Your First Car

[Crossfire]

You guys are killing me with your cool car stories. My first car, that I bought with my own hard earned money, was a 1974 Ford Pinto. Yes, the famous death trap, explode on impact, Pinto. Fortunately, I was never rear-ended, and am still alive to talk about it.

No A/C, no radio, no power anything, 4 speed standard transmission, basic transportation, car. I drove it until 1982. It had 110K miles, and I had to buy oil by the case. Every fill up was 8 gallons of gas and 2 quarts of oil. And I always had to park on a hill, because I couldn't afford to buy another starter for it. (Starter #4!)

I tried to trade it in for a new car, but no dealer would take it. Ended up selling it outright for almost what I payed for it!

I loved that car.

[Vandelay Ind.]

my first car was a 92 mitsubishi mighty max pickup. 5 speed, manual everything, no power steering. I probably washed it twice a week

I traded it for a new 98 chevy shortbed V6. I think they gave me just enough money for it to buy the bumper for the new truck. Whos idea was it to sell a truck without a bumper on it anyway?

[surprise_i'm_armed]

My first car had been my father's, then he gave it to me.
It was a 1962 Chevy Bel Air, black paint, red interior, 6 cylinder with
"3 on the tree" (column-mounted 3 speed manual for you young 'uns).

This car was a money pit. My first road trip as a new driver was to drive
from eastern Mass to the 1969 Woodstock music festival in Bethel, NY. What a pain.
The car had no power (235 cubic inch 6 cylinder) and got only 11 MPG! Plus it used oil.

It constantly over heated and needed to have water added.

The worst thing about the car was the linkage in front of the firewall
on the engine side. We all know which way our elbows can bend. Well,
the linkage would do a backwards elbow thing, requiring me to stop in bad
places, lift the hood, jiggle the linkage back into position, and then I could
continue. It might do this several times a day, or be OK for a few days.

My 2nd car was a 1963 Mercury Monterrey with the "breezeway" back window.
This window was a power window. It was the rear windshield and was on an
angle. The car was maroon with a white painted roof. It had a 390 cubic inch
V8 with another 3 on the tree. My friend, the handy one, installed a Hurst
floor shifter when the white metal on the column shifter broke from too much speed
shifting. A carburetor fire unfortunately finished this one off.

Although I'm a dedicated stick shift driver to this day, I have had some automatics
in the mix. One of my favorite cars of all of them was a 1969 Olds Cutlass Supreme,
350 cubic inch V8, 4 barrel, with an awesome quick-shifting TurboHydramatic. I
bought this car for $450 with 89,013 miles on the clock and drove it until 176,000
miles when the head gasket blew.

It was icy blue with a darker blue vinyl top.
I got $150 from a guy's insurance when he bumped my back bumper, and the
neighbor gave me $150 for it. So I only had about $150 in it for a fun car that
gave me 87,000 miles of service.

I sold this car to my neighbor, who was T-boned by a kid running a stop sign.
The Cutlass was wrapped around a pole, but when the tow truck driver came to take
it away, he turned the key for grins, and that 325 horse Rocket Olds fired right up.

SIA

[SlowDave]

My older brother had one of those Plymouth Fury II's that someone mentioned. What a boat!

My first car was the hand-me-down from my mom: 1973 Plymouth Valiant, 225 slant 6, automatic trans, kind of greenish-tan color with an dark green vinyl top. Seriously styling! Was the first year of electronic ignition for Plymouth, as I understand, and would occasionally just quit running. Learned to keep a spare ballast resistor in the glove compartment. When it ran, it was SLOW. But at least it also had horrible gas mileage. What a pile. But it got me where I needed to go and that was plenty good enough for me!

Family musical cars ensued a year later and I traded WAY up to a 1979 Monte Carlo with the 305 V8. Had bucket seats, console (auto) shifter, rally wheels, nice tan color... I thought I had died and gone to heaven! This was 1982 or so so it was only a few years old. I was living large!

Another year later, another round of musical cars, and I ended up with a 1979 F150 which I drove for 17 years. Funny thing... never really liked it. Maybe 'cause I lost the Monte Carlo for it? LOL. And I think since then, all manual tranny cars for me.

Bikes: I guess someone said that's a different thread, so I'll restrain.

[fickman]

Had that same 3800 V6. That is hands down the best engine of any car I've ever driven. Plenty of power

I love those V6s. The car I upgraded to from the catalina was a 1998 Pontiac Grand Prix with a series 2 3800. Of course, mine is a GTP model so it has a supercharger on top of it.

