Your first car...

[Old Corker]

There we’re three of us brothers in a three year spread so three of us in high school at the same time. The first car I bought on my own in 73 after the older two had gone off to collage was a 66 Dodge Dart. Not a hot rod by any stretch but that flat head 6 was a good little engine. It had an automatic transmission but not the push button shifter Chrysler was making at that time.

 

[RRRwine]

65 Valiant Convertible.
Years ago a guy in Florida modded the same car the same way.
No longer exists in this format, but went to a collector in PA who I think used it for parts.
(thats the 64 Cuda behind it which is now the project car in the garage after all these years; it eats more money than wine making!)

 

[JB1956]

Mine was a 64 Valiant Convertible with a slant 6 and pushbutton automatic trans.
It was pretty much identical to but not nearly as nice as this one that I saw at a local cruise-in.
Lots of good memories of that old car. I built a Factory Five Cobra replica over twenty years ago but at this point in my life this is one of the few cars I would consider replacing it with.

 

[mainshipfred]

Number 3 here for the Valiant, mid 60's, can't remember the exact year. However it never hit the road. I was 14 and my dad told me if I wanted to drive I had to learn to repair my own car. It was given to me by my uncle and had no reverse. Can't tell you how many times I practiced brake changes, tuned ups, carburetor rebuilds and who know what else. Unfortunately the transmission was too much for me and it never hit the road.

So my first car was a 60 something VW square back I bought for $50.00 just before I turned 16. The motor was blown and the floor was rusted out so it was also a project car but it did hit the road. It lasted about 2 years and yes the price of gas was 25 cents.

 

[sour_grapes]

Number 3 here for the Valiant, mid 60's, can't remember the exact year. However it never hit the road. I was 14 and my dad told me if I wanted to drive I had to learn to repair my own car. It was given to me by my uncle and had no reverse. Can't tell you how many times I practiced brake changes, tuned ups, carburetor rebuilds and who know what else. Unfortunately the transmission was too much for me and it never hit the road.

So my first car was a 60 something VW square back I bought for $50.00 just before I turned 16. The motor was blown and the floor was rusted out so it was also a project car but it did hit the road. It lasted about 2 years and yes the price of gas was 25 cents.

Similar story for me, in two different regards! My dad had a '62½ VW Beetle (yes, it was in between a '62 and a '63, as they just implemented changes to VWs as they became available at that time). The engine seized (spun/burned a bearing), and my dad threw it into an elderly relative's empty garage, intending to fix it someday. After a few years, with nothing having happened to the car, I asked "If I fix it, can I have it?" My dad agreed, as he knew at this point he would never get to it, and it was almost worthless. So I bought another engine from a junkyard, stripped them both, cleaned them up, my uncle honed the jugs for me, and I assembled one franken-engine from the best parts of both.

I got that installed and running, but then turned to the other parts of the car. Holes in the floor, brake cylinders were totally frozen, etc. But, the problem was, this was now getting to be late in the summer before I went to college. During my freshman year, the elderly relative died, and the house was cleaned out and sold. I never saw that car again....

It looked something like this (including the ragtop sunroof):

 

[bstnh1]

I had one of these AMC Gremlins somewhere in the early 70s I think. Also managed to find myself driving a Ford Pinto around that time too! The Pinto was the worst I have ever owned!!

 

[Rocky]

I had one of these AMC Gremlins somewhere in the early 70s I think. Also managed to find myself driving a Ford Pinto around that time too! The Pinto was the worst I have ever owned!

Brian, I will second that. I was driving a '67 Camaro in the early 70's and gas "went through the roof" (it would be an ultra-bargain today!) so I decided to economize and bought a Ford Pinto. I hated it from day one and then it got worse. We lived in a valley in the Pittsburgh hills, and it could barely get me up the hill and out of the valley. My daughter used to wait for the school bus in the morning and I would pass while she was waiting. I could hear her friends saying, "Debbie, there is your dad," but she was so embarrassed she would not even look. It was a danger trying to get onto a highway with an acceleration ramp. It did 0 to 60 in about an hour and a half. I had the car 3 months and was constantly complaining about it, so my bride said, "If you hate it so much, why don't you get rid of it?" I did and bought a white '74 Firebird Trans Am that looked just like this one:

I was back in my element once more! Screw the gas prices! I will cut down somewhere else.

