First car, first forever car, first inline six, first line on the prenup. First everything.
First car, first forever car, first inline six, first line on the prenup. First everything.
First car was a 1986 Monte Carlo. It was decent when I got it with some rust, bone stock, decently maintained. It was $3,500 in 1992 when I got it. My godfather owned a garage and he helped me fix the rust and repaint it after hours one summer. In actual fact he did all the hard stuff and it would have never been done without him. I paid for all the mods by mowing lawns. They were pretty limited and all cosmetic except for the high horsepower air cleaner flip and straight pipe in place of the muffler. I loved this cat and drove it for 5 years, one of the ones I would like to have again.
This is probably the only pic I have of my 1st car, a 1964 Buick Skylark:
Hard to tell in the pic, but it was navy blue with a light blue interior. It had the 225ci Fireball V6 backed by the 2-speed Super Turbine 300. It was the slowest vehicle in existence, but it ran fantastic and never left me stranded. The single circuit manual drum brakes worked most of the time; the pedal would sometimes go to the floor and you would go sailing through an intersection. It's fanciest feature was the 4-way power bench seat; the ENTIRE bench would move on that switch!
About a year into ownership, the fuel tank started leaking, and a replacement was over $300, so it sat while I drove other family vehicles. Instead of buying a tank, I bought a 1987 Cougar XR7 for $250, and shortly later when the trans grenaded on that car, ANOTHER near-identical $250 Cougar XR7 (which can be seen in the background) was purchased. I had plans of pulling the drivetrain and swapping in either a Grand National 3.8 Turbo, a Nailhead 401 or 425 V8, or a 455, but I found rust in the frame near the body mounts, so I sold the car. I'd love to have that one back!
OK. I think the statute of limitations has run out... 
1976 Honda Civic purchased when I was going to design college in Detroit. Bought it from one of my classmates in 1986. First thing to do was remove bumpers and add a few other touches.
Three other friends had similar cars and we drove them as a "gang" on occasion. Mischief tended to ensue. All of them evolved in creative and interesting ways. Two eventually lost their roofs.
Eventually they were all painted flat black. Another friend was interning at Autoweek at the time and photographed the cars near school to include in a section of the magazine that featured... oddities? They christened us the "Bash Boys" due to some of the antics we got into with the cars. They all met fairly unceremonious demises. 
The end.
1993 Pontiac Bonneville. Wasn't even on the radar when I was shopping for a car. Originally wanted a small car with a stick, but when I saw this on the back lot of a local dealer, I knew it was going to be mine. What a fantastic car, and the first car I ever autocrossed. It was terrible at it (duh), but I didn't care. Great college car. Traded it in for a newer GTO after college, but always kind of wanted to own it again. Perhaps one day.
1963 Studebaker Lark station wagon with 259 cid V8, three on-the-tree and solenoid activated overdrive, air conditioning, and a rear seat that folded flat so that you could sleep on long trips. I drove it and wrenched on it my last two years at the University of Texas when the car was more than ten years old. Few people recall that in the 1960's Studebaker provided Mercedes Benz with a dealership network for sales and service. I inherited the car from my grandmother after she was pulled over for driving more than 60 mph on a farm-to-market road zoned at 35 mph. She was then in her ninth decade. Her second mistake was pushing in the clutch on a hill which allowed the Studebaker to roll over the deputy sherif's foot! That resulted in the loss of her driver's license.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/124304610@N07/31441342831/in/album-72157657005102812/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/124304610@N07/30749573263/in/album-72157657005102812/
1981 Plymouth Voyager, what parents allowed me to take their daughters on dates? Surprisingly most of them
this isn't it but it looked quite similar. Red and white. Almost cleared 500k miles when I was going off to college with a brand new to me 1985 Diplomat so it went in the scrap yard. One wheel peels were epic with recapped snow tires...
My first fun car was simultaneous and was an 81 d150 shortbed step side with turbo 225 3 spd that my dad and I put together. Then it had a 383 then a 318 from a police interceptor which was the best engine for it. I have pics of it somewhere, I sold it and all the other fun stuff I had when I bought my first house
My first car was blue 4 speed coupe with a crappy 4 banger in it. It was a complete rust bucket. Two weeks after I bought it, a chunk fell out of the floor, leaving the carpet and a piece of plywood the only thing between one of the back footwells and Flintstone style propulsion. That hole developed into a major stress fracture in the unibody after going over railroad tracks at speed one too many times. It was taken off of the road and sold for parts back when you had to pay per line in the classified ads.
Thus began a decades long pursuit of questionable (but fun) automotive choices. Oddly enough, that particular make of car kind of has a cult following now, but back then it was just a beater.
It also may be the answer to a security question (though likely not at this point) so details are Top Secret.
Ok to have two first cars?
