1968 Dodge Polara I bought for $50 and got $35 when I scrapped it after using it for a winter car. The dipstick looked like a vanilla shake when you read the oil level. I always added a 30W non-detergent fearing I would knock a chunk of crud off and block an oil journal! Next was a 1965 AMC Rambler I bought for $200. It was an old Bell Telephone car painted "army green". I did sell it for $300 when I was done with it.
2003 Mercedes E55 AMG. Bought it used and fortunately got an extended warranty, which I have never done before and since. It ended up needing over $15k in warranty work beyond the factory warranty. Sold it a month before the extended warranty expired. Went like sink in a straight line but otherwise was very boring and spent alot of time in the shop. Positive was I got to try alot of other Mercedes products which were for the most part also pretty boring.
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03 Carrera
02 Boxster S Guards Red, black interior with matching hardtop
89 Carrera 4
89 944 S2
78 911SC
A 1985 Ford Tempo and a 1986 Peugeot 505 GL wagon.
Snap! 1985 Ford Tempo. I had just arrived in the US from Europe and this was my first experience driving an automatic. I thought the automatic was the problem but it wasn't. It was the Tempo.
Yay! My folks bought a '78 new, and it was the very first car I ever drove. Good, honest little car, actually.
Most forgettable is a tie between a seriously boring '77 Accord, and an even more boring '87 Toyota Tercel. The Accord burned up her engine for want of a $.35 oil sending unit or some such. Good riddance.
1969 Toyota Corolla "Sprinter," in dark forest green. (Slope back with a trunk, not a hatchback.) Gutless 1077cc engine. No power anything, no A/C, barely went the speed limit, and had a crappy 8-track hanging below the dash, (till somebody broke in a stole it.) Ah yes, memories!
It was my first car, and within two years I'd traded it for my first new car - a spankin' new 74 Pinto Wagon with the Squire (fake) Woodgrain siding. Woohoo!
Dave
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2002 Boxster S Tiptronic. Lapis Blue/Grey leather/upgraded Metropol top (glass rear window.) Still learning new things all the time about this awesome car!
I'm glad I started this thread...made me smile more than once, but also got me thinking.... Why does it seem that some of the "best times" were to be had in some of my "worst cars"? I guess it's the same thing as what I refer to as the "warm beer and cold pizza" syndrome, whereas the nostalgia of having a less than ideal *something* enhanced the experience...or at least via the filter of my fuzzy memory.
1973 Buick Riviera. Traded a Honda CB350 for it. Regretted that trade within days because the DMV couldn't provide clear title on the car so I could never drive it. Ended up selling it for scrap to a local auto wrecker.
1997 Chevy Monte Carlo. It was a 2 door Lumina for all intensive purposes. I bought it brand new and used $5000 GM rebate dollars I'd been saving for 3 years on their credit card. It was a good thing I got $5k off the final negotiated price because it was a lemon.
Car wouldn't start when the engine was hot, windshield wipers would operate with the motor off and the keys out at random if I accidentally left them on when turning off the car and walking away... and to make matters worse the sunroof kept going off track and would get stuck open when it started to rain. Ugh.
Traded it for a CPO Lexus LS400 16 months later. The Lexus was one of the BEST daily drivers I've ever owned.
BTW, Lexus stealership put it in an auction, it was bought by another dealership and sold to a young lady who contacted me to find out what I knew about the car. Never returned her call.
1995 Chevy Lumina Ran okay except for a bad plug wire. Tended to run hot and leak coolant from around the intake manifold. Developed a habit of not starting when hot, let it cool down and cancel the tow truck. It was white, and the paint peeled all the way down to the bare metal. It had the 3.1l V6, an ancient design that didn't get any better with age.
I had an AMC Gremlin X. X meant you paid extra for the bold decal package and aluminum painted wheels. I had it new and til about 18000 miles. If you slammed on the brakes, the rear axle would violently shudder, the vinyl seats cracked out after about a year, and the paint would wash off in the 25 cent carwash. Puke green metallic!
And, of course, a couple of Chevy Novas. nuff said.
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2001 Boxster
2007 Toyota Highlander
2003 New Beetle Convertible, Turbo, Tip 6 speed