Your first car..

In My Humble Opinion
21

1957 Chevy BelAir 2-door.

283 with a three-on-the-tree. Purchased in 1967 for $100 (my parents matched my $50 as my Xmas present that year), it was really pretty cherry.

I popped off the hubcaps and painted the wheels black, and my bud Charlie and I put in a Hurst Mystery shifter. I eventually acquired some used Hooker fenderwell headers and a used Duntov cam. I never put the cam in, because I thought it pointless until I could acquire a better manifold and carb.

It was sold four years later when I needed the scratch to go off to California to be a hippie rock star (didn’t quite work out).

I’ll bet that one’s still around somewhere.

22

Hey! I had a 1972 Corolla. Primer gray. My neighbor sold it to me for a $1.00 in exchange for some cut-rate babysitting. The air conditioning didn’t work, the wipers would spontaneously engage, and I had a buff right arm from wrestling the tight stickshift. Even though it was 17 years old, that car would shift up with the most beautiful growl. I miss that car.

23

1964 Rambler American station wagon with a flathead 6-cylinder engine and a 3-speed manual transmission, on the steering column. My father was an autobody mechanic and the car was given to us as payment for a towing bill.

Scroll down to the “1965 American 220 Wagon”. It’s the same car.

The previous owners were a family of dwarves; they were regular customers. I swear I’m not making this up.

We overhauled the engine with parts from J.C. Whitney, and repainted the car metallic green with gold lace panels.

A year later I traded the car back to the family of dwarves for a wrecked 1970 Chevy Nova.

I SWEAR I’m not making this up. I later sold the Nova back to them, too.

Do I win?

24

1976 Plymouth “Feather Duster” VIN code VL29C6G132419. From memory. It was a special option package. Extra light-weight parts, 4-speed manual transmission, 2.73 rear end ratio. No power steering, all drum brakes. I loved that car Zero to sixty times were nothing to write home about but it did get an honest 24 MPG. Started every time I wanted it to. Three days after I got the clear title form the state, I slammed it in to a tree. That was in January of 1980 and I still morn. You never forget your first.

25

1962 Pontiac Catalina convertible, 389, floor shift automatic. Paid a whole $35 for it. It had an electrical short somewhere and the battery would go dead in less than an hour. Bought the car in October and sold it in March. Which would be fine in California but I lived in Washington. I might have driven it 2 times with the top down. Sold it to my best friend for $50 and the engine caught on fire a month later. His mom was upset because I wouldn’t give the money back but I had already spent it on another car.

26

I had a Gremlin. :eek: 1972 or 3, I think.

27

Not so! I was gonna say that a '66 mustang, red fastback easily won . . . . .
then came Ringo with his '57 BelAir. As we all know, the coolest car ever.

Okay, there’s worse things than coming in second. Like for instance tremorviolet being in third place.

28

I had a red Toyota Carona, 1960 - 7 years older than me and I had to share it with my two sisters. The paint had long since lost its shine and there was a large rust hole in the boot, so one had to be very careful how one place items in it. It saw us through uni, although it did have a new second hand engine and a new clutch at some stage and we managed to finally sell it for $200. For years afterwards, I always had fear of cars breaking down and couldn’t listen to the radio too loud because I needed to hear the engine and how it was going. When I flew in small airplanes, I caught myself doing the same thing and getting a little panicky when the engine noise changed abruptly.
I get really get quite jealous of kids whom are given newish cars at a young age.

29

I’m only on my second car now so I remember my first pretty well. It was a red '93 Geo Metro. It had 3 cylinders. I loved that car more than you can imagine. It had 84,000 on it when I got it and 150,000 5 years later when I had to get rid of it.

My first major repair was over a year after I got it. The timing belt snapped, seconds after I came to a stop. Not a single speck of damage was done to my car because of that. Also, it broke down before I passed through the toll booth. Did you know that if you break down on the Mass Pike and the state police call a tow truck for you, you don’t have to pay the toll?? :smiley: Saved me $1.60!
Anyway, as my mechanic was pushing the car into his garage, the alternator belt fell off. The car wasn’t even on and it fell off. He decided to change the spark plugs. It took him over 2 hours because they were so rusty.

So, a new timing belt, alternator belt, spark plugs, distributor cap, air in the tires, oil change, and labor -$250 :smiley:

Over a year later, my alternator died. About an hour after it was fixed, my muffler fell off (this was beginning to be a trend with this car).

So, a used alternator - $35
labor - a carton of butts,
a new alternator belt, full battery charge, new exhaust system and labor - $125

Other than those problems, the only other major problem was when my axles broke - both of them - at the same time. My transmission died too. My mechanic and I had agreed that when he told me it wasn’t worth fixing the car any more, I’d get a new one. So, he saved me from the heartache of telling me exactly what happened to the “Clarynmobile” (as named by my best friend) until 6 months after I got a new car. I was at his birthday party and he was drunk so he told me. I still cried.

That car gave me so much joy - my mechanic got joy from it too. He got to explain to the inspection station guy that they really did make cars with 3 cylinders :stuck_out_tongue:
I got to see the priceless look on the face of a young cute guy as I jumped his boat of a car with my little wind up car.

Even though my new car is much cooler (it has AC and power steering), it still doesn’t measure up to my Geo. I’d give up the AC if I could have that car back…

30

I had a 1969 Ford Fairlane. My mom bought it for my 16th birthday for $150. The passenger side door would sometimes not open. My friends had to take their chances and hope it opened. If not, climb out the window. I hit a curb once and punctured the gas tank. It cost me $35 bucks to replace it and I thought it was expensive. Eventually, the radiator cracked and I couldn’t afford to fix it. I sold it to a friend for $50 and he used it for a demolition derby (and won!). My next car was a 1980 Chevy Citation. Not nearly as fun as the Fairlane. I wish I still had it.

31

My first car was my Fiat 850 Sedan (I forget the year, I think it was a '71). It was supposedly previously owned by the proverbial “little old lady from Pasadena”. I loved that car. I named it Topo Gigio. If you are not familiar with the breed, it’s even smaller than a VW bug. Many times my friends tried to see how many people we could fit in that car.

I had it about 3 years before some dopey old tourist with his eyes on his young chippie passenger sandwiched me between his monster car and the monster car in front of me. I was accordioned and the other two cars were just scratched. In fact the stupid lady in front of me only had a slightly dented bumper and scratches on the upper part of the trunk from my bike rack (engine was in the back so the bike rack was on the front) and she gets out and starts whining about it. I think I told her to shut up because my car was totalled. I am usually quite meek but I was in shock at the time. I even remember the song that was playing on the radio at the time “somebody’s gonna hurt someone, before the night is through …”. So, poor Topo got totalled and my dad used him for parts for his Fiat 850 Spider, which he never let me drive!

Before Topo I got to drive my grandpa’s American Rambler for a while. I think it might have been either the same age as TheInterruptingCow’s Rambler or possibly even a couple years older. The thing drove like a Mack truck (or at least what I thought a Mack truck drove like), it certainly didn’t drive like a car. In fact if you weren’t careful, it would drive you. It was also embarrassing as hell to be seen in that thing at high school. Since this was never really mine, it wasn’t officially my first car.

After Topo I had a Datsun (before they were Nissan) Station Wagon. I don’t remember the model or year, all I remember is that I had to carry around oil and brake fluid with me so I could keep them both filled. Eventually my parent’s decided it was a death trap (or it was costing too much in gas, oil and brake fluid)and let me drive the spare Toyota pickup.

The first car I actually bought by myself was a 1983 Toyota pickup. I really have no idea why I wanted a pickup truck, I guess I just got used to my parent’s truck. And that salesman who tried to convince me that girls don’t drive pick-ups without air conditioning made me even more determined to get one - from someone else. I had that truck 9 years and it would have lasted longer but then I decided I really had to have air conditioning.

