicole or her father. According to the 2000 Census, the median household income for residents in Ladera Ranch was $104,306. It’s plausible that the car belonged to Nicole.
That got me thinking: What kind of car should a teen get? I was 18 once, believe it or not. I would have loved a 911. A coworker just bought a new Mustang for his almost-18-years-old son. (It was the 6-cylinder though.) Pretty In Pink depicted a rich high school student driving a 911. My own first car was a sports car – only it was ‘old school’ and had a maximum speed of 107. It was cool, though. My best friend had a battered '70 Buick, and another friend got a well-used Mazda wagon. But then, none of us were in the Porsche demographic.
I understand, having been a teen, why a kid would want an über-cool car. I understand how parents with the means would want to give their kids expensive cars. But I think fast cars are trouble when a driver does not have the experience to handle it.
So what kind of car should a teen have? An old clunker is cheap and expendable. But kids are very image conscious. It’s better to be embarrassed than dead, but for some kids it’s a close call. A new economy car has advantages (not too expensive, new-car prestige). They’re certainly fast enough to get a kid in trouble if they act like kids. A high-powered sports car? Trouble brewing, unless the kid is mature beyond his or her years.
Personally I think your first car should either be something you b uy yourself or a hand-me-down. I see no reason why teens deserve a brand-new car. I got a hand-me-down. I never got it into an accident, but if I had, it would have been much less heartbreaking than a brand-new car.
It also depends on the teen, though - a friend of mine did get a Porsche, but he babied the thing and took very good care of it and IMO deserved it.
My first car was a brand-spanking new car. A manual Chevy Chevette with manual windows and no A/C. My parents didn’t want driving around in a junker that would break down every other day but didn’t want me to be distracted from my studies having to work to pay for a car, so that’s what I got. A reliable, durable no-frills means of locomotion. Not a toy to brag about.
Agree here. I didn’t have a car as a teenager at all, and somehow I managed to survive just fine. My boyfriend had a Chevy Nova he bought for a few hundred bucks with his own money. It got him (and me when I was with him) where we needed to go (usually ).
We did go to school with a doctor’s son who got a Corvette for his 16th birthday. It ended up wrapped around a tree before the year was out (he wasn’t injured). Daddy didn’t buy him another fancy car after that.
High powered cars just have too many things which could go wrong with an inexperienced
driver behind the wheel-one slightly too enthusiastic push of the throttle and around you go.
I’d personally go with something like a Civic SI or Volkswagen GTI-something with some pep,
but not too much HP and front-wheel drive. Putting a kid behind the wheel of a 911 or top-
end Corvette model is just asking for trouble-and if I did buy them something like that they
are going to take a high-performance driving course to learn how to handle it first.
I turned 16 in '96, and my first car was an '83 Buick Skylark my dad bought me for $400, if memory serves. I upgraded to an '86 Century and an '88 Sentra before the end of high school.
When I was 18, as an early college graduation present/late high school graduation, my dad bought me a Camaro Z28 with a 350, upgraded exhaust, upgraded computer chip, and a couple other tweaks. It was FAST. I drove it like an idiot, racing friends and strangers, taking it up to 110 mph on city streets, that sort of thing.
Never got into an accident, never got a ticket, but man I was dumb in that car. For that reason alone I will never buy my child a sports car, but I will invest in a more reliable car than the junk I drove in high school. Those cars left me stranded more times than I can count.
For anyone considering finding the pictures, be warned–they are EXTREMELY graphic. I have a pretty strong constitution and there is one picture that is still keeping me up at night–I don’t know how EMTs and cops do their jobs.
A magazine cutout of a Lamborghini taped to the inside of his or her locker.
Honestly, I don’t understand why we let 16-year-olds drive. It appears to be 90% for parental convenience and 10% to silence the teenagers who beg. Certainly a lot of fully adult drivers with years of experience are absolute death threats on wheels, and most of the teenagers I observe are careless, inattentive, distracted, dumb, and otherwise clueless in everything they do before they even get into a car*. Why we want them to drive baffles me.
