The first car I drove regularly was my Dad's Cutlas Ciera. Nothing to pretty to look at, plus it had a bad seal in the steering. Anytime you turned the steering wheel too far to the right, power steering fluid would dump onto the exhaust manifold causing it to smoke up a storm. Sometimes it was horribly embarrassing, but sometimes it was hilarious!!
The first car I owned was a used 1967 or 1968 Alpa Romeo Spider. I don't have a digitized picture of mine, but if you've ever seen the movie 'The Graduate', you know what it is:
This thing was 20 years old and not even listed in the Blue Book so I couldn't get an auto loan for it. My parents had to co-sign a signature loan (around $2 or 3k IIRC) for me. They tried to get me to get something else, but I was stubborn and they believed in letting us learn our own lessons as long as we were the ones paying for it.
It was pretty popular with all my buds and a few girls. My GF at the time (now my wife) wasn't a big fan because it didn't have AC. We broke up soon after, but fortunately we got back together just before Desert Storm.
I remember the alternator died once and I didn't want to pay for the import part ($$$) so we made an adapter bracket and put in a domestic alternator.
I also drove it from NAS Memphis to Ohio while on leave to take a buddy to his GF's prom. It did ok on the way up - but the clutch was starting to die. On the way back, it was slipping so bad, I had to gain enough speed going down a hill to make sure I could crest the next hill. The car never left Memphis after that- I sold it to some used lot rather than fix the clutch.
At 6' 3" and 150 lbs, I am sure I looked like Marmaduke driving a toy car.
