Column: Remembering Your First Car

My first car was a '64 Beetle.  It was passed down to me when my mother moved up to a '69 Beetle.  The '64 was purchased in '65 at a National Car Rental used lot.  Bright red.   In the lot was a Lotus Cortina for the same price;  $1,000.  I begged her to by the Cortina, she bought the bug.

When I got it in '69 I was working as a parts installer at a local EMPI dealer as one of my college jobs.  I immediately put wheel adapters on it, ford wheels and red line tires (recaps).  Bumpers came off, headers went on.   I commuted dozens of trips back and forth from FSU to Miami in it with wife and child.

It had oversize jugs, and a full flow oil filter/cooler system.

I won my first autocross class victory in it.  Rolled it twice that I remember (damn swing axles).  Could always buy another body for $100.  Painted it with a brush with orange Rust-o-leam.   It was a DD for maybe 7 years.  

I needed a truck, so it became a pickup truck for the last 3 years of its life.  I took all the running gear out from under it to build my first mid-engine autocross special, and gave the remains a nice burial at the landfill.

It's bones went on to win something like 50 FTDs.

Notice dented roof in this picture.

My "First" was dad's old truck that we never got back on the road after the engine died. '82 Ram he put back on the road in 93 and ran until it died in 97.  It's still in the yard. Similar story of unfulfilled plans to revive his old Suzuki as my first bike. 
 

Actual first car was dad's hand me down accord. I ran that thing ragged. Still miss the pop up headlights. 

I only owned motorcycles until I was about 18 and used my parents car when I needed. 

In '95 or so I bought my first car, 1988 Nissan 300ZX. Paid $2500, sold it a few months later for $4200 and bought a $2000 1988 Prelude. The Honda was years ahead in gas mileage and fit and finish. 

G_Body_Man (Forum Supporter) said:

My first car was an '84 Cutlass Supreme Brougham sedan with a Canadian-spec factory-order LG4 305 4bbl and a THM350. Fixed it up a bit, then my parents moved across the country and I gave it to a mutual friend whose Focus was totaled by an uninsured motorist. He was still daily driving it until this year.

I always wondered how that story ended.  You were up against the rotted rear frame rail issue.

I see you are back in Ontario also.

First car. Was in 1976. Rusty crusty MG midget. No top of any kind. Have had an MG of some sort ever since.

My first car was a 1964 Ranchero that looked like this:

 I'd spent a few hundred hours helping dad build a house. He helped me restore the "red bomb" up to a point. It  had a built 302 with a toploader 4-speed. Didn't handle worth a damn. Couldn't get the power to the road without spin and wheel hop and it never got me laid. Had great times in the thing  till I totaled it while street racing. Best memories are loading it up with skateboarding buddies and the occasional hippie chick and cruising to the skateboard park with Van Halen's "Running with the Devil" blaring on the stereo. 

As a new driver in 2002 I had a nice crop of used, well depreciated, 10-15 year old Japanese cars to choose from if I spent my money right.  I spent nights building a spreadsheet to figure out how I could get the most bang for my buck - its a wonder I became an engineer.  What I found was a Nissan NX2000, the funkier version of the Sentra SE-R.  I bought one and my Dad drove it home.  I practiced driving a manual transmission in the backyard until I could make it off the hills at either end of my street.  And then once I could drive without stalling I drove around all night and missed dinner.  On thanksgiving.  

I rarely saw any when I had mine and now they are all but extinct.  I still love most cars of the era and I'm on track to own quite a few different offerings from the 80s and 90s.

Mine was a 1961 Pontiac Catalina four door sedan.  I bought it on New Years Day 1976 for $70.  The engine smoked like crazy, so after a couple years I swapped in a 389 tripower engine out of a 1964 GTO.  Unfortunately, the transmission was pretty weak as well, so after a few full throttle passes that GTO engine killed it altogether.

This is the only picture I have that's scanned and saved to my computer, it was sitting in my parent's driveway during a particularly snowy winter.  I parted it out soon after that.