Sailboat
*It’s not their fault. They are caught in the juncture of the two most powerful forces in our culture: sex hormones and mass-media-advertising. And we’ve done precious little to educate them or help them defend themselves against either.
I drove my mom’s '84 Buick LeSabre through high school and into college. It wasn’t very stylish, but it became kind of legendary because of that. I named the car “Clunker.” I remember helping a friend move, and the conversation went like this…
“I don’t know how I’m going to haul that dresser.”
“Just put it in the back seat.”
“Come on, there’s no way that will fit in the back seat.”
“Trust me.”
[a few minutes later…]
“Wow, I can’t believe it fits! AND we got a chair in there, too!”
“Yeah, so?”
I drove it like it was a race car, and I was sad to see it go after the transmission took its final breath. I think the massiveness of that car taught me to be a better driver. I learned to leave extra space between me and obstacles. So, the moral of the story is that a kid can have just as much fun in an ugly old clunker as an expensive sports car. In fact, I never worried about scratched paint or other cosmetic damage. The dent I put in the fender by sliding across the hood just added character.
I agree that if you’re going to let your teenager drive, it should be, not a junker, but not brand-new, either. Preferrably something they’ve worked to get - so they know the meaning of the word work, and the value of a dollar.
I didn’t have a car for the first two years I had my license. I drove my parents car if I needed something, or I walked. When I turned 18 a family friend gave me a 1979 Dodge workvan (it used to be a Sears repair van - you could still see the Sears logo underneath the primer) for $50 (I didn’t have a job at that point, so I had to sell a few things. Then I got a job to cover costs). It was horrible on gas but I loved it. I had to pay for everything for it - gas, insurance, repairs. It drove me around for a year before it died a sad death (drive shaft fell out - don’t ask). Then I went without a car again for over a year. But when I got a better car - I appreciated it that much more because I had to earn my first car, and I had to take care of it.
Also, because I’d had to earn it, I was a lot less likely to do stupid shit in it.
I’m 23, and I got my first car last May when I graduated from college. Yes, it sucked not having a car throughout college, but I did fine without it because of public transportation and my own two feet. Honestly, had I gotten a car while in high school, I wouldn’t have taken care of it as well as I’m taking care of my car. (It’s a 1996 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera with astonishingly low mileage-- 34,000 and that’s after I put on 5,000 miles.) I worked really hard throughout college and this was the reward from my mother for being partially financially independent for four years. Yeah, it’s not the greatest car, but I don’t have car payments and it runs well. Gets okay mileage, so I’m not too concerned.
I think that cars aren’t necessary for most high schoolers (if they work within a biking/walking distance from school and there are other transportation options for them to get to school, they don’t need it), and most college kids don’t need them that much either. I think, however, that a first car should be something reliable that will get them from point A to point B without too many worries about it breaking down. I don’t really think it’s necessary to buy a new car in general, and I’m especially opposed to getting a brand new car as your first car. Most kids wouldn’t appreciate their first car if it were especially nice and may not take good care of it; it’s their problem, but why tempt a horrendous accident or the car becoming a garbage can on wheels?
Sports cars are generally unadvisable to give to teenagers.
My parents taught me to drive a stick when I was 10, and I was regularly driving around the neighborhood by the time I was 13. I got my permit the day I turned 15 and drove every single day until my 16th birthday on which I got my license. Everyone - adults and my peers - noticed a huge difference between the way I drove when I got my license and the way my friends (many of whom never sat behind the wheel until their driver’s test) drove. Most of my friends had wrecks, fender-benders, tickets, etc. while still in high school. I never did.
All that said, I can hardly wrap my mind around the concept of an 18 year old girl driving a 911 Turbo. I wouldn’t be comfortable with my wife driving one. I’m not sure I’d be comfortable driving one myself every day. Those things are fast.
My very first car had a 1.8 litre engine & a 4-speed stick. I thought I was in heaven!
