Memories of your first car

[Artdisco]

So after watching last night's Top Gear America episode, it made me think of my first car. I thought it would be fun for everyone to talk about their first car.

I paid $475 for a 1971 Lincoln Continental for my first car. This thing was a beast, the absolute coolest old man's car ever. You could fit 3 teenagers in the front seat, 4 teenagers in the back seat and about 10 cases of beer in the trunk. Five ashtrays with their own cigarette lighters, a bubble glass speedometer, and the horn was a strip around the steering wheel. It had a 460 cubic inch engine and a backfire blew a hole in the muffler so it sounded like it had glass packs. I also stripped the doors off of a 1985 Monte Carlo Supersport in an impromptu drag race, which was really cool.

The brakes went out one time as I was pulling into a parking lot. I crashed into the side of a corrugated steel building, which destroyed the outside and inside walls, but it didn't even scratch my car.

One of my fondest memories of that car, excluding adventures in the back seat, was taking a road trip with my friends to Raleigh, NC in 1988 to see Pink Floyd in concert at Carter-Finley Stadium, that was the perfect road trip car and even though gas mileage was atrocious, gas only cost like 80 cents a gallon at the time, so it didn't really matter.

Watching the guys talk about their first cars made me think of mine, and I thought it would be fun to start a thread so everyone could share memories of their first cars.

[avanti]

1988 Lancia Delta HF Turbo, lots of fun, still have it, never selling it.

[Cobol74]

Honda Quintet 140,000 miles and the body got rusty, mechanicals were still fine. Not bad considering it was always kept outside and it was built in the 1981/2 (Y reg suffix for Brits).

Made me really like Hondas. I owned it for about 13 - 16 years or so.

[bone]

1984 opel kadett 1.4s

says it all really

handled, accellerated and stopped like you would expect from an ocean liner. i drove it for 2 months, and gave it to my brother (by then i had a job, and was offered an astra)

[93Flareside]

Still have mine, It's only been a year.

1993 Ford F150 Flareside.

All I can say about it is, NEVER SELLING.

[biggie]

1986 Mazda RX-7

Remember hitting 100mph on the way to school the first day I had my license. Liked the car and it served me well (bad alt was only issue), bought with 133k miles on in '92 for $1,300. Kept it about 2 years, sold for $1,000. Sad that if I still had it I could probably sell it for more than I paid originally.

[JohnK]

Just before my 16th birthday, I managed to scrape enough money together to buy a 1961 Ford Thunderbird for $250.
It ran, but needed a lot of work. A missing taillight lens, rusty trunk lid, no mufflers and it was missing a rear window.
I worked on that car to get it road worthy, learned a lot while doing all that was necessary. After driving it for a while,
I sold it making enough to put money down on a 1968 Z28.

[Basticle]

1994 Pontiac Grand Am


piece of shi....

[Viper007Bond]

So back in May...

For those who missed it, this was my "learn stick on and destroy" car: http://forums.finalgear.com/post-you...sica-lt-49438/

Replaced it a 2 months later (and a few days ago) with this: http://forums.finalgear.com/post-you...tang-gt-50423/

[laxmax613]

I've got my aunt and uncle's 98 Subaru Outback, which I got for my 17th birthday (last september). It's a great first car because it's a 5 speed and it's a hoot in the snow (i can't wait for winter)

[YF19pilot]

My first car was a hand-me down from my brother. A 1979 Pontiac Grand Prix, automatic V-6. It was just powerful enough to get tail happy on any loose or wet surface. Was going to be my college car, but my brother at one point in time got it airborne in a parking lot, which I believe let to the subsequent self destruction of the transmission. It was a fun car, and I would've loved to have thrown a 350 and a stick in it. It's probably why I have an odd affinity for GM G bodies (yes, I know the '79 was an A-body, all GM did was reclassify it as a G-body).

First car I bought and paid for was a 1987 Nissan Sentra 3-door, it's also my first manual. I destroyed 3 starters with the car because I didn't have the ability to get the fly-wheel replaced on my own and it would've cost more than I bought the car for to have a mechanic do it, so I (summer break from college), my brother (on leave from Iraq), and my dad all got underneath it and got it taken care of. Amazing fun to drive around, but you could actually guage the drop in performance whenever there was a passenger or two (especially when one said passenger was about 300 lbs). The wonders of 85 h.p. Would've loved to have kept it around, except I quickly learned I needed something bigger with all my college junk, so I upgraded to my previous car, a 1990 Volvo 740.

Interesting facts about the two cars:
Neither had working AC systems, and oddly enough for the same reason: both had R14 systems, which cost about the same to replace or recharge. Yes, I survived all those years in Florida with no AC
Neither car had fully functioning radios, both were equipped with AM/FM/Cassette radios, both radios didn't have functioning FM radio. The Pontiac's radio got to the point of having to replace it with a boom box in the back seat. The Nissan's FM function would work, but only at certain temperature and humidity levels. My parents were gracious enough to give me a satelite radio while I still had the Sentra.
The Nissan was a 4-cyl and silver. My Volvo was silver, and a 4-cyl. I now own a silver Honda Civic. The Grand Prix is unique in being the only car I've owned to not be silver (red) and having a V engine.
My Mom's first car was a Pontiac Grand Prix. My Dad's first car he bought after he joined the Air Force was an '87 Nissan Hardbody (which he still owned up until 2009).
Both the Pontiac and the Nissan were bought from "nice old gray haired women". A week after my brother bought the Pontiac, the brakes went out. The Nissan had a good chunk of the pinnon gear/fly-wheel damaged, thus the destroying of three starters. However, I loved that I could just pop the hood and get to any part I needed to when fixing the Nissan.
I have drifted both cars.

