How much did you buy and sell your first car for?

1966 VW Bus. 

Bought it for $25. Drive it for a few years, sold it for $125. 

My first 13 cars were all air cooled VWs. Most were $25 (running). The most expensive one was $125. 

1979 Honda Civic CVCC

Bought it for $250 when I was 16, later sold as scrap for $50 after blowing a second head gasket.

Here's a photo of a much nicer example than the bomb I drove:

I was 17 and bought a 1971 Mercury Comet for $150 in 1987.  

It was towed away to a junk yard after failing safety inspection due to shock tower rust less than a year later.

You’ve seen this before - Datsun310guy really was once Datsun 310 Guy.

1980 Datsun 310GX - paid $5500 new with taxes and plates and sold for $400 in 1987. 135,000 miles and usual crap with a car this era.   

Dated my wife in the car starting in 1982 and she is still around so  it didn’t scare her away.  Front gold tint removed in 1 week so I can see at night   

SVreX said:

1966 VW Bus. 

Bought it for $25. Drive it for a few years, sold it for $125. 

My first 13 cars were all air cooled VWs. Most were $25 (running). The most expensive one was $125. 

I was about 16 when I bought a Morris minor for $15 

( minus the battery ) without working brakes. My buddy and I decided to tow it home behind his pick up.  Tied a knot in his long rope and told him I’d put it in gear and let the clutch out if the rope got slack.   Worst case the parking brake seemed to sorta work.

Heck it’s only 43 miles home down the freeway, what can go wrong? Freeways weren’t real busy in those days.  

Please remember it didn’t have a battery.  But the keys fit and worked. As we started off I playfully turned the key to the on position.  Yep letting the clutch out slowed the car enough to keep the rope taught.  

A few stop signs and I noticed the dome light came on every time I let out the clutch???? No battery but the dome light comes on?    What’s that?  It’s running?   Hey it runs, wave wave!  Oh and the horn works!! Good he’s stopping except  with the engine running  now I’m not , bang bumpity bang.  Parking brake.  He’s mad because I ran into him.  

Excited shouting while I explain the engine running I’ve got no brakes I apologize and we check.  Minor scratch in the Morris Minor’s  bumper, no damage to that big iron bumper on the truck .  

Now we open the hood and sure enough there is that little 4 cylinder idling nice and smooth without a battery. 

I didn’t realize that a generator doesn’t need a battery to run. Unlike a alternator it will generate its own spark. 

Drove it home the rest of the way on the parking brake.  Bled the brakes and they worked fine.  Got a battery core from the gas station and flushed the lead sulfate out so I could start it by pulling the starter button rather than pull it with a truck and a rope.  

My first car was a '67 Jeepster Commando.  I traded a Civil War Napoleon III cannon for it.  Going by what I bought the cannon for, about $400.  I sold it a couple of years later for $3k after putting in a clutch and small cosmetic improvements.

It looked pretty much like this, but this one wasn't mine.

First street car was a 68 Camaro I bought in '74 when I turned 16. Was a tough decision deciding between buying an Austin Healey 3000 or a '68 Camaro. Looked at a bunch of both and decided on this Camaro. Paid $800.00 for it and just kept making it nicer and swore I'd keep it forever. Bought a 66 Nova as a DD and didn't drive the Camaro in bad weather, put it in garage for winters and drove the Nova or Challenger. The Camaro was stolen from Umass Amherst campus fall '79 during daylight and insurance gave me $1500.00 based on 1/2 of receipts I could find and pics. Took the insurance money from the Camaro and ordered a new '80 Monza Spyder at my uncles dealership.

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1965 Mustang coupe. Paid $900 when I was 17, did some shoddy rust repair, took the rest apart, sold it for $1800 two years later. 

I paid $70 for a 1961 Pontiac Catalina four door sedan on January 1, 1976.  I never did sell it - eventually I parted it out and junked it.

I turned 16 in 1971, got my driver's license, and was given my dad's old car.

This isn't it, but it's the right color. 1960 Plymouth Suburban two door wagon. Mine was a totally stripped special order, right down to a radio delete and steelies with dog dish hubcaps.

It had a 225 Slant six, three on the tree. So slow I couldn't out accelerate a fully loaded school bus. With some 70 series tires on the back it was really competent in soft beach sand.

It got a re-ring with the block still in it at about a hundred and fifty thousand miles. It probably had about twice that on it at the end.

I could close the tailgate with my 9-foot 4-inch longboard in the back without it hanging over the front seat. 

My dad junked it as soon as I left home for the summer for my first year racing horses.

I still miss it.

My dad gave it to me 26 years ago when i was 12, and it’s staying with me till the end 

This Karmann Ghia was mine in 1987. The Opel GTs belonged to my brother.  The Corvair convertible was a rusty POS that wasn't worth trying to restore.  I paid $300 for the VW, which was way more than it was worth.  I fixed a few things on it and sold it for $400 to the next sucker.  

I bought an eight year old (common security question answer) for $800 when I graduated High School in 1988. I'd been saving for a while, and that was probably about double what I should have paid. My first experience with a manual was driving it home during traffic hour. I burned out what was left of the clutch over the next few weeks, and had to pay a guy in the neighborhood to fix it. The floor pans fell out of it about 18 months later, and when I asked my uncle if he could weld some new ones in, he declared there wasn't much metal left to weld to, and it was unsafe to drive.

