I bought a rusted out 1989 Ford Taurus for $400 in 2003 to learn to drive. It was named Red Dwarf and its license plate said RDDWRF. It shook and made terrible sounds if I tried to go much over 45 mph, so I didn’t get to learn highway driving until much later.
1986 Chevette my brother gave me, after declining the generous $100 a dealer offered him in trade on his new car. 1.6l, 4spd manual, studded snows in the winter in NE PA were required. It was white with red interior and could be needled up to 90 given enough highway, for instance the Lehigh tunnel late ate night. 
Traded it in foolishly on a Jeep Comanche pickup truck which leaked oil and turned out to have no rear brakes, sad fact leading it to be totaled six months later. Followed by a Dodge (Mitsubishi) D50 pickup bought from a friend, fraught with its own problems.
I could have pimped out that Chevette for what I spent on those POS pickups.
Depends on your definition of “car” :p.
My parents bought me a used Fiat 128 station wagon from friends, just before my senior year in college.
Let’s just say… it was a couple of years before I forgave them.
Numerous repairs - averaged 100 a month the entire time I [strikethrough]owned[/strikethrough)was own by it (which was a lot of money in the early 1980s). Many of the repairs had to be done multiple times - like the windshield wiper motor and the clutch cable.
I replaced it with a Dodge Omni when I was finally able to scrape together the down payment for one. The fact that the Omni (no great shakes as a vehicle) was an improvement is fairly telling. The Fiat - to add insult to injury - was rear-ended and its back bumper crumpled as I was driving it to the Fiat dealer to sell it at the very end.
So - not sure that counts as a car. If it doesn’t, then my first “real” car was a 1982 Dodge Omni. It too was rather junky - a car should not, for example, need an entire new CLUTCH within 2 years of purchase. But the clutch failure was the only time it actually stranded me.
'41 Ford Tudor, cost $50. Could change radio stations without using hands, raise & lower antenna from inside, had spotlight, muffler cutout and Mack bulldog for hood ornament. Instant heat in cold weather since heater ran off manifold. Married, with 2 kids when I got it, it was 16 years old. When my wife needed a car too, we got my grandfather’s '50 Chevie. After finishing school we traded for a late model car, and dealer offered us $75 for the pair.
A 1965 Mustang convertible and I had no idea what I had at the time.
During HS, I borrowed my dad’s Ford Pinto, walked, or bummed rides. At college, I hitchhiked, walked, took public transportation or bummed rides. So I didn’t buy a car until I was 22 and freshly married.
We piled up the small amount of cash we’d received as wedding gifts for a down payment, hit up our landlord/banker for a new car loan, scoured Consumer Reports for best buys, and landed ourselves a brand new 1979 **Mazda GLC. **It was stripped–2-door, 4-speed standard, no radio of any sort, no A/C, windshield wipers were either on or off. Not one special option or upgrade beyond what was required for (sort of) safe driving. BUT we loved that car. It never gave us a bit of trouble, started on cue in the winter, lasted us years. The only reason we eventually gave it up was when our daughter was born and we needed a 4-door for baby seat access. It truly was a great little car.
1965 Buick Wildcat 4-door sedan, bought for $350 with my parents covering about half the cost. Shod with four bald snow tires and sporting a huge V-8 that pulled like a locomotive. Handled like one (off the rails, that is) as well, come to that. Area surrounding the windshield was rusted out, so on rainy days it got nearly as wet inside as out. Drove the thing for about 18 months, then sold it on to my friend Earle for a princely $200. Unfortunately for him, soon after it began to rapidly self-destruct and it ended up rotting away on an abandoned farm outside of town .
My first car of my own was a 1969 Olds Cutlass 4-door. Not the classic 4-4-2, with its two-barrel carb, four doors, and three-speed automatic transmission–but it did have the Rocket 350 V8. Big dent in the front quarter-panel from where my mom had been trying to back out of the driveway across the street and ran into a telephone pole, and the green paint job had faded to a rather… pastel shade. Spent more time in the shop than out. Probably had the original shocks on it–you could push the bumper down 'n watch it bounce for a good ten seconds.
But god, what a kick it was to drive when it was working! It had old-fashioned power steering and a steering wheel that probably had a 2.5 diameter–you could turn it with a finger. Put the pedal down and it’d push you back in the seat. I put a Blaupunkt stereo in it and had someone spend days cutting through the steel to stick a couple of six inch Cerwin Vega speakers in the front doors–then water got into the doors and caused them to short out. When the passenger side one wasn’t falling out. I drove it and its rear wheel drive up some of the nastiest hills in Cincinnati, in snowstorms. Barely.
