I had a 1974 Cutlass S (only in an ugly shade of green, but still with the mag wheels). It had a 350 4Bbl and it could really move. I loved that car until an idiot tried to drive his Pontiac through the side, t-boning the Cutlass at 70 mph at a country crossroad. That car was a tank though. While it did not survive the impact, I walked away with just a couple scratches & some sore muscles.
My senior year of high school ('85). My stepdad scraped up enough to get me a '76 Subaru DL. The “rustbucket.” I could see the street through the floor. I kept thinking one time I would whomp down on the clutch and my foot would go clean through.
Oh, God, what else?
–A buddy and I had to push-start it every morning to get to school.
–The fan would never come on, so I had to wire a toggle switch through the dash.
–I never could get it to go into third gear. Second and fourth we okay, but not third.
–Moving to college (about a 12-hour drive), I had to stop about every hour to add coolant. Even so, it ran just below the red.
–Toward the end, the clutch burned up and the fender fell off from the rust. In addition, I had to drive hunched up the car was so small (and I’m not particularly tall.)
I’ve probably repressed much more than I remember.
I ended up calling the salvage guy. Told him if he came to haul it off, we’d be square.
I turned 16 in 1983. My very first car was a Datsun B210. I forget what year it was. It was a rust bucket.
My second car was a rusted-out 1975 Camero. Had a 350 V8, 4-speed Hurst shifter, and size 50 tires. My friends called it the Road Warrior.
My first car was a late 1970s Buick Skylark. White, with navy interior.
You could fit a lot of friends in that car. The radio was slowly dying, and the only station that really tuned in was an AM station from across the border that only played French Canadian folk music. I’m still not really clear on why they don’t make cars with bench seats anymore. They’re so useful, especially for teenagers. 
I loved that car.
Sadly, the car was passed along to my little brother when I went away to college, and under his guardianship it met an untimely demise. Completely destroyed in a car fire. Which was deemed to be not my brother’s fault by the insurance company, but still … No one in my family called me at college for about a month because they were afraid to tell me.
Yes, I would be thrilled to have that car again, but it would have to be that specific car, not some other Buick Skylark. I swear, some days the only thing that keeps me from hurling a stapler at a coworker is a vague hope that if I get to heaven, my Skylark will be waiting for me.
It was a 1990 Ford Festiva, and I loved that little bastard. All my friends loved it as well. Tiny little bugger but an amazing amount of space inside. I spent an entire week in it one time driving all over Quebec during the summer.
It wasn’t just poor students who loved it, since as soon as I went to college my father immediately started using it for work because it was so dependable and efficient. After I left for Japan we sold it to a friend of my parents’ who used it for his daily commute. Last I heard it was still running fine 10 years later.
With a few extras (air conditioner, airbag, stereo) I’d take it back in a heartbeat. It would be perfect for the streets of Tokyo (and the $6/gallon gas prices) and has exactly the kind of carrying space I need for those few times when a car would come in handy.
Minus the dents and dirt, this is almost exactly what it looked like, down to the color.
We’re creeping up through the decades with Honda Civics, Mum’s first car was a 2nd generation Civic and my own was what was sold in the UK as the 95-01 Civic.
Neither of them faired well. After being driven into the ground by Mum’s sister, Mum ran it until Dad left the lights on all day and we decided to sell it on at auction. My own was sold to us with a guarantee of good repair but various obvious flaws. It was rear ended on the motorway and then finally written off after being broken into.
My first car was a '66 Dodge Polara that I named “Ralph”. It was 4 door sedan, cream colored that was handed down to me and my brother from our grandfather. (This is what it looked like.) (::aside…how cool is it that there’s a website devoted solely to the Dodge Polara?)
The car was a total mom bomb. The A/C leaked and the speedometer wouldn’t work past 50mph. But it was transportation and my most vivid memory of driving it was circling the block in downtown Dayton trying to win concert tickets from radio station WING.
The first car that mine solely was a '72 Dodge Polara that I named “Grover”. (It looked like this one.) That car was awesome and I’d love to have it back again.
::drools::
1955 Ford, I have no clue what was under the hood but it was very pretty – pale green and light turquoise.
It died on me once, about 10 miles out of town, middle of nowhere, at night. The guy who stopped to help was the previous owner. He did something with the distributor cap and I was on my way again.
