Your dads defining car

Mine was a 1959 Cadillac El Dorado convertible. 
Took the family cross country to California. 

1971 Mach 1. 
 

still want one from all the stories he tells. 

My grandfather owned a Chrysler dealership that passed to my dad in '53 when my grandfather died young of a heart attack. Even though my dad sold the dealership shortly after, he was pretty much a Chrysler guy for a long time.

My memory of dad's cars is etched with a string of three Chrysler Newports we had from '70 to the early '80s

First one was the first family car I remember, a white '70 4-door Newport that took our family of five on a six-week trip from Indianapolis to Mt. McKinley NatPark and back, via Canada going out and northern US coming back, towing a pop-up camper.

Second one was a burgundy '75 4dr. By then my sister and brother were both out on their own, so I always got the huge back seat to myself.

Third was a beige '80 or '81 4dr (don't recall exactly which year). I learned to drive in that one. He replaced it in the later '80s with an awful Reliant K.

Since they stopped making Newports my dad hasn't had the same model or make more than once. He owns a Kia now.

78 Dodge 4x4 pickup. Blood red. 360 with a 4 speed. The old man drove it harder and faster than any 4 wheel drive had any business driving. I have a lot of fond memories of that truck.

My dad had lots of various cool cars from the late 60's through the 80's, Austin Minis, two-stroke SAABs, Alfa Romeo GTVs, and Lotuses, but the car that left the biggest impression on him, and the car that redefined a streetable motorsports car for him was his Integra Type R. Just last weekend he was remarking about what an amazing car it was because it was fast, responsive, capable, a joy to drive, and still reasonably civilized as such things go. I doubt I will ever forget riding with him at a trackday in the advanced group where he was extracting pretty much every last ounce the car had, lapping almost as fast as anyone else in the session, and beating up on more-modestly-driven Z06s, 911 Turbos, and the like.

To be honest, a lot of my dad's car stories stick with me. More so than any one vehicle.

There was the 1969 F100 and the 1978 F150 that he was always working on when I was a kid.

Before I was born, he and someone else went into a junkyard, found two broken trucks, and spent the weekend combining them into one working truck and drove it out of there.

There was his old Ford truck that rolled down a hill when parked and totaled someone's car and only had a dented bumper.

The story about the most epic burnout, when he had a Maverick and did such a smoky burnout with the car not moving at all that his brother thought the clutch burned out.

He had a Buick that went through several transmissions, then eventually a wiring problem caused it to burn to the ground.

There's more stories he's told me but I can't remember them now.

Dad wasn't a car guy, everything we had was an appliance.

The one I remember most was the monkey turd brown 1977 Ford Custom 500 4-door.

A few stuck with me: 

my grandfathers ‘61 Plymouth fury (which he hated) that he learned to drive on

a ‘69 Chevy c10 shortbed that he learned to drive stick on when he was working construction; straight six, 3 on the tree

‘65 bel air was his first car and had floorboards so rusted you could see the road. 

’72? Volvo 142 that he bought once he started making money  

73 Capri - his first car

62 ford truck - rust bucket, but the first one I remember him having and he had it for years

61 corvette - this one he still has and loves driving.

My dad wasn't much of a car guy.  But a few stories/ vehicles stuck with me.  In chronological order:

"The Red Diamond".  This was allegedly the car my dad learned to drive on.  Purportedly some flavor of 1950-something Chevrolet sedan, it was a 'lot car' owned by someone in the family.  The car got its name from the fact that it was mostly rust, except for a diamond-shaped patch of red paint remaining on the driver's door.  Various shenanigans by my then-teenaged dad and his friends in that car...

1970 Barracuda.  My dad's first "new" car.  /6 automatic.  He wrecked it several times, decided it was vexed, and sold it.  He still claims it was "too fast". 

1975(ish) GMC pickup, 2WD, brown, with a bed topper.  What replaced the Barracuda.  It had a 350, and got 10 mpg.  This is the first vehicle of my dad's I have any memory of, riding 3 across the front seat with my parents.  Rust eventually ate it, and my dad hated the terrible gas mileage.

