Tell us about your first car!
 

We all drive a wonderful car now, but what was the first car you were given or bought to drive when you were a kid? Be sure to include your age at the time, what you paid for it, and take a few sentences to describe it and what you liked most about it and what you hated about it. If you have pics, post them!

I'll go first:

1972 Toyota Corona Deluxe, faded red paint, Crager mags (believe it or not), very wide tires on the back, red white and blue stars and strips racing stripes up the hood, over the roof and down the back. A rare RWD Toyota sedan. Looked ridiculous with the mags and stripes, had no power whatsoever, but got me to my job at McDonald's.

Bought it off my first girlfriend's dad for $400, and sold it for $700 after I put $500 into it in a year.

Loved the fact that it had a bench seat, which was very, very good for making out with my first girlfriend. All I can remember is how that woman could swirl her tongue in my mouth and drive me absolutely bonkers... because that's all she would do with me! I look back on that car with great pleasure as well as great frustration.

Hated the car because of it's automatic transmission, which was on the column... and poorly engineered at that. It sat in a parking lot for three days once while my buddy and I tried to figure out why the stupid thing wouldn't start. Discovered it was left in gear... no key-locking device was on the car in those days when you shut off the engine with the car in gear.

Anyone else? There's got to be a million great stories out there, and I'd like to read yours!

Hmmm...first cars.
My first car was an 85 Audi 4000 quatro coupe. Not a ton of power but was fast in its own right in those days. Was all wheel drive though.
It was a charcoal grey with a grey cloth interior. It was standard transmission. I will never forget putting, I think it is spelled....Fetapaldi(?) wheels and within two weeks managed to bend both of the front wheels. I was living in Stamford Ct at the time and the roads were terrible.
No bench seat for my girlfreind at the time, but will never forget having sex in the front seat of that car on a dark night in the local park or parking lot.
My next car was an 87 Audi 5000 turbo. Fast car but really bad sudden acceleration problems. nice back seat though :)

1986 BMW 535i

black leather, 5 speed, brand new grey/blue metallic paint. By the time I got rid of it, it had 20% tint, the new (like 2000 model) gunmetal M5 wheels, exhaust, custom all Rockford Fosgate stereo install, including custom upolstery (I still remember my mom's expression the day we were taking the cutting wheel to the rear deck...), and almost a new engine. Ahh... those were the days.

Of course, it had no working a/c when I bought it. 1 compressor, 1 dryer, 1 high pressure line, 1 low pressure line, 2.5 pounds of R-12, and 16 hours of back-breaking labor later, you'd freeze your butt off if you left it on high for more than a minute.

Yeah, everyone should include those stories, too. For us, it was the parking lot of the local elementary school. I remember my girlfriend wearing those knee-high leather stiletto boots for me one night, thinking that I'd like it. I did, of course, but I asked her to take them off before we climbed into the back seat -- I didn't want them tearing up the leather.

What a dumb move! :)

63 vette roadster in silver blue with dark blue interior, white top. Put some chrome wheels on it later.
:dance:
Ahh, that was a great car indeed! What a summer we had.

My first car was a 198something (forget which year, it was so long ago) BMW 318i. Was a great little car! Dark Grey exterior, black interior, and was just fun to drive.

1968 Firebird purchased in 1977 for $1,000. Navy blue with white vinyl roof. 350 engine. Hydromatic transmission. Goodrich Radial T/A's. Blew the head gasket tring to keep up with a 911. My first painful experience with Porsche...until getting the bill for my 30K service. lol Sorry, no sex stories....I don't kiss and tell. I'll only say that the logistics were WAY better than a boxster!!

84 Honda Accord purchased for $2500. Sold for $600 :(

First Car...
 

1987 Pontiac Firebird. 305 cid V8. 4bbl carb. Much too much power for a young kid of 16 :) I now spend my days ********************ing that these young kids drive too fast. They zoom by me and get to the exit 2 seconds before me. I might as well hitch my pants up, start yelling at kids to turn their music down...

As for what jfmiller was saying, try having sex in the front seat of a firebird with bucket seats!

jonnybgood, I feel the same way you do! I was making old-man-noises the other day, saying something like:

"That kid needs to quit dropping his cash into that boom box on wheels, get a haircut and stop with the tattoo collection he currently has!"

Yup, time to wear the sansabelt slacks up around my armpits and tell everyone what life was like "in the old days."

Now back to your first car! Who else will contribute?

added image
 

1987 Plymouth Duster. I paid $2200 for it in 1992. fine car for a 17 year old kid learning to drive. It looked fast, but wasn't. Hatchback versatility. I had it until I was 22 when I sold it for $400 to buy my Integra GS-R.

http://memimage.cardomain.net/member...698_4_full.jpg

1985 Toyota MR2
 

got it brand new, white w/ black interior, 5 speed. i think it was $14,700 out the door back then, it wasnt cheap. it was a blast. had it until 92'.

