jpjc2000 0 #26 March 25, 2012 Goodness, haven't thought about this car in decades, thank's for bringing back a bunch of good memories! In 1969 I bought a 1953 Chevy Bel Air 4 door 6 cyl. 3 speed on the tree for a whopping $50. Drove it for three years before the tranny went out. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Icon134 0 #27 March 25, 2012 The first car I had available to me to drive was actually provided by my dad and was intended for myself along with two of my other siblings as well... but it was a 1969 Chevy Nova... albiet one with 4 doors instead of two and it had a 230 straight 6 under the hood... (so not the muscle car that one might think) but it was safe to drive and was a good car to learn in... The craziest thing was that when we got it (in the early '90s) it only had 36k original miles and was, i kid you not, previously owned by an old lady who drove it back and forth to church for 20+ years... The first Car I bought was a 2001 Mazda Protege which I kept for 10 years and put ~130k miles on it... before moving onto the RAV4 a couple of years ago.Livin' on the Edge... sleeping with my rigger's wife... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
xxswaggxx 0 #28 March 25, 2012 my first car was an 87' thunderbird turbo coupe, when i was 17.. it had 275k miles when i got it, and it had been sitting for 3 or 4 years in someones back yard. i got paid 50 dollars to remove it.. new seals in the turbo made it run, but it would rev to 4 or 5k rpm before shifting into 1st gear.. also, no AC and only the driver side window would roll down. brutal in a FL summer. as long as you added a quart of transmission fluid, and oil every 100 miles or so, you were good.. put about 25k miles on it before leaving for bootcamp, sold it for scrap last year. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
popsjumper 2 #29 March 25, 2012 1958 Ford Fairlane ($400) and that thing was a tank! I pulled out from a stop sign and broadsided and totalled a Carmen Ghia driving with no lights on and all it did to my bomber was a streak of green paint on the front bumper...didn't even bend that armor-grade steel bumper. I drove that thing through a sawgrass field and ran up on a large telephone pole. The bomb was perfectly balanced on the pole with all 4 wheels off the ground. The four of us had to climb out one at a time and move around to keep the balance until we all made it out. It to 6 hours to round up enough rocks and debris to jack that thing up and push it off the pole. It had a hole in the floorboard in the rear that proved quite convenient for dropping contraband out when the cops stopped you. It was a feature...never a problem. Loose bands on the automatic....had to drop it into low gear to get off the line. The brakes worked fairly well if you pumped them vigorously. $2 used tires. $0.25/qt used oil from the gas station. Party car. I loved that thing. The girls hated it. Ah....such is life. My reality and yours are quite different. I think we're all Bozos on this bus. Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
muff528 3 #30 March 25, 2012 Quote As a 16 year old junior in high school I rolled my dad's pride & joy '65 Olds 442 ragtop...never drove a 'family' car again until I was in my 30's! MY 1st car I bought at 17...it was a 1970 Pontiac LeMans Sport...1300.00 bucks of hard earned gas pump jockey money! I rolled my dad's 69 Chevy Kingswood Wagon in 1975. He previously was offered $900 trade-in for it. The insurance settlement (car was totaled) was for $1300-1400. He jokingly (I think!) offered his pickup to me to take for a spin. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Bones 0 #31 March 25, 2012 1974 Chevy Vega. Bought it in 1980 for $1050 with 63,000 miles, overheated it at 150,000 due to a leaky radiator. It was a hatchback so I could fold down the rear seat and sleep in it at the DZ. I thought of it yesterday when I was putting together a camera helmet. Tonfly/GoPro/Flysight/ProTrack/VISO. The helmet'is more expensive, has vastly more computing power than my Vega and it's faster, too! NPR's "Car Talk" once put out a list of the "10 worst cars". My family owned at least three: Vega, Chevette and a Renault Dauphine. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jimmytavino 16 #32 March 25, 2012 started driving in 1969 and my Grandpa had just 'upgraded' from a 1958 powder blue Ford, to a '69 Galaxie. he gave me the old Ford, which had a serious rust issue and which needed clutch work ... i felt blessed !!..after spending 50 bucks to get the clutch fixed,,,( so i could Throw it DOWN, from 3rd into 2nd, as needed ) Grandpa came around and reimbursed me for the $$$ i'd spent.. what a guy..... The hood of that car was hinged near the front and opened from the windshield side !!i drove it for a year or so while a jr. in H S. when the vertical post between the front door and the back door rotted out i took it to a welding shop.. who 'reinforced it" . The very next morning i went out to start it up and something smelled Bad... real bad.. like as if alll the wiring harnesses were burned and charred... which they WERE!!!!! .. So then i got a 1963 Chevy Belair, 4 door , 283 V8. 2 speed automatic Blue... paid 300 bucks for it.. off the local Ford dealers lot who had taken it in as a trade in.. the sales man wanted more.. but My Dad ( who knew the guy Well ) said,,, gee don't you just wanna get "that chevy" OFF your lot as quick as possible???? hahaha the sales Guy agreed... and i ran that car for the next 6 years!!!! The U joints started acting up the year after i finished college but she always started and ran OK... I decided to park the Belair in my apartment complexes' lot and got another vehicle.. A week later while at a local watering hole and talking to a friend who was sad and down,, cause she needed a car, and couldn't afford one.... I put 2 and 2 together.... took the Belairs registration out of my pocket, signed it over to HER and gave her the Keys!!!! i said.. 