1982 Chevy pickup, tan, 2WD, long bed, inline 6, automatic.  Bought new, and drove through  most of my childhood.  This is the truck I most associate with my dad.  This is the first vehicle I recall doing an oil change on, changing the spark plugs, overheating while towing the boat up to the Thousand Islands...My brother, my dad, and I squeezed three across the front vinyl bench seat, oldies coming through the Delco radio.  This was the first vehicle I ever drove (I was 14 at the time)- my grandfather borrowed it from my dad and let me drive it while under his supervision, and while hauling grandpa's ancient Bolens tractor in the bed.  My dad never found out I had driven it until years later.  We got over 100,000 good miles out of that truck, and it wasn't even very rusty when my dad sold it for a new truck in the early 90's. 

Chrysler 300F.

1958 Mercury Voyager wagon.

He's not a car guy, but he seems to accidentally have an affinity for weird things with manual transmissions.

During my lifetime:

Nissan Stanza, maroon, tan landau top, luggage rack, manual- this is the car he drove when I was a young kid.  I definitely remember it being an outstandingly terrible looking car, even by the standards of the mid 90s.

Volvo S70, special ordered manual trans?- his first "nice" car, actually pretty decent, eventually handed down to my brother.  It popped out of gear on a hill once, rolled into a post, got fixed by a body shop, and then a tree branch fell right on the hood on the way home from the body shop, marking the very last time my dad ever gave a single berkeley about the exterior of a car.

Before my lifetime:

68 Mustang, base BASE model- the only car he really seems to miss.  3 speed manual, anemic 6 cylinder, roll up windows and AM radio.  Apparently it was kind of crappy even in the 70s.  I want to find him another one some day.

Datsun B210, bright orange- this thing was legendary for continuously falling apart and still running and moving.  Apparently it was stolen from the dealer he traded it in to, and he received a call from the police one night saying "his" car (the dealer never transferred the title) was used in a robbery in New York city.  His only response was "it made it to New York???"

Dad had a penchant for small trucks but at his core he was a Nova man. He owned around a dozen over the years, but the one that really stands out was the blue 69 nova with big/little Welds like this. It was the first engine I built around 10 years old (with lots of oversight of course):

My father was also not a car guy. 

He drove Chevrolet Caprice Classics the entire time I was growing up. While decent cars, they aren't exactly inspiring. 

The more memorable cars were the '62 C10 flatbed that was the spare truck. It was relegated to farm duty before long and I learned to drive in it. 

Or the late 60s Opel Kadett my mom drove to work for years and my brother destroyed before I got a chance to drive it. 

When I started driving we had a 78 C10 that was a hoot to beat around town in. I spent a fair amount of money keeping tires on it.

And on date nights I always tried to snag the 78 Ford E150, because the extra space was nice. It was also a 5 speed. 

Pretty sure your Mom's defining car was my old Mustang.

My Dad is absolutely a car guy.  He spent so much time keeping old Fords on the road in high school (1950's) that he kept me from having a car until I was in college so I'd concentrate on school.  LOL.

He brought a 1960 Opel home from Germany with him, first car I ever rode in apparently.  There was also a mid 50's Ford station wagon and a early 60's Mercury Comet wagon in there somewhere.  Later he had a 1969 Peugeot 404 followed by a 1973 Peugeot 504.  Next, a 1978 Datsun 810 with the 240 Z 6 cylinder and a 4 speed stick.  It was fast for the day but suffered from terminal body rot as well as a lot of minor but annoying repairs.

He went through a Mercedes phase when I was in college; first was a 1974 230 sedan (gas / 4 cylinder), then an 1981 300TD followed by a 1985 300 TD.   The '74 was probably the nicest car to drive, not super sporty but a good solid sedan that was a comfortable car on a trip.   The engine on the '81 had been tweaked by someone (guessing fuel pump mods) as it was pretty quick for a diesel and would "roll coal" long before that was a thing.  The '85 was the nicest looking, silver with the dark tan MB tex interior but it was noticeably slower than the '81.  Still, over 30 mpg in a good size car from either of them was pretty impressive.