The first car I bought was a 1957 Chevy 210 2dr post for $300 from my brother's friend when I was 14. The first car that I had that I used for an extended period of time was a 1968 Chevelle that I paid $800 for when I was 16. That car looked good, ran good (327 4spd) and was my high school "love machine". My biggest problem was leaky air shocks that would leak until the rear fenders would rub on my wide rear tires (had the skinny ones on the front like a drag car). That car was stolen the week after I graduated high school. So I bought a 71 Trans Am with 30k miles for $2,200 to go to college.

A renault 4 :-)
I attached a picture so you guys can realize what sort of disaster we are talking about... :D

My first car was an '86 Olds Cutlass Sierra. My mom got in an accident in it before she gave it to me and never got it fixed. The whole time I had it; there was a big dent in the hood and a smashed grill. It had two nice bench seats with plenty of room on the inside :dance: The roof liner fell down all the time and I kept a stapler in the car to stick it back up when ever it fell down. I had about a million stickers on the back when I finally got rid of it. My sister drove it for a bit after I got a different car, then it was donated someplace.

My second car was a '91 Toyota Tercel. My uncle sold it to me for a $1, it had about 150K miles on it when I got it, but it was in totally perfect condition. I think it had about 60 Hp and would struggle to go up a hill if I had three friends in the car. At first I hated the car, however it got about 6 million MPG and I could literally go 2 months at school between fill ups. Today I appreciate the time I owned this car for one and only one reason. It was a stick. To that point I had no idea how to drive manual, I was forced to learn. Without this Tercel, I’m sure my Box would have had the Tiptronic in it today.

The whole time I was in high school I drove the P.O.S. Cutlass (lovingly known as the S-Mobile) then in college the Tercel. When my younger sister was old enough to drive, my parents went out and bought her a VW Cabrio. To say I was pissed was an understatement. To quell a potential family civil war, my dad eventually handed me down his Firebird which I still use as my daily driver today.



There are a bunch of Firebird/Boxster owners, interesting. :cheers:

VW bug for me
 

1964 VW bug. Lots of fun no gas gauge I believe it was 40 hp. I had it when I was learning to fly. Actually it prepared me for taxing an airplane since the car was very subjective to cross winds.
I once ran out of fuel and went to a gas station to "borrow a gas container". Needless to say the manager said no then I bought a 16 oz coke and drank it proceed it to fill it with gas and that got the car going again. :cool:

1989 VX Fox. Bright Red. We bought it new (I was only 8), and I later bought it from my mom in high school, and drove it into college, where I sold it for a 1997 Integra.

After blowing too much money turning my integra into the "ultimate rice mobile," I bought the Boxster this past summer.

First car Horsepower: something like 92
Second car HP: around 130
Current car HP around 220

So the next logical step would be somewhere over 300 HP, right? :)

1962 Rambler Classic
 

The only car I've ever owned that you could repair with random stuff out of a junk pile or hardware store, which I did many times (drawer locks to replace broken trunk lock, radial tire sidewall chunk to replace the rubber clutch linkage [that was fun when the original broke in traffic], pc. of plexiglass for a side vent window, etc.). The exhaust system parts fabricated out of #10 food service tin cans and furnace cement was a wonder to behold!

All steel dash - you could use refrigerator magnets to post notes on it! And notice the speedometer went all the way up to 12. Reclinable bench front seat - very handy for certain activities... :D

Easiest oil change ever - no need for jacks or ramps with the amount of ground clearance and the oil filter was mounted on top of the engine. You could actually stand on the ground inside the engine compartment to work on the 192 cu. in. straight six engine. Got something over 30 MPG with 5+ friends in the car. We'd take my car to boneyards to find the parts for my friend's Lotus Europa JPS we were rebuilding and could fit whole sections of his car in the trunk.

Bought it for $125 with ~40K miles on it - literally from "a little old lady", made nearly $2000 clear from insurance payoffs over the three years I had it (people kept rear-ending me due to the small dim tail/stop lights - I'd end up towing their badly-bent relatively new car to the gas station with my almost-undamaged car, their insurance company would declare my car a "total" and pay me $500; repeat...).

Three years later sold it for $125 when I couldn't get a replacement starter and window wiper motor (powered by engine vacuum) to keep it going. Of course the next JC Whitney catalog to show up had both parts!

I was getting phone calls from later owners for years - that beast just kept on going...

Next in the early parade was a kick ass 318 V8 Plymouth Satellite, as the B-52s sang: "...faster than the speed of liiiighhhht..."

1956 VW Bug
I was stationed in Germany from 1965 to 1967 and enjoyed the VW on all types of German roads. I was stationed in Giessen. One Saturday, two other GI's and myself decided to go to Koblenz, about 90 miles away. I don't ever remember why we decided to go there, but it was a great drive on backroads for three young people. Stopped along the way at a couple Gasthaus's for some fine German beer, ogled some women, and, in general, celebrated being young with no attachments.

a 1964 Karmann Ghia.. bought it for $50. Used to have to park on hills so I could roll start it when it was time to go. Even then I knew topless was the way of my life!! Drove that car for a year roll starting it every time.