My wife’s first car was a '78 Horizon. She was just out of college, and needed a car, so she went into a Plymouth dealership she trusted and put herself in the hands of a salesman. He wrote her some kind of lease deal, and she walked out with the Horizon. When I met her in '84, it was still soldiering faithfully on, although like most of those VW-engined Horizons, it was using a lot of oil (like a quart every 150 miles :eek: ). Dad and I replaced the valve seals for her and that stopped the oil consumption, and she drove it until 1989, when we bought her a Corolla.
Anyway, when I first drove her Horizon, I thought, “If they fix that goofy gas pedal and if it had a little more power, this’d be a pretty nifty car.” And by 1985, when my old Duster was starting to get a bit tired, I went into a Dodge dealership and drove an Omni (same as a Horizon, just different grille and badges); and the gas pedal was better, and it had a sh*tload more power.
So I bought a new 1985 Omni, and it was a great car. Roomy, practical body. Weighed only 2200 pounds and had 99 horsepower, so a bit of a rocket. I drove it for 17 years, and although near the end it had some carburetor problems (the float, which was made of foam, disintegrated and the bits clogged various important passages), in general it was as reliable and dependable as a car could be, while still being immense fun to drive.
First, the used car that was replaced: a 1969 Opel Kadett. Hand-painted pinkish purple. The trunk wouldn’t close tightly, and would suck exhaust fumes into the interior, so I always had to have a window open. Hood release knob was gone, so a pair of pliers was always handy; and the hood needed to be opened often, because it had a tendency to stall in the middle of intersections. In other words: the worst POS anyone has ever driven.
The 2nd happiest day of my life was when a tow truck driver gave me $50 and hauled it away. This was right after the happiest day, when I bought a brand new 1980 Toyota Celica ST. 2-door, 5-speed manual transmission. Peppy, clean, beautiful, and smelled oh so wonderful. I was in absolute heaven; experienced the opposite of Buyer’s Remorse (Buyer’s Euphoria?)
My first new car was a 1980 Toyota Tercel. School bus yellow which the salesman said was the safest color car on the road. I put $500 down and made payments of $142 a month. I drove that car to death. It had over 200K miles on it when I got rid of it.
In 1980, it was the first car I owned and also my first brand-new car: a metallic blue 1979 Fiat X1/9, like this one. It was a FUN car! It handled great, and the targa top allowed for topless sunny day driving. I put 90,000 trouble-free miles on it, including a great cross-country trip with my brother. We hit bad snow storms on that trip and that tiny car did great in the snow and ice. I ended up selling it because I got married and started a family - a 2-seat car coesn’t work.
I considered the RX-7 when I bought my first car. That hatchback design means it’ll haul a fair amount of gear in the back. But I decided on a Fiat X1/9 instead, and there’s precious little cargo space in those things.
This reminds me of my first bike which was also my first brand-new bike, a 1983 Yamaha XS650 Heritage Special, like this one. 53mpg, made decent power (for back in the mid-1980s anyway), and the joy of your first bike is something to be cherished - out on the road riding your iron steed like a modern-day cowboy, enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of your surroundings.
I put 49,000 mile on that, then in 1990 I rode it from San Francisco to Lawton, OK; and with a 3-gallon tank that was an annoyingly long ride. I sold it there and bought my second bike, a used 1983 BMW R80RT that had 80,000 miles on it. The ride back to SF was a world of a difference from the 650 Special.
Since I lived in the city of Chicago for many years I simply didn’t own a car for much of the early part of my adult life.
First new car between my spouse and myself was a red Ford Festiva. The saga in related in this thread
As an update - it turns out the Festiva was rescued from organ donor status, made into a project by a local mechanic, and apparently is still spotted driving around Valparaiso, Indiana on occasion. We know it’s the one because of the distinctive bumper stickers. Apparently, it has never required a rear bumper transplant.
As for the Toyota Echo that replaced it - still going strong 12 years later, over 100,000 miles. Needed a new set of tires at one point, some new belts, and now needs muffler work, but other than that no major maintenance issues.
On new year’s eve day, my wife and I bought a brand new 2014 Dodge Caravan. At 35 years old, this is the first time I’ve bought a brand new vehicle.
Since I was 15, I’ve bought only used vehicles for which I could afford to pay cash (two Honda Civics, an RX-7, a Pontiac LeMans, a Pontiac Parisienne Brougham and at least one other random import that I owned so briefly I can’t even remember what it was - none of these any newer than 1985). Conversely, my wife has bought nothing but brand new cars since college (two Dodge Neons).
We knew we wanted something with third-row seating, so we started by visiting the local Carmax to test drive a number of vehicles. Our pre-drive research had led us to believe that the Honda Odyssey would be our vehicle of choice, but when we left Carmax, the two leading choices were the Dodge Caravan and the Ford Flex (which honestly wasn’t even on our radar until we drove it), so we went to the nearest Ford and Dodge dealerships to get more details about each, see more options, and some more test driving. We felt that our dollar would go significantly further in the Caravan, so we began shopping all the dealerships within driving distance to find something in our preferred model/options. We found something within a 30-minute drive and ended up about $1500 below invoice (before rebates).
Good news. I never drove an RX-7, of any generation, and the 1st gen always seemed like it’d be a very fun car.
Mazda blew it with the RX-7, IMO, because the 2nd gen was significantly bigger and heavier, and then the 3rd gen went way overboard in terms of price and performance. They should’ve kept them small, light and affordable. But that’s what the MX-5 is for.
Sorry dude but I just have to point out that for someone who used to own an RX-7 and Pontiacs, to now drive a minivan is quite a lifestyle change. But I’m not poking fun at just you because I also include myself. I used to have a 2-seater targa top roadster, and also a 1970 Chevelle SS396, but for the last 13 years I’ve been driving a Honda CR-V, based on the Civic but it wants to be a Jeep Cherokee and falls very VERY short of that.
But, congrats on getting a brand-new car that’s less than a week old! And I think those Dodge vans are a pretty cushy ride.
In addition to the 1st gen I owned, I was lucky enough to drive a 2nd gen and an RX-8 - the 1st gen was definitely the most fun of the three.
No argument here. We’re expecting our second child in a few weeks and one of our two sedans is rapidly approaching end-of-life; we decided it was time for a new daily driver that would fit the entire family, and then some, comfortably for the foreseeable future - allowing the wife’s 2002 Neon to slip into the comfortable semi-retirement it deserves (including two cross-country trips, it only surpassed 100,000 miles about a week or two ago).
I now mostly buy late model used cars (e.g., in 2010 I got a 2008 Acura MDX)… The only car I ever bought new was a 2003 Subaru Forester XS, because it was redesigned for that year, and was at the time the perfect fit for my needs and budget in terms of what I wanted: seating for five, accomodating three child seats including a rear-facing infant seat in the back, with cargo space (hatchback), all wheel drive and small/narrow enough to take all the way up my driveway, 70" or less in width. And the then-new “LATCH” system of anchor points for mounting car seats, instead of fiddilng with belts.
About 10-1/2 years later I still have this car, and have only put about 36,500 miles on it, so it’s not going away anytime soon