Mine was an 87 Chevy Nova with a 3 speed automatic. Bought it in 2001 or so for $500. You could walk up a hill faster with passengers in it. Drove it for a year or less and sold it to get a Toyota pickup.

1980 Pinto. It was a $400, in 1992 money, special with a very poorly repaired drivers rear quarter, it was a couple of pails of bondo smeared on. Drove it until I killed it avoiding someone in a parking lot and killed the steering rack.

First vehicle I bought myself was another poorly repaired 2wd 5spd rcsb s10 with power brakes, a/c, and manual steering. That was "fun". Wish I could have kept it but that would have been a headache for the past 20 yrs...

I had 'owned' a few vehicles prior to my first 'real car', an hand me down 91 Jimmy that didn't shift out of first gear (that my brother sold for scrap), an 89 Blazer my buddy assisted in giving a tuneup that never ran again, and an 83 528e that was rusted badly, missing a driveshaft and wouldn't stay running,

My first real car is my 1999 Intrepid that I still have, and I've learnt a lot about wrenching in general with it. When I first bought the car I didn't even own a decent socket set yet! From basics like oil changes and bulbs to engine swaps and suspension repairs and now to bodywork I've learnt on this car. And still learning as I go!

In reply to New York Nick :

My first car was also an 86 Monte Carlo that my dad and I bought in the summer of 92 when I was 16 and got my license.  It was a black SS that was very clean but had a few issues. I had wanted an SS since i first saw them in 83 and was beyond excited to have it.  i was also the only one of my friends to have a nice car so it got driven hard pretty much every night and weekend.  I still have most of it sitting in my garage waiting for that mythical someday when it will get put back together. 
 

When I was about 12 my family was visiting Lincoln, NE. There was a college parking lot with a few broken down cars, and one of them was a 1972 Cadillac Hearse. We tracked down the owner, and my brothers and I pooled our money together and bought it for $100. We put on a fan belt that bypassed the a/c compressor and it fired right up. My dad drove it home, the 472 got 13 mpg on the way back to WI.

30 years later, it still runs.

Oh... I remember fondly... it was 2001, she was from 1984. A four cylinder four speed camaro (cramit). She leaked so much oil I had to keep a quart with me just to get anywhere. Billowed like the Smoking Man from X files. Couldn't do a burnout. It was a regular weekend chore to revive the paint with rubbing compound and wax. All my peers would say "hey nice camaro!", but deep down... I wanted out. 

1981 Malibu Wagon. 

Exactly like this one. 

My wife stuck it under the back of a truck. 

Gonna be sort of a jerk since this is still a security question for some web access.  Sue me...

1970's domestic turd with no power and an auto trans.  Bought for $100 from a coworker of my Dad.  Wouldn't top 35 mph on the drive home.  Almost didn't make it up the big hill in my neighborhood.  I was 15 and driving on a learner's permit with no adult "supervision" on trip home.  Dad was in law enforcement and right behind me, so I wasn't worried. Owned it for about 6 months.  Spent about $200 and a lot of time/labor fixing it up and sold it for $800 3 weeks after I got my license.  That started my HS career as a car flipper.  Probably owned 25 cars by the time I graduated.  Got stuck once because the DMV sent me a letter stating that if I sold another car that calendar year I would have to get a dealer's license.  Had to sit on the car I planned to sell that week for 3 months until the next year.  Graduated HS with a 2 year old car and a 10 year old truck paid for by my flipping efforts that started with that $100 POS.  Part of me wishes I still had that energy to look for deals and do flips.  Part of me is glad I don't have to...

Not technically "my" first car, but I had driving rights to our least-used family car when I was a teenager - a Borgward Isabella.  Sorry, no picture.  Four-on-the-column . . . a Blaupunkt radio that spoiled my opinion of German technology by its inability to pick up even a local radio station. The car was great fun to 4-wheel drift around winding back roads I'd probably be afraid to drive at half that speed today.  One day I came home to find it had been replaced by a ford station wagon. Oh well!