It's been all Ford stuff since, he bought a '91 Grand Marquis new with a towing package (dual exhaust) and drove that a long time followed by a couple more Grand Marquis, an '11 Fusion and now a '16 Fusion with the Ecoboost.  (He claims it's the fastest thing he's ever owned, LOL.)

Tough to pick one defining car but I guess I'd go with the '74 Mercedes.  I'm pretty sure he'd want that one back.

My dad drove 3cylinder Geo Metros when I was a little kid.

Later he bought a Focus SVT when they first came out. I thought that car was the coolest thing ever. He still has it, kind of wasting away in the garage though.

1991 Caprice 9C1. White, Michigan patrol car unmarked. 88k miles when he bought it. When he sold it, 310k showing on the odo, but the speedo didn't work for 3 years. He'd changed spark plugs enugh that the #8 had about 2.5 threads left holding it in. That car was fun and a beast

The Renault Dauphine was before my time but boy did that one leave a mark on the psyche.

Edit: The Volvo 164 was well-loved and it took until this year when he bought an S60 to have another car that nice.

The most "sporting" car my Dad ever owned was a 1966 Comet Caliente 289 2V. Everything else was an appliance, always used, bought because the price was what he could afford. Because I'm Canadian , we did have several English vehicles over the years, 1949 Austin A40, 1951 Austin A40, 1962 Ford Zephyr, Vauxhall Viva HA, and a 1962 Standard Vanguard. 

Vanguard story........It's running like crap, so Dad takes it to our local garage, which is run by two young fellows who drag race big block Chevy Biscaynes. They figure out there are broken valve springs and the thing has triple springs. The local auto parts store has nothing listed for Standard Vanguards and it was a $175 car to begin with, so Dad traded it to the guy at the garage (his name was Rejean) for a set of shocks for the Comet. Months go by as Rejean fiddles with the car , trying all sortsof valve spring substitutes, until one day a local farmer wanders in while he's working on it. We all expected it to end up on the drag strip with a SBC , or something. Bob, the farmer, looks at it and says "Rejean, I've seen you put all kinds of motors in your race cars, but why would you put a tractor motor in this?" Rejean asks Bob what he means and Bob tells him it's a Massey-Ferguson motor. Rejean asks where can he find parts and Bob tells him the Massey dealer in the next town. The tractor dealer had springs on the shelf, problem solved and Rejean had a parts chaser wagon for quite a while, all for a set of shocks and a dozen valve springs.

Edit: It was a Triumph motor , shared between cars and Ferguson tractors.

Mid 1950's Studebaker Champion?  Too young to know much about the car, but loved the looks of it. I remember Mom hated it , because it was a stick.  1957 Ford Fairlane 500 hard top. First car I ever went to around 100 mph.  I was in the back seat, and Dad opened it up along a long stretch of upstate NY's country roads.   I remember him boasting "It's got the T-Bird engine in it".  I was about 6 or 7, probably started my fascination  with speed.

This is a hard one. Coolest car he owned, and likely the second longest ownership, was an Austin Healey 100-6. 

Longest ownership, and the car he still owns is an E30 BMW 318ic. That is going on 16 or 17 years in the stable. I'm going to call this the defining car. He liked it so much that he just bought an E30 325, automatic, for a DD. That replaces a short lived '18 GTI, which replaced a G37. 

But he's been so broad over all the spectrum that you could pick and American land yatch (Caprice, Roadmaster, Crown Vic) or obscure European sports cars (Opel GT) and just about everything in between, and you wouldn't be far off. 

1981 Ford F-150 4x4 with the 300 straight six and the new-for-1981 4 speed manual with overdrive. Dad was a woodworker and a practical guy, and that truck was very practical. Regular cab with an 8' bed for hauling lumber. Later on he had fancier trucks with V8s, automatic transmissions and such, but when I think of "Dad's truck", I think of that F-150.

Late 80's Chrysler Lancer Pacifica, he had a string of Omnis, GLH, GLHS, etc that he bought with warped heads or bad transmissions. Just kept buying them though. There was a junkyard near where we lived in Rome  NY  that knew their way around them so dad would buy them, take them there and then follow their directions to make it work. 
 

My MOM on the other hand bought a 78 or 79 Trailduster new and kept it till the early 90's.