Game Over.

I sold it for $100 and took the bus or rode my bike for a while. It was a very big learning experience. 

 

$1200 for a 1980 BMW 320 when I was 17. Hennarot over black vinyl. Bulletproof little car, even survived being hit when an unlicensed driver ran a light...as I was on my way home from my first date with the HS ex that we all dated, you know, the one that stomped on your heart. Anywho, replaced the rear subframe and a half shaft and it was back on the road. Today, the shell is long gone, but the engine is still sitting in my dad's garage. 

68 MG Midget in 1976. Bought for $400.  Was already a rust bucket and had no top, but I drove it for the summer and sold it for  $800. 

I have had a brit car in the stable ever since, but that is the only one I made money on.

Pete

Bought my first car in late 1985 while I was home on leave in the Navy, just after boot camp (age 18).  1977 Pontiac Grand Prix, forget the mileage, for $1k from a friend of my parents.  The wife had stopped driving for medical reasons.  Except for the droopy driver's door and faded silver paint it was a pretty decent car.  Drove that thing all over the place.

Traded in on a 1984 plain base Camaro around 1987, but at least it was red.  Don't remember the trade-in value, it was probably made up anyway.

19 years old  in 1997

1988 Nissan 300ZX 2 seater 

Paid $2500 and promptly sold it 4 months later for $4300. Sold it because I could not afford the gas, and thinking back I believe it was right around $1/gal. 

Bought a 1988 Prelude for $2k after. 

1982 Mustang, literally pulled from a farmer's field for $100. With the help of my grandfather, we pulled the head, decided the rusty cylinders on the V6 weren't worth saving, and swapped in a 5.0 over the course of a Summer. I honestly don't know how much we spent, probably over $2000 fixing all the issues it had. Things continued to break, and quickly outstripped the $235 paychecks I was bringing home every other week. Ended up selling it for $100. This was the era before the fox body was "cool", plus I was 16 and didn't know any better.

racerdave600 said:

My first car was a '67 Jeepster Commando.  I traded a Civil War Napoleon III cannon for it.  Going by what I bought the cannon for, about $400.  I sold it a couple of years later for $3k after putting in a clutch and small cosmetic improvements.

It looked pretty much like this, but this one wasn't mine.

I’m sorry but a “civil war Napoleon lll cannon” ?   $400??!! 

‘81 Dodge d150 from the back lot of the Chrysler dealer in moberly Missouri, $300. I was 13 and my dad thought we could have a “project”. It was a 225 /6 with a three speed and overdrive. I swapped a succession of engines and trans into it over the thirteen years I had it; three junkyard 225s, a 318, a 360, a 331 hemi, a 383, an unknown small block with a ton of power out of a junk warlock I bought for parts that cracked the block while street racing and ended up with a interceptor 318 out of a diplomat. I sold it in 2006 when I was selling stuff off to move for $3200. Last time I was out there it was sitting behind the house of the guy I sold it to in Hopkins Park, Il.

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

In reply to wspohn :

Sweet.  Having been born and raised in the UK you can't even get a learners permit until you were 17 years old.  The Imp was actually purchased in advance of my 17th birthday to get it ready for the road.  I then went on to own something like 15 Imps until 94 when I moved here and could eran enough to buy a six month old Mustang GT instead.  I owned almost every version of Imp except the Van/Estate (wagon).

Funny when you mention the Solstice coupe.  When they announced they were ending Pontiac production I called every dealer within a four state area and there wasn't a single Manual GXP Coupe to be had anywhere for any price.  

I even had a RHD Hillman Imp at one point and a friend who had raced spaceframe Imps in England.  Always lusted after a Ralleye Imp 998 engine but none to be had this side of the pond.

They made less than 300 manual GXPs so not surprising you had trouble finding one.  I had looked at the Solstice for several years as a potential replacement for my long term 88 Fiero GT that I had turboed but only got really interested in the coupe; I wasn't a fan of the humps etc. on the converts.  Saw my first coupe and bought one the next day.  And then modded it to 375 bhp/375 Tq.  

frenchyd said:

racerdave600 said:

My first car was a '67 Jeepster Commando.  I traded a Civil War Napoleon III cannon for it.  Going by what I bought the cannon for, about $400.  I sold it a couple of years later for $3k after putting in a clutch and small cosmetic improvements.

It looked pretty much like this, but this one wasn't mine.

I’m sorry but a “civil war Napoleon lll cannon” ?   $400??!! 

Yeah, it was a long time ago of course.  I bought it out of a newspaper ad in Chicago.  It had spent years in front of a courthouse in some small town.  It wasn't operational however and wasn't in great shape, but it was a cannon and looked impressive.

In reply to racerdave600 :

Do you believe it was an actual Cannon from the civil war?  I would think something like that would be worth tens of thousands of dollars.  

I hear there is an extremely strong market for civil war memorabilia?  

No so much in 1979.  I had several Civil War era guns at the time, it was nothing like it is today.  And like I said, it wasn't pristine by any stretch of the imagination, nor was it original.  No telling how many times it had been painted, but it was cool.  Eventually I wanted it gone for the same reason as the guy before me, it was big and took up a lot of room.  You have to really want one.

In reply to racerdave600 :

I love the fact that you traded a cannon for a car.