1989 Oldsmobile Delta 88. This was technically my first car, but I had to share it with my older brother. It had a 3800 Series I V6. It looks like a grandma car, but it ran side by side with my friends' 5.0 Mustangs and 350Zs.

My dad's company car - the one he drove instead of the Nissan truck he grounded me from - was a 1989 Buick LeSabre (same car as the Delta 88). Had that same 3800 V6. That is hands down the best engine of any car I've ever driven. Plenty of power (admiting to a crime here, but I once dropped the needle on the speedometer and got it up to approximately 125 on I-10 when I was a young dumb 18 year old). But the amazing part is that when he finally got rid of that car years later, after my brother drove it into the ground, the transmission was shot, none of the electronics had worked for years (no ac, no power windows, no power door locks, no radio) but that engine had well over 300,000 miles on it and still purred like a kitten. My dad told me the local mechanic gave him a few hundred dollars for the engine. Said he would scrap the car and put the engine into an old Oldsmobile he had in back of the shop.

Hahahahaha!

My first car was a 1994 Buick Century with the 3800 series I v6. I got 225,000 miles on that car - most of them very abusive driving with no maintenance. I loved that engine so much that a few years back we bought a 2003 Buick Regal GS with the supercharged 3800 series II v6. It would shock people when I put my foot down. We recently sold it to my wife's cousin - and it's his first car. In between I had a 1999 Monte Carlo with the 3100 v6, and while it was a great reliable car, it just didn't have the umph of that 3.8 liter. . the next engine I fell in love with was the 5.3 liter v8 in the 1500 trucks. I'm currently in a 6.0 liter 2500HD. :)

Similar to my first car:

Similar to my second car:

Similar to my first truck - 2003 Silverado LS C1500:

Similar to my current truck - 2005 Silverado LS K2500 HD:

[Texas Size 11]

1980 Caprice Classic...in a funky electric blue color. I love that car.

[Jasonw560]

My first truck was a 1987 Dodge Dakota.

After that was relegated to being a farm truck, I got a 1992 Jeep Cheokee.

I rolled that on some black ice just south of Austin on I-35 N, on my way to meet a friend for lunch.

That led me to a 1996 Dodge Ram 1500 single cab. Which I drove for 13 years.

Now, I have a 2009 Jeep Patriot.

[quidni]

I graduated HS in '78, and Mom agreed I needed wheels for getting back and forth to college, and to work. I wanted a small "pickup/car" like the El Camino, Ranchero, or Subaru Brat. I wound up with a battered, orange '71 VW Super Beetle, as it was all we could afford at the time. In spite of my initial disappointment, that little car survived teaching me how to drive a manual tranny (which I still prefer to this day) and got me everywhere I needed to go at a reasonable cost for a full time student with a part-time income. I called it "Blip" since the plate it had when I got it started with BLP.

I tease my husband that one of the reasons I started dating him was that he was driving an old '64 Ford pickup at the time. When it died, his Dad gave him a '71 Maverick with a 302 V-8 engine for his birthday. The engine was almost too large to fit, and you literally had to loosen the motor mounts and tilt the motor a bit to change the spark plugs! It was a gold and white color, and since it was a birthday gift, it was only natural to dub it "The Precious."

First car we bought together was a white '71 Volvo station wagon we called "Vincent van Volvo," or "Vinnie" for short. Prior owner was the New Mexico Boys Ranch. It lasted us a couple good years, always starting even when half the engine sensors weren't working. It's also one of the reasons why you'll now see Volvos and similar "foreign" cars in Big Spring, that bastion of US-brand-only vehicles, dealers and garages. We jump-started so many Buicks, Cadillacs and such in the mall parking lot during the winter storms in '81-'82 that folks started noticing.

Traded the Maverick and the Volvo in on a newer Dodge station wagon in 1984. Worst decision we ever made, and I'll leave it at that. Trust me, you DON'T want to know what we called it.

1986 Chevy Sprint - remember those? They were little more than skateboards with bucket seats and air conditioning. We bought ours brand new and got 100,000 miles out of it at 50mpg before getting it's first real tune-up and second set of tires. About 50k miles later we sold it to our neighbors who needed cheap/reliable transportation.

We went through 2 1991 Saturn SL's (his and hers we called them Beast and Beauty) with manual transmissions and literally ran the wheels off them. My husband's current car is a 2002 SL which is still giving him consistently good mileage & handling.

I drove a Plymouth Voyager (auto tranny) when I was involved in small animal rescue, as it had great cargo space for cages and carriers. Never named it.