'you can carefully drive this car to a service shop and have them replace the Universals"... never saw either the car .. OR the girl again....!!! but at least it wasn't left sitting in a parking lot,,, all alone... years later i bought ANother 1963 Belair,,, same model, same color, which had originally been registered in Georgia!!! That car,, in 1988 was in better shape than the one i bought in 1970, the back seat and rear carpets,, were abosolutely FACTORY... as if no one had EVER sat back there !!!! I owned that Belair for about 8 years..but only drove it sparingly... then i parted with it...when my work truck crapped out and i needed a new one.... I traded the Belair in,,,, and they gave me more than what i had paid for it years earlier...!!!i wish i still had that car.........jt Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
airdvr 207 #33 March 25, 2012 Bright yellow '71 Camaro. Wish I had that one back.Please don't dent the planet. Destinations by Roxanne Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SkymonkeyONE 4 #34 March 25, 2012 1973 MGB. The last year with chrome bumpers. British racing green with a tan interior. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
grimmie 181 #35 March 25, 2012 1961 Pontiac Tempest. It had the shift lever on the dashboard. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
stian 0 #36 March 25, 2012 My first car was a VW Golf 88. Acquired in 2008 during my highschool. Thing about my car is that there was always something wrong, I learned to fix the small problems but the severity of the problems started to build up.. There was a short in the electrical system somewhere (never found it), so I had to disconnect the battery everytime i parked. There was no point really because the dynamo didn't work to well either. So i had to pushstart most of the time, I had to park on a hill if I didn't have any pasengers. The motor in the rear windowviper started smoking when I was on the motorway once, I had to pull in and figure out which circuit fuse to disconnect. Also my bumper fell of when i was cleaverly avoiding the tollstation driving on a farm road. Stuck it on with some all purpose construction and maintenance materiall (duct tape and epoxy). Handbrake broke once, had some dodgey garage fix it, worked ok for a week. It kept stiking and i had to manually get under my car and pull the wire free. This was fixed with steel wire. My exhaust manuall broke of the exhaust pipe, again avoiding toll station on dodgey road, making my car sound like the entire Hells angels population roaring down the road. This was fixed with steel wire and some weird paste i found, paste had to be reapplied once every 10 days or so. My right side indicator light stopped working requiring my pasenger to hand signal. But the most scary thing I remember from my famous days as a 18 year old allstar mechanic days is this: When driving home from the DZ one day I noticed a sharp whinning noise from the back of the car. I found that it came from the rear left side wheel. More specificly the brake drum. With some pictures from the internettz i managed to take it apart, this is when i noticed that one of the 2 locking pins, which hold the whole thing together. Was corroded so badly it had lost its grip on the fitting. Even when you don't apply any brakeing pressure they need to hold in check quite a bit of force. This fact did however not effect me and I proceeded to my father's work shop where i fabricated, with my best abilities, a replica of said pin. This was done with an anglegrinder, hammer, plyers and ( the tool that squeeses things/ keep them in place/ clamp maybe?). I made it out of a large 10 cm nail. It fited nicely and I put together the whole thing and never thought about it again. Having such a car had its ups and downs. I allways drove around with a shitload of tools and duct tape, but I never got annoying calls from people asking for rides and I got an intimate knowledge of how cars work :P Last year it failed the road safety test, and thus i had to scrap it. It was one of the sadest days of my life. What is funny about the whole thing is how much attention I gave to skydiving safety, (because i was a fresh jumper). I would never have considered, as an example, mending my jumpsuit or goggles. I overchecked everything and bothered the instructors on every small detail if it looked abit odd. I never even suspected that the commute to the DZ could have potentially be more dangerous than the skydive :P The lesson I guess is to not let your experience led to overconfidence. I keep this in mind when on the DZ today. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BillyVance 34 #38 March 25, 2012 My grandmother's 1964 Buick Special, 4 door light green monster with a white roof with bench seats both front and back. 355 cubic inch V8 Wildcat engine. I got about 6 mpg on it. But it only had 18,000 miles on it when grandma got too old to drive it anymore, in 1982. Do the math. This picture is about as close to what my car looked like. "Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skybytch 263 #39 March 25, 2012 I was supposed to get a 1966 Chevy Nova 4 door with a straight 6, but then Dad happened upon a 1976 Monte Carlo. I liked that idea better cuz it had a 350, shiny red paint and a loud stereo. Amazingly enough it was a full year after getting my license before I got the first speeding ticket. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
VideoFly 0 #40 March 26, 2012 I was in NYC and my first car was significant to me. It was a 1966 Buick Electra 225 that a cousin gave to me in 1972. After a few hundred pounds of Bondo and a lot of mechanical work, it opened the world for me to new adventures. I still have fond memories of cruising with Cream playing on my 8-track. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
