1966 Impala, 327 with high compression “double humper” heads, Rodchester Quadrajet and a 2 speed TurboHydramatic. It was a perfect engine to dismantly and put back together and the interior would seat 27 comfortably. I installed a Creig 8 track in it with a crescent wrench and a pair of sheet metal cutters. I saw one at an antique dealership recently. Boy, did the memories ever come flooding back.
Oh my God! I had a 1957! Turquoise & white! And I was born in 1967! I have posted in a bunch of these “first car” threads, but never found anyone else who had a Met!
My first car was a 1993 Dodge Shadow. His name was Bill. My parents bought it new and my dad drove it for a year before I got it. Everyone thought I was a spoiled brat, but the point was to buy me a car that would get me though college. It did. In fact, I just got rid of it two years ago (traded up for a '99 Neon named Lola).
The cool thing is that a high school kid in the town where I live bought it, so I still get to see Bill around every now and then. The kid etched “Shadow” on the back window, so I’m guessing he didn’t keep the name Bill. Oh, well. It’s nice to see someone else getting good use out of him.
Val, keep an eye on the headgasket on the Neon, the '98 and earlier models had a big problem with blowing head gaskets, the '99 and later models had essentially fixed the problem, you want to take it to a mechanic and verify that it has the “MLS” gasket installed
- My dad paid $50 for a 1970 Chevelle (non-SS, black vinyl roof) and had it towed home. We spent four months rebuilding the engine, transmission, drive train. Put a brand new floor in it, and did a grunchload of body work on it. Once it was road legal, it was mine. Kept it through all of high school. My friends and I called it The Beast. We took that everywhere we went, because I didn’t have to share the car with anyone (it was mine, not borrowed from dad, mom, whoever.) In three years I put four engines in it, starting with a 350 and finally ending up with a 307 in it. When we were seniors, we painted it black to look like the Deathmobile from Animal House.
I really miss that car.
1969 Plymouth Barracuda (new): $3200
Very quick, very comfortable. Excessive power in the power steering (could turn the wheels with my pinky while standing still). It felt like it was going to fall off the road over 100 mph, but loved 75. It’s suspension couldn’t take a corner very fast, but neither could most other American cars at the time. I sold it to a friend when it had 80,000 miles because I thought it was worn out, and he put another 80,000 on it. Meanwhile I bought a Datsun POS that only made it to 40,000.
Oh, my. Thanks for the tip! She’s going in for an oil change on Monday, so I’ll have them check her out. So far she’s been a great car. Not fancy, but I lover her.
1969 Volkswagen Beetle. Biggest POS ever, and it soured me on used cars for the rest of my life. Bought it for $700, overall it ended up costing me about $2000, and it was still a crappy car.
Among other things, the ignition cable had rotted away and periodically the car either wouldn’t start, or I’d be driving along the freeway and it would suddenly lose all power. I could usually jiggle the wire and it would start up again. One time I was driving along the freeway at about 55 or 60 (which for that car, was ludicrous speed), and all the power shut out. I jiggled the ignition cable and it came apart in my hands. While still coasting along, I held the ends of the cable together, the car started back up again, and I held it like that until the next exit where I could pull over into a parking lot. Once I stopped, I said “OW OW OW OW OW!” because the wire had gotten wicked hot. Then I pulled out one of my stereo speakers, took the speaker wire, split it, and used it to splice together the ignition cable. It started back up again fine and I left it like that until I finally got rid of the car. I was so proud of myself; I felt just like MacGyver.
1970 Plymouth Duster, copper color, slant 6 engine.
Got it when my Grandfather got too blind to drive it, he had basicly been pinballing it off of grage walls and things, and my father decided that it was time for him to retire from driving before someone got hurt.
Gosh I loved that car.1967 Oldsmobile Delta 88.
Big boat. These pictures are not of my car. Mine was a 2-door and was solid white, but this gives you an idea of what I drove.
Front
Left Front
Rear
Right Profile
And here is an artist rendition of the car (a 2 door) for the 1967 dealer brochure.
I wrecked it six months after I started driving. Too bad - it was a fun car.
My first car was a 1950 Plymouth 2-door. Flat-head six cylinder engine, which was totally frozen when I got the POS. It was an ex Dr Pepper company car and was painted a horrible Dr Pepper green. My father was a Dr Pepper accountant and got a “good deal” on it. I did learn how to overhaul the engine and transmission just to get it running, so it was useful for that. I was fourteen at the time and had my first driver’s license–you could do that back then.
1967 Olds Toronado, 425 cubic inches, 4 barrels, 385 horsepower, front wheel drive. http://encyclopedia.classicoldsmobile.com/toronado/67.html
OOoooooooooh Wildcat??? wow…droool.
My first car was a 64 caddy 2 door, I forget the model, white, with bashed in, (but still worked perfectly), passenger door. It had a little overheating problem, so I had to carry antifreeze mix with me to top off the radiator at frequent intervals.
Once my friends and I took it to a drive in (wintertime, in AK) and it started smoking from under the hood badly enough to create a sort of ghost image on the screen, we were “honked out of there” and ended up having to leave.
For all the trouble, I was just a HS kid, and it was a blast.
In (late) 1962 I bought a 1957 2-dr Ford Fairlane 500, black with yellow trim on the rear quarter-panels. It looked more like the “hardshells” (retracting roof convertible that came out that year? I remember there used to be a high-grade model of the hardshell) than anything else. My downpayment was the money I got for my piano. My stepmother wouldn’t keep the toddler away from it, and it made me mad, so I sold the piano before it got beat up, as it was in pristeen condition, just as when my parents bought it new for me 9 years earlier.
It was a 292 in[sup]3[/sup], and with my (at the time) reflexes added in, it rarely got beat “off the light”, even though it was an automatic (I even beat a Corvette(!!!) off the line once! And he was trying!). :eek: I’m afraid I did a lot of “street” dragging with it, and I always had to have my nose under the hood when the mechanic worked on it. It finally threw a wrist pin, and I eventually sold it as is. That hurt, as I really loved it.
I’ve owned mostly Ford products, and my favorite was a 1968 Cougar. I’ve owned a Chevy, an Olds, a Buick (and I decided long ago that I don’t understand GM products), a Jeep Cherokee, and a Fiat (cool little car, but it was rusty, which doesn’t go very well with unibody construction) :smack:
All my cars have been “first cars” in their own way.
My first car was a hand-me-down 1977 Toyota Corolla. My father bought it brand new, and in 1986 he gave it to my older brother. I aquired it two years later. It had power nothing – barely even a power train. Vinyl seats, FM-only radio, and a rusted-out jack. It served me well in high school. Then I passed it off to my younger brother, who took it in to the shop for an oil job, and they said not to drive it again.
My next car was my first car of my very own. A 1985 Honda Accord hatchback, a lovely deep red, bought with the help of Donald Trump. (I had a decent run at a craps table at Trump Plaza. 
) It had 130k miles when I bought it, and I drove it for nearly five years until the engine threw a rod and flooded a cylinder. Once in a while I still dream about that car.
My next and current car is my first new car. 2001 Toyota Camry Solara, silver, stickshift like all my other cars. It’s a sporty coupe – the insides of a sedan, and the outside lines of a sporty car.
After researching a bit, it turns out I was misremembering on the engine. Two options were available for '65; a 401 putting out 325 bhp, and a 425 rated at 360 bhp. My rather innocuous-looking sedan had the larger engine. What’s particularly hilarious was that I wasn’t looking for a muscle car, and didn’t really care at the time; all I remember thinking was “damn, this car really goes.”
A 1972 powder-blue Gremlin. I received it in 1980 just after I turned 16 and got my driver’s license; I believe my mom and dad paid $200 for it. The driver’s side door didn’t open and the emergency brakes didn’t work, nor did the radio, but I loved it anyway and was very sad when it died about 3 years later. It just conked out as I was pulling out into the street in front of our house one day; my dad helped me push it back into the driveway so that it wasn’t blocking traffic.
My first car I got the year I graduated from high school '80 when I landed my first full time job and with Dad as cosigner. WIth Mom as my ally I was able to avoid the old lady sedan for a 2 door hatchback V8 1979 Chevy Monza Spyder. The dudes at Jonas AMoco kept it in good running condition, until after time, a main electrical wire was pinched and shorted out and started a fire under the hood!
Returning home just two doors from my house,my friend yells Fire and she’s scrambling out of the car! I run from the car too leaving it in neutral with flames flashing about it. Then run back hop back in to shut it off and put in park. Meanwhile CC is running around yelling call the fire department but there really wasnt bad damage, the fire was out by the time the trucks rolled up
Insurance paid for the electrical rewire and I got to drive a early 80’s mustang with cold AC, while my car was in the shop. I still remember those guys and that shop I had to keep after them to finish! Eventually got my car back and soon at 140,000 miles I traded the fading konked out has been beauty in for a new 1984 GTI VW Rabbi, which I had for 12 years too!
Learned to drive in a '55 Buick Century with this enormous steering wheel that gave almost the leverage needed to overcome the lack of power steering.
Learned to drive a stick on a '60 Chevy Biscayne 2-door sedan whose non-power steering felt feather-light compared to the Buick’s.
First car I drove that I actually paid for was a '54 Chevy Bel Air 4-door with the 6-cylinder egine and Powerglide. My Dad’s name was on the title since I was still a minor, but I paid for it and all of its bills.
That car was SLOW and it used a lot more gas than the '60 Biscayne.One day, the power-and gas-wasting Powerglide decided to downshift to Low while still in Drive and stay there and so I took the first $100 offered for the car and bought a '61 Ford with a 292 and a stick shift that would beat small-block Corvettes off the line until a cop wrote me a ticket for having no exhaust system from the Y-pipe back, necessitating the installation of a Midas OEM muffler and tailpipe that killed a lot of the low-end torque.
I later owned a '64 Biscayne with Powerglide and a 283 V-8 that got decent-for the-late- 60s city gas mileage of 16 and had plenty of power, as well. Either the engine was powerful enough to overcome the dreadful transmission or GM transmission engineers made some meaningful upgrades over those 10 years.
1986 Chevrolet Caprice Landau, V8, Royal Blye, with blue vinyl top, and blue velour seats. It’s like driving a couch. The car is as old as I am, but has no visible rust, and the trunk hasn;t rusted out yet either. (unusual here in Ohio for a car of this age), and power everything, and it all still works. The only thing that does not work is the radio. My car starts up and runs better than my sister’s '95 Lumina.