[CrazyRussian540]

http://forums.finalgear.com/post-you...6-avant-22958/

I miss her

[Some Say]

Ford Cortina MK1 GT. Purchased it about 3 months before I got my licince for $300. Paint was faded and patchy, so my father gave it a quick spray job and it came up a treat. Dad also told me that if anything needs fixing on it, I had to fix it myself. He used to borrow it from time to time and would tell me that this and that needed attention, so I would give him the money and he would buy the parts for me, and then spend my weekends fixing things like wheel bearings, alternator, retensioning rockers, adjusting the clutch, and even had to replace the synchro's on 1st and 3rd gear, and all by myself. If I got stuck I would ask him for help, but the usual answer was to grab a drink, go out and sit there and think about it. I can tell you now, he saved me a hell of a lot of dollars by doing this, because there's not much that I have had to go to a mechanic for, in the 30 odd years since.

The car itself was a great little package overall, and a lot of fun times were had. The saddest thing was after trading it in for $1000 on another car, was seeing it meet its end about 4 months later, when the new owner rolled it on a corner about 2kms down the road from my home.

But the best memory of the car is my dad saying "Good job" or " Well done, son" when he came out to make sure things were done right. Thanks Dad (RIP)

[Ladydatsin]

My 1st car was a 910 s2 bluebird wagon, how it came about i was looking for an easy to drive not too smallish car with a bit charater a car that not everyone had, my husband who was in the scrap metal bussiness, pulled in the drivway one night beeping the horn as i went outside to see what it was all about there she was a marron s2 bluebird wagon he said what u think of this, i said bluebird hmm yeah very reto 80's and i like the wagon, so took it for test drive around the block and fell soo in love with it, had to fix some bodggey wiring done to it thats why i got her for $150 au drove it into the ground, so while placing a reco motor in it went on the serch for another bluebird wagon to drive along the way did alot of reserch into the 910 & loved it even more & met some awesome friends also 910 obbessed even my now fiancé , I've owned over 50 since then & had a few other cars aswell but i've always had a 910 bluebird wagon, I still own my 1st & 4 others atm i will always want a 910 wagon to drive its my passion my life all because of one unloved 910 bluebird wagon that noone wanted drove in my driveway, & the rest is history.

[public]

My first car was a red 1988 Nissan Bluebird, 2.0-litre petrol, 5-speed stick. Drove it for a year, and while it had a bit of rust and some dents, it was a relatively solid car with the most horrible tires. "Upgraded" to the 323 hatchback from it in 2005.

[Crazyjeeper]

This was my first car. http://forums.finalgear.com/post-you...985-cj7-24767/

I drove 30k miles in it in 3 years, most of which flat out, which can be quite terrifying. I remember burning rubber out of the school parking lot every day when I was 16 blasting Led Zeppelin. Had a lot of fun tearing around town in it.

[Eye-Q]

My first own car was a '94 Audi 80 which has been crashed after just 3 months of ownership (pictures after the accident), so there was little time to get memorable situations...

There wasn't much to remember, it was just a car which worked, that was my only concern at that time since I had 40 km from home to work and didn't want to break down somewhere inbetween those two locations.
One situation will always stay in my memory, though: I was on my way to work, to the right there was a gas station, on the opposite lane a BMW 3-series (current model; driver ~ 80 years old). When I saw him he just stood there, he could have easily made the turn in front of me. Nope, he decided to turn just when I was 30 meters away. Fortunately I had a quick reaction and there was no building on the right so I "just" jolted up the curb and got to a halt on a small plastered spot.
The opponent driver briefly looked at my car, said "well, fortunately we didn't have an accident", bought his newspaper at the gas station and drove away. I was in shock for about 5 minutes so I didn't realize he went away, fortunately the filling station attendant knew him so I could get back the money for verification if the axle was harmed (and it was harmed because of the impact on the curb...).

[FDaihatsu]

I *still* have my first car, a last year model VW Polo. It's a great thing, excellent engine-gearbox combo, I think it's quite good looking, and it's red - which no other Volkswagen will ever be. If I had to state a downside, I'd go for the interior which is a bit black and boring, and isn't as well built as one would expect from a German supermini (stuff is falling off after 9,000km).

[Adunaphel]

My first car was a 1991 VW Polo 1.0. It was the workhorse model with no back seats and no rear windows, which got the carburettor engine, which meant 40 hp, mated with a 4 speed manual gearbox. Getting up to highway speeds required patience (0-100: 21s) and and overtaking manoeuvres required careful planning. It was nice though, it got me where I needed to be in my student period, when I didn't really need a car (in .nl, students get a mass transit card so they can either travel for free during weekdays or the weekend). It did haul copious amounts of vintage computer equipment, including various SUN servers, a DEC MicroVAX, lots of Alpha workstations, etc. for the student computer club I was in at the time. After 7 months I passed it on to my brother and replaced it with a 1993 Ford Fiesta Calypso.

[MadCow809]

I'm almost sure this is a repost, but anyway.

My first car was a Merc, post-face lift W124 E320 Sportline to be precise.

Great I6 engine for highway-cruising, with a typical merc slushbox. Result is great low down torque and smooth (read:slow) gearchange for a really comfy ride.

Yeah, it was a bit of an overkill. I was only 18/19yrs old at the time : p