First car that was supposed to be mine and what I learned to drive stick on was a 1966 VW station wagon. Baby poop brown with what was once white shag carpet in the back, but was a dingy yellow when we got the car, and white vinyl seats from a Camaro. My dad traded a TV for it and I remember being sad as mom and I followed him home. I learned about the VW scene and started to think maybe it wouldn't be too bad. I was 15 and dad took me out a few times in the country so I could learn to drive stick. Next door neighbor borrowed to one day and the motor overheated and locked up and had it towed home. Someone as a joke wrote For Sale $150 on the window with shoe polish. Two guys showed up to buy it and dad sold it. I never drove it by myself
About a month before I turned 16, they bought me a 1967 Triumph GT6. Rusted passenger floor, goofy American Racing mags on it and red. Drove it all through high school until I got my Bugeye for graduation. I'll admit to beating the snot out of that car and learning to flick the rear end sideways on pretty much every turn. Only major cost were tires (super cheap ones), a clutch that we replaced by pulling the transmission from inside the car, and we eventually fiberglassed the passenger floor. It was hot in the Texas summers with that big straight 6 and a black vinyl interior, but I still miss it.
-Rob
1972 standard Beetle. Baby blue 1600, 4 speed.
1999 Toyota Corolla. Perfect first car... except for burning a quart of oil every 300 miles after a couple months of owning it. After one summer in my parent's garage, it no longer burned oil! Attached is a pic at an autocross, in peak form. It served me well for ~40k miles, then my brother put 30k miles on it in one year. It ended up with a friend until they got T-boned at 220k miles. Car was completely undrivable, but still started up with no hesitation. Sad to see it go on a flatbed. I would have loved to get it back! 
In reply to rob_lewis :
I had a similar situation with a "first car" that never made it to the road. For me, that was a 1985 Civic Wagovan. It was gold and had a brown and orange plaid interior. Parents bought it from a neighbor who was moving for $50. It wouldn't stay running no matter what we did to it, and it had no title, so it got junked before my Buick showed up.
1948 Ford Deluxe Tudor with a 239 cu in flathead, two Stomberg 97's, 26 tooth Lincoln Zephyr gears in the trans shifted by a Hurst Mystery Shifter, headers dumping into Hollywood Deep Tone glass packs from JC Whitney. Boy, am I showing my age!
First one I bought was a 1972 Cuda 340 4 speed in 1985, for $1500. Drove it through college, learning to wrench: clutch, brakes, wheel bearings, u-joints - at 110k miles loss of stuff was shot in those days. Also rusty. The 125 nitrous kit was a bad idea, though, and started the ball rolling on a 15 year project, 10 of which it was completely off the road.
While the body was slowly getting redone I rebuilt the previously-upgraded engine to 1968++ spec, did all new suspension bushings, added much of the California Moparts suspension catalog, a Firm Feel ps box, Koni shocks, a Rallye steering wheel and a pair of Porsche 944 seats. That turned out so well I upgraded the brakes with Viper calipers over 11.75" Diplomat rotors & GM-derived rear disk brakes along with 17" forged Mustang 5 spokes and good tires ( all funded by buying and then selling 2 pallets of NIB Brembo 11.75" rotors to other Mopar weirdos). It wasn't finished but had achieved my goal of a solid, fast, excellent-handling V8 coupe.
Then I had a chance to buy the car I'd wanted but couldn't afford at the time, so after about 20 years my first car went off to a fellow in Pennsylvania who died a couple weeks later. A few years after that I got a call from a hotrod shop that found my number in the car's paperwork and wanted to know the specs. Said he hated the 17" wheels but it was the best running and driving E-body he'd driven, which made my day.
Sometimes I google the Vin for old times' sake. It went to auction awhile after the hotrod shop called, with the wheels and brakes returned to lame-azz stock, and I haven't seen a hit in many years.
If you're out there, BS23H2B215359, drop a line some day.
My first car was my mom's ROW '81 Civic 4 speed manual. I learned to drive on it and it became mine when my mom upgraded to an EF Civic hatchback.
80's notchback mustang pulled out of a farmer's field for $100. At one point it was red with white vinyl seats, the seats were 90% foam.
Spent the Summer swapping a junkyard 5.0L in with my Grandfather. We were on an extreme budget.
We couldn't figure out how to wire the fan to the ignition, so it had a mystery switch under the dash that I frequently forgot to turn off, killing the battery. A/C didn't work, I spent two very miserable TX Summers stinking up the interior. It had a massive fuel leak I never tracked down, mostly because gas was $.50/gal.
Also took me 9 months to realize that we never put new tires on it. I thought the thundering torque of the V8 made it an insatiable burnout machine. Turns out it was 15 year old, badly dry rotted rubber. It's a miracle I didn't wreck that thing. Sold it to Carmax for $100
First car was a 1957 Volvo 444. 1600cc of roaring power. Paid $100 plus $6 sales tax. I didn't have a license yet, so my dad drove home. 46mph on the freeway, flat out.
Burned valves and broken ring lands explained some of the problems. JC Whitney and I ended up touching just about every part of that car over the next year.
By the time I was done, it had a rebuilt engine, brakes, generator, dual SUs, and new paint.
Not my car, but could be if the paint was shiny.
It was a great car until a '71 MGB-GT caught my attention.
From my Opel thread:
"When I was 15 my Step-dad gave me his old 1975 Opel Kadett 1900. I could not figure out the mechanical injection, but it introduced me to my 2nd car a 1970 Opel GT. I had a Chiltons manual for the Kadett and each chapter had a different Opel pic at the start. Kadett, Kadett Wagon, Manta (Ooo, that's cool), GT (epiphany for sure).
A few years later (1989) I bought a 1971 GT for $1200. I got some garage space at a friends parents house and set out freshening it up. I found a period article on how to hot rod them and did. It ended up a 2ltr fire spitting beast. I went hunting Fieros, GTs especially. It was 1970s fast.
I totaled it 30 days after I started driving it. I thought I could straddle a man hole in a construction zone at a good clip. I was wrong.
I have a wife now and she is a car girl. We got to talking about what car we missed most. Mine was this Opel. She had never heard of one and asked to see pics. When I showed her the pics online she exclaimed: "We need one of those!". This from a girl that wanted me to get rid of my 914 because it would never be worth anything and was always in the way.
That was a few years ago and I have always been looking. Today I bought a 1971 Opel GT with the 1900cc motor and a 4spd. Inspection ended 6 days ago and runs and drives."
Now the important bit.
It's my berkeleying car, bought again 30 years later and 800 miles away!
It sits in my driveway waiting for it's turn to get repaired and modded.
When we were cleaning it out I started noticing similarities and eventually I freaking found something of MINE in the car. Unbelievable! It was something that my step-father knew so I sent him a picture. He exclaimed: "NO WAY! That was mine...YOU BOUGHT YOUR OLD CAR BACK!!!!"
So damn cool.
1972 Capri, loved that car. I also owned a 1978 Capri and would love to have either or both back in my garage.
1973 Mazda RX-2. It would have been a really cool car if it had been a manual shift 2-door, but it was an automatic 4-door, light yellow in color. Still way more fun than it looked. It's the car that got me addicted to the spinning Doritos. When the points were set right in the twin dizzies and the little 4-barrel carb was dumping fuel, that 12A was a glorious engine with plenty of thrust once you got it over 4000 RPM. I drove it daily for almost five years, then sold it to a guy who totaled it a week later.
My first car was my dad's 1972 chev farm truck. It was very very tired and did not have a single straight panel. When he could no longer keep oil and plugs in it he sold it to me for $500.00. But since he had not taken delivery of his new old ratbagged beater he continued to drive it for a few weeks after I paid for it. He was backing it out of the shop one day and since both mirrors had been torn off he opened the door to look behind him, and promptly bent it back against the hood as it caught the barn door post. He said "sorry about that" and handed me the keys.
I set about hammering the door straighter and rebuilding the motor on dad's work bench. My hot rodding friends sold me every hot rod part they could think of and I ended up with a homemade tunnel ram, a holley 850 double pumper, headers from something that had to be kinked to fit, and a porting and matching job by three enthusiastic 15 year olds with files and an electric drill. It had a very very very lumpy cam and a very very very poor assembly job with a few open end wrenches and no torque wrench or real ability or experience at all. One day I came into the shop to find my dad had been cutting wood beside the partially assembled block and it was covered in sawdust. When it was together it was so tight it would not turn over so we dragged the truck up and down the road with a tractor until it loosened up. I actually drove that thing for over a year and one day the Holley flooded and caught fire and the truck burned to the ground. I got $500.00 from insurance and went on to make other equally poor automotive decisions.
My first car was a also a 63 Studebaker Lark - 2 door hardtop that I got from my parents when the clutch went out in 1968. Straight 6 with a three speed on the column..red cloth interior. White wheels. It was a thing for me back then. I repainted it the original Champaign Gold and put in a cheap floor shifter.
1970 - High school car was '65 TR4A in my parents name. Very much stock. College car was aTR6 - 1972 through fall of 75. Still using my parents name for the car.
I've had a TR ever since except one 5 month period.
First car in my own name was a '67 TR4A that I got in spring of 76. It had a hot cam, big bore kit, header and a 411 rear. The SU's from the '67 4 are on my 250.
1974 Dodge Charger - lasted 5 days. As the song goes: "Oak tree you're in my way"
Upon graduation and receipt of my associates degree my mom split the cost on an 83 Honda Civic 1200 automatic three door hatch in the very notable Honda light blue. I was heading up the Northway in NY towards a college friend's home in Saranac Lake when I blew the engine near Warrensburg. Hole the size of a nickle in the block. Had I forgotten to check the coolant level? Maybe. Mom was pissed.
The first car I purchased on my own was actually two cars. Both were A1 rabbits. I paid my boss $200 for both, pulled them into the shop on Friday night, swapped all the best parts onto the least rusty chassis, and drove it for about a year. Including delivering pizzas for Dominoes. I autocrossed and beat the snot out of that car. Learned that you don't rev hard a cold engine, and that A1 chassis VWs really are like Legos. Thus began my descent into long term VW ownership that lasts to this day.
The first new car I ever purchased (and current DD) is my 13 Mazda 2. Basically a modern interpretation of that original A1 chassis rabbit. All 192000 miles on it are mine.
EDIT: re; David Wallens, Bridgehampton?
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