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

[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.