 

[Cellar Door]

My first car!
I couldn’t personally afford it, so my girlfriend and I bought it together. She was able to get the loan, I was able to make the payments, 46 years later we’re still setting and making goals. She loves my wine, I love her attitude. . Life is grant!

 

[FlamingoEmporium]

66 corvair. Never should have sold it

 

[CheerfulHeart]

1970 Ford Maverick. Yellow body with black interior. Automatic transmission. AM radio. That car had some serious power. Yep you want your teen daughter driving that on the freeway hahaha
I bought it from my grandmother in 1982. She drove that car like a Little Old Lady from Pasadena.
I loved that car. Wish I still owned it. Gram was pretty awesome too LOL

 

[Boatboy24]

A lot of nice rides!

 

[geek]

My dad bought me a Toyota I think Tercel? when I was in college in the DR around 1985 and it has a really bad paint job and I felt embarrassed to give friends and rides because water used to leak inside from windshield when it rained so there you have it

Then Nissan Sunny and we had a Toyota pickup for my dad’s business, model 1969 and it was a war truck, unbelievable what it used to hauled when it was falling apart……so many memories

 

[heatherd]

First car was a rusty aqua '81 Toyota Corolla with manual everything and a tiny engine. Second car was a very fancy silver Buick Century with a V6 and bench seats - first time I ever passed anyone was in the Buick. Got it from my Grampa and it had a few pipe tobacco burns. I should have kept it. You could fit about 8 people in it.

 

[winemaker81]

My dad bought me a Toyota I think Tercel? when I was in college in the DR around 1985 and it has a really bad paint job and I felt embarrassed to give friends and rides because water used to leak inside from windshield when it rained so there you have i

I had a few guys make negative comments about my car. My response was, "Your car is better? Oh, yeah, you don't have one."

 

[Old Corker]

I had one of these AMC Gremlins somewhere in the early 70s I think. Also managed to find myself driving a Ford Pinto around that time too! The Pinto was the worst I have ever owned!!

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Use to be an inside joke around our house that it you want to insult someone get them a ‘72 Pinto. I found one for sale some years ago and almost bought it as a joke for my son.

 

[Rocky]

Use to be an inside joke around our house that it you want to insult someone get them a ‘72 Pinto. I found one for sale some years ago and almost bought it as a joke for my son.

That was without doubt the worst car I ever owned. It was dangerous if one had to get onto and travel on an interstate highway. It was so underpowered. I hated it! In the patios of my youth, "It couldn't pull a sick (lady of the night) off a piss pot!"

 

[Gilmango]

Second generation of Honda Civic in the US (red hatchback which was maybe as old at 1981), bought used from another law student friend in 1994 so I could explore California better (improved my dating life too, not that the car turned any heads). I was very old for a first time car owner.

 

[CheerfulHeart]

I had one of these AMC Gremlins somewhere in the early 70s I think. Also managed to find myself driving a Ford Pinto around that time too! The Pinto was the worst I have ever owned!!

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When I was in high school in the early 1980's several of my classmates received hand-me-down Gremlins from their older siblings. The senior area in the student parking lot looked like a used Gremlin dealership for a while.

 

[ChuckD]

1965 Malibu Super Sport. Not this one but similar. To me it was just an old car and I treated it that way. Wish I would have taken care of it.

 

[ChuckD]

I had one of these AMC Gremlins somewhere in the early 70s I think. Also managed to find myself driving a Ford Pinto around that time too! The Pinto was the worst I have ever owned!!

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My BF in high school had an AMC Javelin. Also a piece of but damn that was a bad a$$ looking car. Again… not this one.


If I remember right it ended up wrapped around a tree. We were very hard on cars back in the day.