First / High School car

The first car I drove in high school was a Gremlin.  It was dark blue with a gold stripe on it.  It ended up wrapped around a tree when I hit loose gravel on our road and because I did that I to wait an extra year to get my license.  My parents got all up tight about me driving without a license for some reason.

So the first car that i drove that was truly mine was  a 1971 Plymouth Fury.  I paid $400 for it in 1983 and the snowdrifts of Manitowoc county were no match for it. 

I could fit 6 people in this thing very comfortably (including the quarter barrel) it truly was a boat on wheels. 

'84 ford Thunderbird POS.  Handled like a toddle on rollerskates on ice.  Felt like it should be fast, but it wasn't.  

First car was a 69 charger.  It was my dad's but the first car I drove around after getting a license.  Arizona car, second owner, all numbers matched and a 383 magnum under the lid.  Problem was my older sister was the first to use it to drive to school and ended up drag racing the gear heads on main street after class.  So my dad swapped out the 383 with a 318 by the time I was 16.  Talk about a boat on wheels.  It was a muscle car but would you couldn't close the garage door with it in it because it was too long.  We fit a 85 Buick LeSabre station wagon in that garage but not the charger.

Me and a buddy snuck it out one night in 8th grade and went to see another friend about 8 miles away, down a dirt road.  I decided to try drifting around a tight corner, got the outside wheels stuck in a shallow ditch, yanked it out of the ditch, skidded across the road and corner nosed it into the embankment on the other side.  One 3" scratch in the fascia under the bumper.  I don't think my dad knows to this day.

Almost exactly like this but with standard rims.  Yeah it was brown.

First car I owned was a 83 charger Shelby.   Picked it up at an auction for $800.  Not quite the same.

Had a Chevy SS 396. Got it from my brother when he was drafted to go to Nam. Wish I still had the car - real muscle with black leather bucket seats, Hurst shifter, etc.

My dad bought the 69 from a Vietnam widow.  Original owner bought it before shipping off to war.  He didn't come back and his widow held onto it until 1985.  I hope your  brother made it.

My first car was a 1966 Ford Falcon.  Looked like this color and all except it was a 4 door:

No pictures, but I had a 1970 Toyota Corona.....and my sister had a Plymouth Barracuda, not sir of the year........and she really was more popular with the boys.  

First one for me was an early 80s (forget the exact year) Ford Escort two-door in high school.  Mom and Dad also got a Mercury Lynx to go with it.

My sister got Grandma's 1968 Dodge Dart.

First was a 1974 Cadillac Seville. Got it from Grandparents. Land schooner that got about 4 MPG. Second car is still the best car Ive ever owned. 1970 Mustang Mach 1 that I tore down and rebuilt myself. 

Not my car but exactly identical to mine. 351 Cleveland. Shaker hood. Acapulco blue. Hood locks. Magnum 500 wheels. BF radial TAs. AC gave you frostbite. Still want to kick my own ass 30 years after selling it. 

1971 Plymouth Satellite. 318 Auto. Very dependable and for a 318 it wasn't too bad on power. This gave way to a 1970 Plymouth 'Cuda 440. Along with the 'Cuda i purchased a 1971 Hemi Roadrunner. All 3 were fantastic cars...and it goes with out saying that if I still had the 'Cuda and the Hemi RR I could retire early. Hindsight is 20/20. 

61 Ford Falcon. 170 six- banger with the glass bowl carb. Burned so much oil everyone thought I had dual exhaust with the extra plume from the down-draft tube Heater would cook bacon. 

Favorite car to ride around in was my friends dads 68 Fury with the power trunk release. We'd stash 2 guys in the trunk. I operated the release. We'd drive to our rival village and ride around. When we saw someone on the street, I popped the trunk and the 2 guys would stand up and either drop a moon or say something stupid. 

1968 Renault R10. Bought when I quit college, the same day I got my drivers license in 1977. water cooled 1100 CC rear engine .  4 speed floor shift. 4 wheel disc brakes. I bought it from the 1st owner with about 1300 miles because it had a factory defect that discharged the battery. No one could find it and after replacing the battery and alternator multiple times the dealer washed their hands of it. The woman kept it garaged and charged the battery once a month to take it for a drive. I bought it for $125.  I found the problem within a week. (I did have to push start it a couple of times first) An all around piece of **** with 3 redeeming virtues.