airdvr 207 #41 March 26, 2012 QuoteI was in NYC and my first car was significant to me. It was a 1966 Buick Electra 225 that a cousin gave to me in 1972. After a few hundred pounds of Bondo and a lot of mechanical work, it opened the world for me to new adventures. I still have fond memories of cruising with Cream playing on my 8-track. Duece and a quarter...nice.Please don't dent the planet. Destinations by Roxanne Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
oldwomanc6 42 #42 March 26, 2012 My first car was a 1968 Volvo 244. POS, it was a dog (small underpowered ankle-biter, flea-bitten, mangey, bark bigger than it's bite--need I go on?) but, it was made out of incredibly strong stuff. In 1976, I was rear-ended by a big-luxury car (can't remember for the life of me the name of it), and this car was totaled because of the extensive damage to the entire front end and engine, etc... Barely scratched the rubber on my bumper. Armour all took care of that! lisa WSCR 594 FB 1023 CBDB 9 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DrewEckhardt 0 #43 March 26, 2012 I bought a 1970 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ40 with a 350 Chevy in college. I swapped the stock 4-wheel drum brakes for discs and a friend said "I used to be afraid to ride with you because we couldn't stop. Now I'm afraid because I know we will" One fine summer day I was driving around with no doors and just the bikini top and picked up a hitchiker. I heard some banging coming from the front end doing maybe 50 MPH down a winding canyon road. A few seconds later the hood flew open and hit the windshield. The hinge pins sheared off, the glass shattered on the steering wheel, and the top was fluttering in the breeze behind us. The hood picked up a dent where it hit the steering wheel stopping a few inches from my head. I stopped and latched the hood (that model year lacked a safety latch) like I neglected to do before (oops) and the hitchiker asked to be let out as soon as we reached city limits. 8 years later I had a real job with a decent paycheck and bought myself a 1998 Audi A4 that just came off lease. While I really appreciate the handling, air conditioning, heated seats, and fitting in every parking garage it's not quite the same. I miss the respect I got with a rusted C-section steel girder for a front bumper. People _did not_ cut me off. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
airtwardo 7 #44 March 26, 2012 Quote Got a 1973 Mustang Mach 1 to fix up for my 14th birthday. Was totally done by 16. Did everything myself but the paint job. Fucker got 7 miles to the gallon so I upgraded to the Jeep in the background that gets 14mpg That would be a 351 Cleveland not a 357...Do ya know what the difference between a cleveland & windsor engine is? Lube & head! Cleveland has better heads, bigger valves...heavier mains. It's a 'small' big block. Windsor has a better oiler system and runs cooler....it's an overbored small block (289/302) ~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~ Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BillyVance 34 #45 March 26, 2012 I always wanted to put 12 inch long steel spikes all across the front and rear bumpers... Probably illegal but, it sure as hell would eliminate the cut-offs and tailgaters! "Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mrubin 0 #46 March 26, 2012 1996 Ford Mustang. My parents made it clear early on that if I wanted a car when I turned 16 that I'd have to buy it myself. I started saving when I was 12 and had enough to buy by the time I was 16."I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TheCaptain 2 #47 March 26, 2012 My first car was a 1970 slant 6 Barracuda. We bought it for $250 back in 1985 and it needed alot of work. The passanger quarter panel was smashed in. I spent about a year working on it did all the body and paint myself. Eventually I put a 360 in it with a Hemi 4 speed (pistol grip) and a Dana 60 with 3:55 rear end gears, ralley dash, and dual scooped cuda hood. Great first car and one hell of a police magnet.Kirk He's dead Jim Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jayrech 0 #48 March 26, 2012 My first car was a 1984 ford mustang. This beast of a heap made it half way to my job 3 days after buying it before pilling up on the side of the road. That's where I got to use my "first" cell phone to call and have my busted ass picked up by mom :) the car cost 400 bucks. 1000 bucks if you take into account the towing bill! If I was real lucky, it would start the first try, and then if I hit a patch of ice I might be able to get the ass end to swing a little. I think it was a bit tired!D.S 174.2 Be careful what you say. Some one might take it the right way. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
spage 0 #49 March 26, 2012 My first car was my baby, a 1982 Datsun 280ZX. I loved that car! White with the black hood vents, and a red interior. It had T-tops and talked to you like KITT when you left the lights on. Later in life I bought another one, just to relive the fun I had in that car. It just wasn't the same though. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
airtwardo 7 #50 March 26, 2012 Later in life I bought another one, just to relive the fun I had in that car. It just wasn't the same though. Quote Ain't THAT the truth!? I did the same thing with '67 GTO's...my 1st one every-time I punched it and the ole quadrajet started melting the tires all I felt was adrenaline...years later I bought another one. When I dropped the hammer in that one ~ all I felt were dollars flying out the window! ~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~ Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites