Your first ride... and what happen to it.

[Protronie]

If this been done , before anyone jumps I did search and searched but didn't find anything close.

So what was everyones first ride/car/truck ?
And do you still have it or what happen to it?
Ain't got your first one yet? Then what you wanting to get?
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My first car my folks gave me for my 17th b-day. It was a '71 Plymouth Fury III, former New York State police car. Had the 440 Mag HO motor and full police package

Didn't take long for me to feel the need to test the speedo... yep went all the way to 140 mph, only took me less than nine months to loose my license for getting too many tickets.

Once I got my license back I bought a '74 Plymouth Road Runner with a blown 383 motor, took the 440 out of the cop car and put it into the Road Runner, scrapped the rest of the Fury.


"I don't speed, just fly low."

[MrForbes]

We had a few old cars that I worked on when I was a kid, but the one that I consider really mine was the 59 chevy pickup which we got when I was 15 (1977), rebuilt the six and got it running a couple months after turning 16, then while I was still in high school I bought a 396 at the junkyard, rebuilt it, and swapped it in. Still have the truck, still have the engine, although I wrecked it a few years ago and I'm not done putting it all back together again.

I think there are pictures on my web page (yes, the typewriter museum)

(ps I watched Airport recently...now I remember where I heard that name....)

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by squirrel

We had a few old cars that I worked on when I was a kid, but the one that I consider really mine was the 59 chevy pickup which we got when I was 15 (1977), rebuilt the six and got it running a couple months after turning 16, then while I was still in high school I bought a 396 at the junkyard, rebuilt it, and swapped it in. Still have the truck, still have the engine, although I wrecked it a few years ago and I'm not done putting it all back together again.

I think there are pictures on my web page (yes, the typewriter museum)

(ps I watched Airport recently...now I remember where I heard that name....)

My parents gave me a 73 Ford station wagon, did a lot of stupid and illegal things in that. The first car I bought with my own money was a 75 Mustang. No idea what happened to either car.


(PS George Kennedy's character was Joe Patroni.)

[wendymom]

My first car was my dads leftover 69 Toyota Corona. (My mom drove the Plymouth Fury with the white vinyl top) It was many shades of blue and rust (I grew up next to the ocean) We were afraid to wash it thinking the dirt was what held it together. In my high school years we played a game called green ball which was basically tag with cars. We always took my car since it didn't matter if we wrecked it. I finally refused to drive it somewhere in my 2nd year of college when I hit my brakes and still sailed through a red light. I think my dad managed to trade it to someone who could actually tinker with it and fix it.

[phr34kR]

1989 Mitsubishi mirage Manual, got it from an old relitive and spent days getting all the dirt/rubbish out of it along with ALOT of golf T's?? Still have it as im just learning atm.

[Elgin Clock]

'88 Hyundai Excel.
Cost: 800 bucks.
My first 6 months of insurance: 800 bucks.
Kinda lame if you ask me.
But I can say that I've paid my own insurance & bought all my own cars from day one myself.
Try asking a lot of HS kids these days that question, & I doubt you'll find any who bought & insured their first car (or all of them) without any assistance.
Anywho... I'm not bitter about that one.. no... not at all.

Moving on, there really isn't much to say about it when I had it. It was ok. The coolest thing on it was the Euro style hood that had the hinge in the front of the car over the bumper.
It looked kinda cool-ish on those rare occasions I had to open it.

I blew that car up though.

Shot one of the spark plugs into the piston, which led to oil backfeeding through the air cleaner (don't ask me how) & as I drove into a gas station to find out what that funny smell was (re: burning plastic) I popped the hood & it was on fire. HA! Oops. Good thing it was winter, so I grabbed a handful of snow & threw it on the fire & put it out.
(And, yes, I know water is bad for an oil fire, but it put the darn thing out because it was a huge amount of snow! HA! Oh wells.)

Anyways, I drove it home on 3 cylinders, parked it, tried to sell it unsuccessfully, agreed to let it go to the junkyard, then drove my dad's '78 or '79 Chevy pickup truck for about 6 months to get around, & finally bought my 2nd car, my awesome-ish Dodge Neon. Search here, & you'll find pics of that.