 It sipped gas. It was easy to work on. And it held an incredible amount of cargo. It was like Dr Who's Tardis.

I could put up my Fender Studio Bass amp in the front trunk with the Carvin short scale bass. My tuba rode shotgun. The Jazz bass slid behind the front seats and the double bass went across the whole back seat with the head stock sticking out the window 18". It was bagged so it didn't really matter.

It had no problem with traction in the drifts of Green Bay as the motor sat over the drive axle and the tires were about 4 inches wide. Steering was another matter. Half the time the front wheels functioned more like rudders. The metal was no match for the liberal amounts of road salt used at the time. You could pull pieces of the frame off by hand when I finally had it junked in 1983.

I got over my fear of mechanicals with this car. I had no money so I learned to do brakes, clutch, valves, etc as a matter of necessity. I was lucky to have a roomate with an MGB. He knew all the mechanics in town and had sources for any parts I needed.

I still do as much as I can on my vehicles. I changed out the head on my Cherokee last winter. If it wasn't for the busted drivers seat I'd prefer it over my Ridgeline.

Damn, you guys had some nice cars.  Growing up when I did, I had a Dodge Colt.  I think that it had a 1.6 Liter 4 cylinder.  Boy, could that thing put out the umm gas mileage.  I'm still not sure how I fit in it, but that parking brake sure was fun in the winter.  The girls all thought that it was cute.  Funny that they never wanted to ride in it, though.  

Great thread.

Let me dispel the "Kiel is rich" myth-----I bought my first car in 1984---at 24 years of age.... Piece of crap  1980 Toyota Tercel from Sudden Sam's Automart for $2800.

Transmission dropped out 3 days later.

Did you blame your driver?

My mother was a saint!

....and she was awful with manual transmissions.

62 VW bug.....it did not have a gas gauge, when you were driving and the car started to chug chug looking for gas you flipped a lever on the floor with your foot which gave you a gallon more to get to a gas station.....that gallon represented approx 35 miles.   It also had a habit of dying at stop signs/lights, when driving my wife to the hospital at 3 in the morning it of course died....The manual tranny allowed me to push and my labor addled wife to pop the clutch.  All went well.

'82 Rabbit diesel.  3 "excessive" speeding tickets within the first 3 months I had my license.  I have no idea how I pulled that off in that car.  Sold it with 250K on it.

I had a friend that had a Ford Falcon.  Biggest POS ever but it had vents on each of the front seats that you could perfectly fit a bottle of booze in.

Buddy of mine had a 77 LTD.  You could fit all of Alto in that car.  Front end was so big, no matter where you were going, you were halfway there.  

1968 VW red Fastback, purchased for $1,200. The name was ironic as it had a air cooled four cylinder engine in the rear that took an hour to go from zero to 60. 

stiffler posted:

Damn, you guys had some nice cars.  

The picture of the Ford Falcon I showed is off the internet.  The real car had 160000 miles on it when I got it.  It needed a pressure plate for the clutch, brake work, I got some cheap tires, and then had to repair the holes.  When I got into the vehicle I could look down and see the ground.  So I got some galvanized sheet metal, some roofing cement, and some pop rivets and created a new floor on both the driver and passenger side.  Then I went to a carpet store and got some remnants and carpeted the floor.  I had to fix some holes in the trunk as well - but that was minor compared to the floor.  Anyway, it did not look near as good as the picture, but that picture was the car.  

Blair Kiel posted:

Great thread.

Let me dispel the "Kiel is rich" myth-----

Well that explains a few things ........ 

1968 Chevy Impaler with a 307 engine had to keep spare oil in the trunk. A sister and 2 brothers drove it before I got it. Had to sometimes open the door and help get going with your foot.

Mine was a white 1962 Buick LeSabre.  Paid $225 for it, had about 80,000 miles on it.  This was in 1973.   I wish I had my second car tho. 1967 Mustang. Nothing special, just a nice copper colored car with a 289 auto transmission.  I think I paid $450 and the Buick traded in in 1974.