Do you remember your first car? What was it like?
Do you look back fondly on your first set of wheels, or are you glad it’s out of your life?
As always, bonus points if you have pictures to share.
Do you remember your first car? What was it like?
Do you look back fondly on your first set of wheels, or are you glad it’s out of your life?
As always, bonus points if you have pictures to share.
98 GMC Sonoma, single cab, regular bed, 4wd.
Biggest piece of E36 M3 ever, and I still question anyone that buys a Sonoma or S10 because of it. It's only redeeming qualities were coming with a toolbox and square tube tailgate.
It ate tie rods and ends, got 12mpg, couldn't get out of its own way, had no seating room.
Bought it for $5k, put 50k miles on it in 18 months, and had $6500 in repair bills during that time.
1987 Toyota Supra. Loved the car but it had too much rusty so I had to get rid of it. I miss that car to this day!
1965 Mustang. The car that I learned to wrench on.
Nothing fancy. The only option was AC. It was a 200-6 w/ a 3 speed manual.
I worked with my uncle to repaint it, fix the rust on it. Did the head rebuild on it. Redid the entire interior on it. It was a great introduction to wrenching. I still have the original pony from the grill. I replaced it with one out of the junk yard.
98 Nissan Maxima 3.5 liter v6, black exterior and tan interior.
Bought it for 800 bucks in 2012 with the rear quarter panel ripped off. My neighbor welded on some sheet metal for me and painted it black to match the car.
Another neighbor gave me 18" chrome wheels that, at the time, I thought were SICK.
I replaced the EGR and belt tensioner assembly and a couple other minor things that I was able to buy for cheap from the auto parts store I worked at and had that thing running like a dream! Surprisingly fast for a four-door sedan.
Everything a 17 year old could need.
The first car I bought for myself was a '75 BMW 2002 (bought in '87) - Malaga with a sunroof. If I knew then what I know now about these cars, I would have turned and run, but such is the arrogance of youth...
Rusty shock towers, a cooling system that imploded on its first long road trip, and just before I was going to take it in for an engine rebuild as it was consuming more oil than gas, the transmission lunched itself a block from home (reverse still sort of worked, so I made it back into the driveway).
Made a half-hearted attempt to resurrect it, but eventually sold it off to somebody who literally dragged it away with a rope tied to his buddy's pickup truck (in Boston, no less)...
1974 Chevy Nova, in-line 6, auto, drum brakes all around. Came with. Buick hubcaps. It was that 70's gold color. Put in an Audiovox stereo with cassette, glued the headliner back up, new exhaust. Drove the hell out of it til the trans started slipping. My parents bought it for me for $300. Sold it for $350. I miss that car...
1982 Accord sedan, blue over blue with a five-speed. (Bonus points for those who know where the image was taken.)
My name above - bought new the summer after high school. Put 100,000 miles on it in 5 years of going to college.
1964 white Chevy Impala SS which had been my grandfather's. Got my first speeding ticket within 30 minutes of getting the keys. Put some big tires on the rear and cruised Van Nuys Blvd for years. Then watched 'submarine races' up on Mulholland.
And while in high school, for a little while my parents had three cars so I got to drive their 1978 Malibu Classic. It was also blue over blue.
1972 Monte Carlo, 350 quadrabog and THM350 with a bang-screech shift kit. Bought fall '83 with 123k, drove it the end of my Sr year of HS and through 7 years of undergrad. built a 383 for it in '89 at 213k, parted it out in '92 with 257k.
1961 MGA Coupe. Not nearly as nice as this one. It cost me $900 cash. Old MGAs were cheap back in the 70s. They broke down a lot too.
This was my second car although I actually had both at the same time. A 1961 Mercedes 220Sb Fintail. It cost me all of $500, running. Remember when cool cars were cheap?
Pony Boy - 1985 535i. Bought it for myself my junior year in high school and drove it from then through college, driving it between Ohio and Florida multiple times. It was actually pretty rusty but cleaned up nice and taught me a ton about working on and maintaining a car. Way over paid for it at $3,200. I think my receipts totaled $12k in my ownership and sold it for $1,200. Worth every single cent. A guy in Columbus now owns it, put a 302 in it and rusted it out to look like one of the early versions of Mike Burrough's E28.
He knows that I'd like to buy it if he ever decides to get rid of it.
this one. 70 duster, summer of 94 is when we drug it home. Learned to wrench and drive and date in it. learned to powershift. Learned to wreck it. Daily through college, then a full resto. Originally a 318/3 sp stick/3.23 posi car, was a 360/4 speed by the end of high school. Now a serious 360, 5 speed, 3.55 gears, etc.
1974 Mustang II MACh1. 2.8l 4 speed hatchback with 13" OEM aluminum slot mags and all the rust multiple owners and MI winters could give it.
1983 Chevy Celebrity. Two tone red with a gold pinstripe. 2.8L V6 with a Rochester Varijet. 125 blistering HP. I bought it in 1989 for $3200 that I borrowed from mom and dad and paid them back $100/mo, and that was stretching my budget as a part-time burger flipper.
Not mine, but it looked just like this:
In reply to Colin Wood :
1988 Ford Escort GT.. LOVED it and miss it. It wasn't as bad as many have said (at least mine wasn't).
First ever track event was in this car at Road Atlanta (1994 when the Dip still existed). Next event was Roebling Road (pictured) that same year. By then I had updated suspension all round (red Konis and poly bushings everywhere, PLUS a zero camber kit) which was the best thing I ever did. Going through Turn 12 at Road ATL with 2.5 degrees POSITIVE camber is..interesting. Did many more track events before wrecking it. It was eventually replaced with a 1st Gen CRX Si, which even though an older car (1985) was way better, but yeah, I miss Betsy!
Special order stripper model with a heater as the only option, a 1960 Plymouth Suburban two door wagon. My dad's friend was a mechanic at the dealership in Orlando. His favorite family outing was trips to New Smyrna beach, where it got exposed to a lot of salt.
Original owner moved to Maryland, later sold it to my dad in about 1970. By that point, it had several hundred thousand miles and had been re-ringed with out removing the block.
225 slant six, three on the tree. My 9'4" longboard would fit in the back with the tailgate closed. It was incredibly slow, I got passed by a fully loaded gasoline school bus while I was running through first and second gear wide-open.At the time, I had the least cool car in my high school. We figure it went about a half million miles.
my clutch linkage broke, and I parked it till I had the money to fix it, when I came home from my first summer on the race track my dad had junked it
This is the same model and color, different car.
I don't have a picture of it (otherwise I would have used it as the lead for this item), but my first car was a base model 94 Integra.
I loved it, but it quickly turned into a lemon. Also, the A/C didn't work and driver's window wouldn't go down.
1971 Datsun 510, purchased for $600 Cdn in May 1976. Orange 2 door with a black interior. It had rust holes in the rockers where the chrome trim clipped in, otherwise in good shape. Drove it for another four years until the Japanese steel lost the fight with copious amounts of Quebec road salt. It was a fun little car !
The first one I drove on a regular basis was my dad's 78 C10. He had a company car and I could drive the truck as long as it was full of gas when he needed it.
The first one with my name on the title was a 81 Malibu Wagon.
I wish I still had both of them.
1981 Chevy Citation X-11. Bought off my dad for $500. A friend of my uncle had bought it new, making me the third owner. My dad and I autocrossed it quite a bit. It ran in F Stock at the time, and if the course was tight enough, my dad or the other guy in his black '81 X-11 would win. If the resident alien showed up in his '85 Z-28 on his lunch break, everyone else was battling for 2nd.
Loved making all the kids at my school who got new Mustangs for birthday presents look like fools. They didn't understand that turning Gatorbacks into white smoke wasn't fast.
Sold it to a friend when his wife didn't realize what the 'genie lamp' on their only car meant. I had just bought an '87 Z-24. Should have just loaned it to him in exchange for installing all the parts I had acquired while working in the parts department at a Chevy dealer.
Really Miss having that car.
David S. Wallens said:1982 Accord sedan, blue over blue with a five-speed. (Bonus points for those who know where the image was taken.)
I had that exact same car as my second. <fistbump>
My first was a 89 Sentra, base model, and I do mean base model. No radio, no passenger-side mirror, not even a vanity mirror under the visor. Those were for rich people. Dad bought it brand new because he was tired of dealing with used cars for us kids. Between my brother and I, it was wrecked five times (only one was my fault) before we got rid of it and went back to used cars. That Accord was the replacement.
Really, though, I like to think of my first car was as being this Alfa.
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