[Jay H 237]

I bought my first car when I was 15 in June 1992. It was a blue 1982 Dodge Omni that I bought myself ($900) after finding it in the paper. I looked at several cars including ones I wanted more like a Regal but settled for the Dodge as the body was in great shape but needed some mechanical work, although it did run and move under it's own power. I planned to fix it by the time I got my license.

Most of it was the maintance needed to be brought up to date, many of the parts were original and showing wear. The hoses, belts, plug wires, ect. The car only had 51k on it.

I kept the car on the road until Aug 1995 (right after I graduated HS) and finally sold it in Oct 95 for $325. It had 72k on it by then, about 7k a year I had put on it.

The car just never was dependable and was constantly costing me money. I thought I could get it's issues fixed but I kept finding more wrong with it. I didn't know much about cars back then and overlooked somethings and didn't check others.

Some of the bigger things I found out later is the gas tank was rusted on the inside. Apparently the PO never filled the tank above 1/4 so it would get condesation in it. They were too cheap to replace the air filter so the air filter box was stuffed with Chore Boys as a makeshift air cleaner element! The Chore Boys had gotten crap into the carb.

Someone had added air conditioning to the car. The car was a base model to begin with with no power steering, brakes, windows....anything. They did a nice job mechanically but wiring they made a mess and cut into the main harness. The AC never worked when I had the car but then other electrical problems started to show up. As the wiring was being looked at we found out how badly spliced it was, and the wires even changed colors though out the harness. Around this time the transaxle started to leak and the clutch was slipping from the fluid. The car would need the transaxle repaired, new clutch since it was contaminated but this still would leave the electrical problems. So I decided to get rid of it.

I had it for sale from Aug until Oct when it finally sold. I sold it to an older man from the next town over and my father drove it to his house for him. I have no idea whatever became of it. He did say he was giving it to his daughter who lived in a bad area with on street parking only. Her cars kept getting trashed and would look for cheap cars to buy.


I don't really miss the car but I have wondered several times what happened to it and how long after I sold it was it still on the road. With all the problems that kept creeping up with it I learned alot about cars because of it. It wasn't a complete loss owning it.

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

I drove a vehicle that is the epitome of style and "pimpness" as they say - the good old, sea-green Gabrielov family Dodge Minivan (1997?). This is a very, very special car. First of all, the backseat doors only occasionally worked (the rest of the time they locked up regardless of whether not the car was locked up).

What happened to it?

I was driving along a residential street in my neighborhood at a fairly demure 20 mph or so. We had car problems in the past but nothing particularly extreme. Suddenly, I couldn't turn the wheel easily and the car seemed to be floating very strangely. Looking in my rearview mirror, I saw my transmission. On the road. In pieces. The thing fell off of the car apparently! I fortunately was able to swerve off of the road rather than incoming traffic. It would have been more expensive to fix the transmission and maintain it then to just get a new car...so off it went to be sold.

[whytheheckme]

I'm looking to buy my first car, CT area, <$5000. Don't care so much about the milage, as long as its not at the end(END) of it's life. Smaller car (for better gas milage), gotta be sporty, and a clean CARFAX. I've looked at many different cars, but I can't decide.

If anyone has any suggestions

I'm new to the whole car scene. I have computers that are worth more than the car that I'm looking to buy (LOL)

Jacob

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Jacob,
I have owned many (~7 I think) Hondas over the years. Both my kids drove them and one had over 170000 miles when I sold it to a kid in the neighborhood for school. They are just getting broken in at 100k. However, in deference to all my Michigan friends, there are some great US vehicles too.

[MrForbes]

My wife's Dart has only 328,000 on the clock. I hope she makes it home from work ok today....

[RyanN]

1975 MGB Convertible. Basically exactly like the one below except not that shiny. I put a lot of work into its British electrical system. Would you believe they ran a straight switch to run the headlights? I found that out the hard way driving down a dark road and the lights went out. Hmm... many many things I fixed and recently just sold it. It ran great. Better to keep the top down when it rained.



Now I'm driving this (2006 Mazda 3):



And unfortunately not driving this... although it was fun at prom (1972 Corvette):

[Travis Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Jacob,
I have owned many (~7 I think) Hondas over the years. Both my kids drove them and one had over 170000 miles when I sold it to a kid in the neighborhood for school. They are just getting broken in at 100k. However, in deference to all my Michigan friends, there are some great US vehicles too.

