When I was a senior in high school, we put 22 girls into the thing, and took a picture with me sitting on the hood. Wasn't until I saw the photo in the yearbook that I realized the weight had flattened all four tires.When I was a sophomore in college, Dad decided that I "needed" a car -- this was an astounding decision on his part, my brother and sister were shocked, not sure what prompted it unless he wanted me to come home from college more on the weekends. He gave me a 1973 (I think) Ford Maverick with an inline 6 and about 100,000 miles on it -- bought it for $400. This was in 1983, I guess. It was actually a pretty good car for a college student, easy to park, easy to maintain, looked like crap so didn't attract burglars and I didn't care about what the weather would do to it (Indiana winters are hard on cars).
My real first car was a 1978 four door Nova that I traded the Maverick for, plus some cash and a loan, when I was a junior or senior in college, can't remember which. Dad co-signed the note, but I paid for it. I think he paid the insurance. That was a really good car, V-8, had A/C (the Maverick did not, which was bad news in Indiana summers). It was some kind of pale yellow or cream color, badly stained. I spent a weekend in the local state park under a shade tree rubbing it down with polishing compound and then polishing and waxing it, and man it GLOWED after that -- everyone thought I had it painted. I drove that the rest of college, couple trips out to Denver to visit my brother, and then onto active duty with the Air Force. Somewhere in there I had it painted, I think before I left college. The guy who did it told me that after he sanded all the rust out of the rear quarter panels, the remaining steel was probably not as thick as the coat of paint he put on. (As I said, indiana winters are tough on cars with snow, sand, salt, etc).
I kept it until I turned 25 and my car insurance rates dropped dramatically -- then I bought a brand new 1984 Pontiac Firebird with gold-flecked brown paint, gorgeous wheels with gold accent, tan interior, manual tranny -- and a V-6 to keep the insurance under control -- made a HUGE difference in payments from having a V-8, and it still had great acceleration and enough top end speed for me. Man that was a pretty car! I ordered it before I went on a deployment to Saudi, and when I got back it was at the dealer waiting on me. Did I mention it was a beautiful car? I loved that thing, cleaned it all the time, even bought a small paint brush to clean the lint out of the air vents. I sold it to my girl friend's dad two years later when I transferred to Germany -- she told me later that when he was inspecting the car and found the paint brush in the center console, he asked her what it was for. When she told him, she said that clinched the deal.
That was the last car I gave a dang about -- I got an Audi 200 Turbo in Germany, was fun on the autobahn, but I missed my Pontiac. Nowadays I think cars are just big money pits and more or less hate them.