I miss that Fiat though. I haven’t named a car since.

32

First owned - 1931 tudor Ford
First actually driven - 1929 tudor Ford.

One’s first car should, properly, be at least 20 years older than its owner. When I kinda “adopted” a co-worker in town for a contract job, I suggest she go for a '55-'57 Tbird. She decided on a Porsche Speedster - she was born in '73. Cool kid.

33

1979 AMC Concorde, bought in 1996 for $100. Power-NOTHING, with nightmare brakes that I had to stand on with both feet to stop. Huge bench seats, with a backseat like a king-sized bed. :wink:

Built like a freaking tank - I was rearended by an F-150, and all three passengers in the truck were killed. My bumper was hardly dented.

34

I got my license when I was 29 so I was able to buy my first car new-- a 98 Civic. He’s become a practice car since I am still learning and have had his right front fixed three times so far. Other than the gouges, fender benders, etc., I treat him really well and he purrs along at 35-40 mpg.

Could I win the most predictable, boring and practical award? :wink:

35

I’m getting rid of my first car probably next week. :frowning: It’s a 1990 Toyota Corolla, has 192,000 miles on it. The struts are gone, and the muffler is past its 3-year or 5-year mark. The engine makes a horrible noise. I’m donating it to charity.

I’ll miss you, baby.

36

My first car was a 1970 Mercury Cougar. Sort of like this one without all the fancy stuff added. I bought it from my next door neighbor for $600 in 1981, paid in three easy $200 installments. It had some body damage but a good friend took care of that for me and painted it a dark metallic blue (the top was white, so we left that for contrast… hey, it was the 80s!). I got most of the interior fixed up, but finally had a lot of engine trouble with it, a lot of it from my misuse. The 351 Cleveland engine would haul ass but I didn’t know enough about mechanics to take good care of it. Eventually I traded it to a good friend for a diamond ring which I gave to my girlfriend. The girlfriend and I eventually broke up (I think she kept the ring) and my friend was killed in a car accident late one night while driving my old car.

37

Hmmm, are you running a fever? 'Cause you’re clearly delusional. There’s no way on God’s green earth a '66 'stang could ever be considered cooler than a '67… :wink:

38

'65 Buick Wildcat 4-door, purchased in 1973 for $350, bronze w/white top, 88K miles, four balding snow tires, quickly dubbed “the Brown Submarine” by friends.

That car, half a block long, had a monster honkin’ V8 in it, something like a 455, and pulled like a runaway locomotive. Pretty good overall shape for a rust-belt ride, except that there was some rust-through around the windshield, so on wet days it seemed to rain as much inside the car as out. After a year or so, sold it on to a friend who drove it for a few months until increasing mechanical problems caused him to sell it on to another friend, who used it as a ‘race car’ (actually just to do laps on an abandoned horse track on his family’s farm) until the engine blew, at which point it was towed off to the elephant’s graveyard.

Man, I loved that beast.

39

With my parents help, I bought a brand new Chevy Vega. It was a thing of beauty! Silver exterior, red interior, AM/FM AND A/C! I loved that little car and it never failed me.
It was a struggle in those days, however, to make the monthly payment. A whopping $62!

40

I had a red/white/rust 1973 AMC Gremlin, a.k.a. “The Booger Bomb”. It was a small car and the previous owner kept backing into it because he couldn’t see it.

It had the front grille held on by wire. The antenna was loose and bent and would swing around while driving. We called it the pedestrian killing antenna.

The back window had plastic for a while. The driver’s door was held shut with a leather strap. The horn was an aaahhhooooogahhh horn that I completely hated. It would leak oil. Also, if you let go of the steering wheel, it would start weaving side to side until it went out of control.

But, it had a bitchin stereo and holes in the floor board to dispose of beer bottles.*

I drove that for three years and then sold for $50 it to someone who raced it in the dirt until the engine seized.

*I do not advocate drinking and driving, nor littering. I’m just saying is all.