My first car was a purplish maroonish 1989 Pontiac Sunbird. Looked nice - ran like garbage. I sold it to a high school friend who ran it into the ground. I think the transmission decided it didn't want to shift any more.

Then came my run o' Pontiac Grand Prixs - a '97 SE, '98 GT, '01 GTP, '04 GTP Comp G, '06 GXP......then they ran out of letter combinations and stopped making them. Fun to drive, looked nice on the outside - HORRIBLE interiors.

I would have obtained a Pontiac G8 GT, but GM was not being kind on the incentives, so.....

....I decided it was time to go a different route and got an Acura TL. I hope this Honda product (built in Ohio!) treats me as well as all yours did, Al.

I'm loving the car so far.

[=Martin=Taylor=]

My first car was an 84' Toyota Celica GT (the first year they used EFI). The people I bought it from had never oiled it and the timing chain had rubbed a hole right through the water-pump, allowing oil and water to mix....

I bought the car when I was 14 and spent two years rebuilding the engine (I was kinda lazy). I still have the car today, but I'm looking to sell it.

Anyone from Nor-Cal interested in a used Toyota, stick, with a rebuilt engine and 18000 miles, for $1200? I'm serious by the way... PM me if your interested.



It's a real speed-demon.... Pegs out at 80 mph lol

[Billfred]

My first car was, quite literally, my grandfather's Oldsmobile. It was a 1988 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Regency Brougham sedan. I found the window sticker in the trunk (and just now pulled it out of my drawer), and its sticker price as it left Wentzville, MO for Osborne Oldsmobile-GMC was $21,268. We bought it for about $2,000 from my grandparents, who by the time I was of driving age were just not fit to drive. Over the time they owned it, they were of the Sunday driving persuasion, so the car was only in the mid-30s on mileage.

I enjoyed driving it; it was in great shape, droopy headliner aside, and one of the last GM vehicles I really liked for a long, long time. (My employment aside, the current crop of product is starting to change my opinion.) Plenty of oomph for my size, plushy ride and interior (despite having the FE2 "Firm Ride & Handling Package", a $30 option), and room for six if two of them were skinny. It was a big ol' American sedan, pure and simple. (Heck, I even parallel parked the thing on my first try at the driver's test, back in May of 2002.)

Not long after I got my license, I was driving home from an academic team meeting when the car stopped. This being an Oldsmobile of that era, all I had was a speedometer, a Check Engine light, and a feeling of dread. We looked it over and found out there wasn't any coolant. We added some, drove it, and found it gone again. Turns out it was a thermostat issue, which was about $600 to fix at the dealer--but we paid it. After getting the car back from the dealer (a different one, I'll note, from the one that signs my paycheck), the AC wouldn't work. This was South Carolina in July, so the absence of cold air was intolerable. They "banged on it with a wrench" and said it might not last. We turned down the offer to replace the compressor (for $100-something) and drove away. Not a bad call; the AC worked fine for the rest of the time I drove the car.

It was around the first of September that I was driving home from my job at the time, bagging groceries at the Irmo Piggly Wiggly, and noticed flashing blue lights from behind. Conventional wisdom among students at Irmo High School was that if you crossed Irmo PD, you were toast. I knew I wasn't speeding--the map light was on in the absence of instrument panel illumination--but I was still scared out of my mind. Turns out that my tail light was out. Now, the Ninety-Eights of that era had one light for everything. If I applied the brake, it'd light up. If I hit my left turn signal, it'd light up. If I turned on my hazard lights, it'd light up--but tail lights were a no-go. I was given a warning to fix it in ten days.

We looked at it, the auto class at Irmo looked at it, and finally Mom (who was having her own car troubles after a knucklehead student hit her car in the school parking lot) offered to take it in to a place to look at it. It was September 12, 2002, and she picked me up from school. In the driveway was a 1999 Honda Civic with everything of mine from the Oldsmobile migrated over. I wound up driving that car for the rest of high school before passing it to my brother and taking on the Honda CR-V you've seen me traverse the country in.

We sold the Oldsmobile for about what we had in it to an older couple; I'm not sure what happened to it after that. I do miss it, mostly for sentimental reasons, but it just wasn't meant to be.