Finally, Valentine's Day 2005, I got my pick-em-up truck. 1997 Ford Ranger, 5-speed, with a 4-cyl 2.5L engine which I absolutely loved. I took off the 14" rims with the street-only tires and got 15" rims with tires with more aggressive tread. "Li'l Red" saw me through over 50k miles, and a couple of hurricane deployments, before I lost it to an engine fire due to debris getting lodged under the hood Thanksgiving Day 2009.

Today, I'm driving Li'l Red's successor, a white 1998 Ford Ranger with a 4L V-6 engine and 4wd. Also a 5-speed manual. This one is called "The Infidel." Infidel came with 16" rims, and I bought tires that have 10-ply rated sidewalls. I've been running these tires for a year now and the tread still looks almost new.

Along with Infidel, I also now have "Bella Rose" - a 2006 Yamaha V-Star 650 and an unnamed-as-yet 1982 Honda GL1100I that needs a lot of work to be rideable. But as was mentioned before, that's a topic for a different thread.

[Venus Pax]

My first vehicle was an '86 Mazda truck, but we had to sell it because I couldn't reach the clutch. (My cousin had owned it before me.)
I officially owned the '87 Plymouth Sundance. It had an automatic transmission, a/c, and a radio with a tape player.

My first new car was a 2000 Chevy Camaro Z28 with t-tops that I bought just before graduating from college. I LOVED that car. I now drive a more practical, family-friendly vehicle.

[RoyGBiv]

Not mine, but pretty similar.. Different rims...

I HATED this car... All new EPA emissions gadgets in '72, all of which sucked the life out of the underwhelming 307. 4-Wheel drums...

But it was my first..

[Middle Age Russ]

I learned to drive in a 1957 MGA. At the time Dad was commuting from the Suburbs to downtown Houston. He'd drive it during the week and then we'd work on it on the weekend to make sure it could be driven the next week.

When I got my license, I first started driving another of Dad's vehicles -- a 1974 F250 with a "granny" 4-speed and a 360 cid V-8. Later, when I was working as a summer hand in the oil patch, I borrowed my grandfather's 1969 Nova 2 door, with straight six and three on the tree. Soon after, my parents gave me the family 1974 Gran Torino 4 door with 400 cid V-8 and automatic trans. It tragically died after I got T-boned on the way home from classes one day.

The first car I bought was a bit more of a "sleeper" than the Gran Torino had been. It was a 1973 Cutlass Supreme two door, ordered from the factory with the Hurst Olds package -- 455 CID V-8 with 4 bbl Rochester carb, Muncie M-21 4 speed with Hurst Shifter, dual exhaust and huge roll bars front and rear. It was a lot of fun, and the lack of positrac in the rear end meant torque steer when accelerating or engine braking. My wife swears that the roads were wet every time she drove it and it swapped ends on her a few times when the rear end came loose.

Since then it has been a series of practical vehicles for the family.

[TLE2]

My cars can't match that, but they had their own "spirit".

First car was a 1957 Nash Rambler Station Wagon. Great for the drive in (movie that is).

First new car was a 1968 Volkswagen Beetle. After I'd had it a few years, I hopped up the engine (more or less). Did on a dirt floor garage, down to the cases. My beautiful daughter (2 or 3 at the time) came into the garage and threw a handful of dirt in the open cases. Cleaned it out best I could, drove it toward Vermont (for a job) with my wife, aforementioned daughter and all our worldly possessions a few weeks later. Burned out a rear main bearing in Nashville on Labor Day weekend (Nothing open and very little money in our pocket). Drove the rest of the way to Vermont adding a quart of oil with every tank of gas.

That winter, it was buried in a snow drift until early spring. Tow truck driver pulled it out, pushed it down a hill to get it started. Drove it to a dealer and traded for a car to get home.

[RPBrown]

First car was a 1955 Chevy 2 door post with a 265 V8 three speed on the column shift. Man I wish I had that car now.

First motorized mode of transportation was a Honda 125 on/off road motorcycle that I paid $100.00 for. Had that bike for 5 years.

[Pacifist]

My first car was a 1970 Dodge Coronet with a 2-bbl 318-c.i. engine that had a great deal of trouble getting out of its own way (though I loved her just the same). I acquired this car from my grandmother in 1976.

However, my first on-road vehicle was a well-used 1972 Kawasaki 175cc F-7 enduro that I acquired in 1974 rode absolutely everywhere.

Just thinking about both gets a serious wave of nostalgia going.

[brandrum]

datsun 210 honey bee....I could go all week on two dollars of gas.