What was your first car?

1/4 Midget was first car, 68 Camaro was first street car I bought when I got my license in '74.

[URL=https://app.photobucket.com/u/NOTATA/a/7009cfe6-c358-4dbc-90c1-18d8bafca313/p/b2e6073c-f57b-4aa1-991e-7d4988ca068b][/URL]

[URL=https://app.photobucket.com/u/NOTATA/a/7009cfe6-c358-4dbc-90c1-18d8bafca313/p/8c80b0cb-ccbb-47ba-876d-135b6d4d8ada][/URL]

Man you guys are young! My first car was a 1954 Austin A40 Somerset - beige, warped head, broken half shaft and completely blown Armstrong lever shocks! Boingy, boingy, boingy down the road very slowly. It taught me a lot about wrenching!

1987 Toyota GTS like this one:

Felt fast for an 19 year old in 1999. It was a true POS (probably from previous owners). Blew up the engine in less than 6 months. Still loved it. Pop-up headlights!

A very clean bracken orange '71 MGB GT. Loved it. Wrecked it. 

M2Pilot said:

djsilver (Forum Supporter) said:

 

 

1966 Renault Dauphine.  $35 purchase price, $115 for the engine rebuild kit (including wet sleeves) and $44 for 4 VW Tires. (Summer of 1974)

You have my heartfelt sympathy. I hope you've recovered.

It got me around for my 1st year of college quite well on 27 cents-a-gallon gas.  And it saved me from some stupidity. I managed to drive over my roommate's girlfriend's foot during parking lot shenanigans and she was no worse for the wear.  I also discovered that if you managed to get it going more than 60MPH, the front end would lift and I'd have to slow down to turn!

My first car was a '63 Studebaker Lark in 1968.  170 ci straight six with a three on the tree.   It was my mother's and the trans went belly up.  Mom got a new Camaro.

 I had it painted the factory color ( champagne gold). 

I rebuilt the trans.  I didn't have a workshop manual for it but my neighbor was an engineer who had a 'You can do it kid' attitude about mechanical stuff.  He lent me his repair manual for his Corvette and I just kind of noodled my way through the rebuild. I of course had to put a floor shift in it and loose the column shifter.

It was neat car.

1988 MR2, Supercharged. Found it in the local newspaper, for sale by some potbelly farmer. He had no idea what he had. He was asking $1000 with it needing a clutch. Got my Dad to go look at it. He instantly came back and said "oh, it needs this and that" and hit him back with $500, which he took! Trying to find a damn clutch disc for one of those is nearly impossible! 

My first car was 1983 powder blue escort 2 dr with blue interior. It was a base model with two options, it was an automatic with a/c. We got it off a widower, it was his wife's car that she used to to the salon, grocery store and church. It had sat long enough the tires had dry rotted. I drove it the first 2 yrs of college and sold it to my parents to give to my younger sister as her first car. I used the money to buy a light blue gmc sprint. Not mine but could be its twin.

In reply to djsilver (Forum Supporter) :

A friend had a Dauphine that was so rusted that he could not two doors on the same side because the car would sag in the middle and he'd have a tough time getting them to shut.

1974 Capri V6 bought in 1983 like this one:

 Drove it for 3 years, rebuilt the engine, and put it on its roof at my first ever track day at Sears Point.  Bought a '73 with a sick 2 liter and swapped the drivetrain over.  Sold it in the late '90's in Michigan, and the guy who bought it did a nice job with an interior replacement and repaint.  Saw it again when he came to spectate at an SCCA race I was running at MIS in about 2012.  Still looked great.

Green '75 Nova I bought from my late and much missed friend, Ray. He worked at a bike shop, and the whole thing was covered in bike stickers. Easy to find in a parking lot.

When I bought it, it needed a clutch and a passenger window. I got the wrong window from the junkyard twice (one was from the hatch version, don't recall why the other was wrong) and was getting pretty quick at the job by the time I got the right window. Never got the three-on-the-tree linkage totally right after the clutch job, but got to where I could unstick the linkage when it'd be stuck in third at stoplights by opening the door, hanging onto the wheel, and leaning out to reach under the car... I significantly improved the door cards with some brown duct tape where the vinyl was shot.

Traded it back to Ray for a set of Rock Shox before buying his dad's '80 Rabbit, which was the first car I autocrossed.

EDIT to add the "stereo," which consisted of a pair of boombox speakers mounted int the doors, wired so I could plug them directly into my Walkman. It was mostly audible at residential speeds.

1966 VW Bus. $25 purchase price.

Except mine had a peace sign on the front.

More than one person lost their innocence in that thing.  Oh wait... Was I supposed to say that?

In reply to David S. Wallens :

still have it

Possibly the rustiest Corvair you could find in 1978.  Still loved that car.

My first car should have been a Buick Skyhawk in that lovely '70's green, but there was no place to put it and my mom would not have been able to afford having another licensed driver in the house (insurance).  I bought a motorcycle instead.  My first car ended up being a 1986 Ford Escort GT with about 110k on the clock.  It eventually hit 150k like a brick wall.

1987 Chevy Nova. A NUMMI Corrola with a terrible Delco radio shoved in it. It was reliable and otherwise terrible.

My second car was a 1990 Acura Integra.  Much, much better. Probably has something to do with why I'm on my fifth Honda!

74 Standard Beetle bought in 2008. My first engine build(and second when I screwed up the first). I ruined the ride with the 4" lift and EMPI "coilovers." Got her up to 96mph(GPS becuase the lift kit didn't have a provision for the speedo). I really miss that POS. I still have those period correct surfboard racks that my neighbor gave me for it. Not pictured is the world's loudest exhaust, a megaphone welded onto a 4-1 header. The kid across the street used me firing it up in the morning as an alarm clock.

63 Sprite. Not this car, but pretty nice. The paint was the color and texture of an orange.

Mine was a 1979 Mustang coupe with the 2.8l V6, white with red interior

In reply to pkingham (Forum Supporter) :

I know of one of these with exactly the same color, in similarly excellent condition, driven regularly, but no where near Michigan (Seattle).

'78 Saab 99 hatchback, received from my dad, who had essentially used it up (tons of commuting miles, salt). I performed the world's worst paint prep and had Earl Scheib's finest respray it -- the pic is soon after getting it back. Drove it to nearly 350,000 miles on the odo, then it went off to my aunt; it died in Texas a short while after. I'm guessing the East Coast rust traumatized any techs who might've worked on it for her.

Green 67 bug.  Fun car.  Put a rear swaybar in it.  That was a bit of a revelation moment.

Two tone Red/White 1955 Ford Fordor.  I was not impressed at first site since it was 4 dr and automatic. However, it had  dual exhaust and when I removed the huge oil bath air cleaner I found a 4 bbl. I was given the keys and went directly to the local highway quarter mile. (This was 1962) The car was fast, I found out later the 292 engine was replaced with a 312.  I abused that car for 2 years until graduation and joining Air Force. Only negative was the 6 volt electrical system and cold weather starting.  $200

An 81' Audi GT coupe.  I only had it a few months before the oil pump went out and the cam seized.

While technically not mine, I had free use of my fathers '41 Willys  Americar during high school.  Learned to drive in it an got my license.

A few years later when living off base I bought a '47 Plymouth. Did two round trips,Texas to NY and back.