What killed it, eventually, was a cracked heater core. I’d notice that a little bit of mist would come up through the vents and leave this greasy fog on the windshield, but whatever. Then, late one night, I was driving home from my buddy’s house. There was the mist coming out of the defroster vents when I started it up. By the time I got to the expressway, it was coming out of the front vents. By the time I got onto 75, it was pouring out of every conveivable opening–the vents, the steering colum, the heater vents, the wheelwells–and I, like an idiot, was hanging out of the window trying to drive. 
I managed to pull it into a gas station, where I determined that it wasn’t on fire. Sold it for a few hundred bucks after.
And I still kinda miss it, yeah. 
A 1966 Mustang. It was a bright red fastback. Sure it was only the 6 cylinder with a three speed, but it was cool. I think I paid $1,800 for it used. I’d sure be glad to give a heap and a gob more than that to have it back today.
In 1972, for 250 dollars, I got an orange, 1964 Jeep Fleetvan. Shag carpeting, you may ask? Oh, yes. With an 8-track, baby!
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i.ushipcdn.com/resize.php%3Fpath%3D%252Fstatic%252Fd0d4a48d-3d2e-476c-b.jpg%26w%3D270%26h%3D210&imgrefurl=http://www.uship.com/shipment/1964-Jeep-Fleetvan/905372602/&h=203&w=270&sz=14&tbnid=0tnp87jLZe3nDM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=120&prev=/search%3Fq%3D1964%2B%255Cjeep%2Bfleetvan%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=1964+\jeep+fleetvan&usg=__EZu2NymEW04N5u0u-7s-YDGz2y0=&docid=MFTiO4lK7Yq3rM&itg=1&hl=en&sa=X&ei=k8MYUNy9LIHb6wHTuYG4BQ&sqi=2&ved=0CGIQ9QEwAw&dur=1634
1966 VW Bug.
Great little car, but I couldn’t get laid in the back seat without having back spasms.
WTF? How did the link break? I’m certain I tested it before submitting, too.
Anyway, here’s the 1979 Fiat X1/9 in metallic blue like mine was.
People sometimes mistook it for the Triumph TR7, but the X1/9 was mid-engined and handled great while the TR7 didn’t.
The TR7 was marketed by Triumph as “The Shape of Things to Come.” I thought that was catchy, back in 1980.
I can’t remember the last time I saw a TR7 on the road, or a TR8 for that matter. But there are still some X1/9s out there, I see them occassionally.
It was an ugly green Pinto. 72? 73? 74? I’m not sure. But I’m sure it was ugly.
I turned 16 in 1983.
At first I drove my mom’s Datsun B210. And then I bought my own **1975 Camero **with V8 engine. Both were rust buckets.
Another bug owner here. Mine was a 1956 model, purchased for $75 by my boyfriend/babby daddy for trips to the grocery store and obstetrician. We promptly went out to the nearest lemon orchard so he could teach me to drive. All I remember now from the lesson is “no syncro in first!”
The car had “Pipco” crudely written on the engine compartment lid; legend had it that Frank Zappa had owned the car and inscribed it to match a t-shirt he had.
I loved that car. Good ol’ Pipco.
My aunt had one of those. She named it Ork Nork, which to my aunt apparently meant Lead Sled.
1950 Cadillac hearse, with burgandy velveteen lining and thick velvet curtains in the back. Bought it in 1969 for $100, and it probably ran for about four months, which was all a 16 year old hippie chick needed for the summer. It finally died in my parents’ driveway, where it sat until a neighbor complained about being creeped out. I think my dad sold it and had it carted away for me. After that, a green 66 Bug with a bashed in fender that I painted a huge bruised wound on.
1970 Chevy Chevelle.
My sister had hit a phone pole with it, caved in the hood and radiator. So my mom gave it to me.
I had my mechanic boss fix it and I drove it into the ground in about 3 years. I think I abandoned it somewhere.
I am now in a wheelchair and can’t drive, but I still miss that car.
1970 Galaxy 500. In 1978.
Friends of my parents were going to sell it to me for $500. Then they got into a very minor accident that left a barely noticable dent in the rear bumper.
And insisted on selling it for only $150.
I drove it for about a year, then sold it for $200.
That guy drove it for another year and sold it for $300.
Two months later the new owner dropped the tranny.