I’ve posted here about me bringing a 1992 Subaru 4WD station wagon, which also has a 1.8 litre engine, back to life (it still has less then 12,000 miles as I post this). It goes over 3000 RPM to do 55 mph. Assuming it lives, it will be the car my sons get ‘use of’ in college.
My brother and I drove clunkers when we were teens, but if we had to go someplace more than say 20 miles away, the folks let us take their newer, reliable cars.
Around here, clunkers are as much of a status symbol as new cars are. All my best car memories from high school are in clunkers. Clunkers are fun because you can put all sorts of stickers on them, cram a bunch of people into them, and eat all the junk you want in them without worrying about upholstery. My brother had the best bumper stickers - inside and outside of the car!
I think giving a high powered spots car to an inexperienced driver is an excellent choice if what you are trying to accomplish is avoiding the expense of paying of their higher education.
Otherwise, it seems to me a newer used car would be the best choice, as opposed to a clunker. Not because of the image thing, if they are worried about image they can get their own car, but because the newer cars are more likely to have better safety features and to be cheaper to operate and repair.
If I could afford it (well, and if my kids could drive that early, I live in Holland and 18 is the driving age – and the costs are such that they are unlikely to get a driver’s license at 18, paid for by me anyway) I would likely look at something like a newish audi or a volvo or a volkswagen.
I bought a new (manual transmission, of course) BMW when I got my driver’s license at 16 - with my own money. My parents were a little leery of it, but eventually they decided I had to make my own mistakes, and there wasn’t much they could do to stop me, anyway.
I was obsessed with cars growing up, and wanted to buy myself something fast, cool and fun.
In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the smartest decision - I got it scraped up a little (poor car, I’m sorry!) However, smart, rational decisions are overrated - I would do it again in a heartbeat. Three years later, I still love that car.
When I have a kid, I will give them the same choice: do whatever you want with your own money, but if I’m paying, you’ll be driving a safe, slow, boring car.
My first car was a Volkswagen Rabbit. I got it at 16 years old because my parents got tired of driving me to high school swim practice at 5:30 in the morning. If you stood on the accelerator of that car, and were going downhill, and there was a stiff tail wind, you might have been able to reach 85 mph.
My parents occasionally let me borrow their Volvo 4-cylinder station wagon…with a turbocharger. Big mistake. I think I know why one of the pistons disentegrated on the highway a few years later. :smack:
My son’s first car will NOT be at 16, and will NOT be anything that would be confused with a performance vehicle.
We may let him use my wife’s Subaru Outback station wagon.
Upside: It’ll be 10-11 years old then, and it has all-wheel drive.
Downside: It’ll be 10-11 years old then, and may have reliability issues, and won’t have the latest safety features. Also, it’s the higher-performance 6-cylinder version.
Or, we may get him a used 4-cylinder Corolla or something similar.
When I started driving (age 16, 1995) I got the 1974 Camaro that had been in my family since it was brand new (my father bought it new, then sold/gave it to his father when I was born in 1979.) Shortly after I got my driver’s license, my father and I flew to his parents house, then drove the Camaro back home (~300 miles.)
That was a glorious car. It was in immaculate condition, it was powerful, and it was fast. I babied it, washing and waxing it by hand. It was my Bitchin’ Camaro.
Yes, I drove too fast, but I wasn’t reckless. I learned how to handle that much power, and I learned how deal with problems like steering out of a slide. Maybe another kid wouldn’t have fared as well, but I loved that car, and I love to drive.
My parents sold it when they moved to Colorado, and I mourned its loss. Yes, I know that car would be insanely impractical in the mountains, but I hated to let it go. It was the perfect compromise between “impressive sports car” and “hand-me-down” for me.
For what it’s worth, my father told me that if I got a perfect score on my SAT, he’d buy me a Ferrari. He figured that a perfect score on my SAT guaranteed me a hefty scholarship, if not a full ride, and a Ferrari would cost less than four years of private college.
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