1964 Ford Falcon four door with a V8. Loved that car, I bought it for $200 and sold it for $200 two years later. Unfortunately the guy who bought it from me rolled it within 3 months. Loved that car, the first major purchase that I did, my first step into becoming an adult.
My first car was a '77 Datsun F10. Pretty much the same as the B210 except front wheel drive. Thing had absolutely no power. My buddy’s motorcycle had a bigger engine. Starting from a red light, I had to floor it the whole way just to keep up with traffic. Top speed was around 75 MPH.
It was practically indestructible though. I’d always forget to put oil in it, then I’d check and there’d be none on the dipstick. I don’t recall ever changing the oil either, in the year or so I owned it.
Would I want it again? Heck no, it was a piece of crap.
1967 chevy Impala, it wasn’t pretty but teenage self applied 50 lbs. of bondo and a cheap paint job and it looked good.
The trunk was large enough to hold two beer kegs with room to spare and the backseat was larger than some of the beds that I had slept in when I was younger.
I lost my virginity in that car. Ah… memories.
1962 Olds ’98.
You couldn’t actually dance in the car. But you could have a party with all your best friends.
It wasn’t a boat. It was a ship.
I more or less took over my mother’s car, a 1960 Rambler Super, which was exactly like the one in the link, pink color and all. A real chick repellant.
The first car I actually owned was a 1959 Plymouth Suburban (or maybe a Savoy) station wagon that I bought with another Navy guy on Adak for $300. You can scroll down here, if you really want to look at it. What a tank that was.
And no, I wouldn’t want either one of them again.
Gee, maybe I can qualify for some sort of prize here…you know, one of those prizes that go to the oldest person at the family picnic…
I learned to drive in a 1937 Chevy out in the field behind our house. It burned about as much oil as gas until my brother and I drove it into the storm drain alongside the field.
The first car that I owned was a 1953 Chevy BelAir. I painted it a deep turquoise blue after I had removed the hood and trunk ornaments, and then had the chrome strips and “mudguards” and all of the rest of the chrome redone. Customized the seats in blue and white naugahyde and had the engine rebuilt. It was cherry. Did most of my early dating in that car - then sold it to a girl who wrapped it around a tree down the road about 2 weeks after she took it from me.
That car would be worth a lot of money today. But it would be tempting to have another one.
1997 Mercury Tracer. Bought brand new. I would never buy it again if I had to go back. It wasn’t what I really wanted. I ended up only getting it because my father said it was a good deal… when it actually wasn’t. I was totally had.
Not my first car but while I was in college I needed something simple I could work on so I cobbled together 2 Mavericks. The end result was a green 73 4 door with a rebuilt 250 ci straight 6. It was all rusted out but the frame was good, and the air conditioning and heater worked. Anyway, I was driving home from work and this car pulls up next to me on the highway. I finally look over and its an identical green 4 door rusted Maverick. The guy is giving me the thumbs up. Almost hit the cement wall laughing.
First car was a 72 Pinto with the 2.0L engine. I had a header on it and a 2 barrel carb from a 302. Just touching the gas pedal was like flooring it with the factory carb. The sad thing is I still have parts from that car in the garage somewhere.
To show how cars have changed, spark plugs were changed every 10-15k miles along with points and condenser. Carburetor kits were $10 and it was a Saturday afternoon to rebuild one.
My dad made me drive an old 1967 275GTB/4 NART Spyder. Imagine the disgrace I felt while pulling into the parking lot at the high-school! No top! No rims! No awsome sound system! Faded, tacky red paint!
I was a pariah.
To the second question: You bet! 
I inherited a 1987 Chevy Celebrity from my great-grandmother. I called the car Please. As in “oh shit, please don’t need a new muffler again…or new brakes… please start…” So no.
Mine was a 62 Pontiac Catalina, but not nearly as cool as yours. It was black and my dad picked it up for me and my brother from his mortician friend. Loved that car! It was a big-ass land yacht. It was a beater with a heater, but I think it only cost my dad $100. Can’t beat that!
1966 Volkswagen Beetle. Great body, bad engine. Volkswagen only produced the 1300 cc engine for the 1966 model year as far as I know. In 1967 the engine was bumped up to 1500 cc and most of the 1300 cc’s problems were corrected. I had the engine rebuilt twice in the 5 years I owned it.
Type I VWs were dangerously underpowered and slow, and traffic moves quicker today than it did in 1971 when I bought the car, so no, I wouldn’t want another one now.