What was your first car?

[Seth53]

How long did you have it?
What happened to it?
Any favorite stories?

Mine was a 66 Bel Air. Turquoise, 283, power nothing, 2-speed auto. AM with an added FM tuner.

Drove it for 8 years, 112K miles before it got rear-ended in Iowa City in the spring of my last year (82) and sprung the frame.

Mine was much rustier than this at the end, but here it is/was.....

 

[headlock]

How long did you have it?
What happened to it?
Any favorite stories?

Mine was a 66 Bel Air. Turquoise, 283, power nothing, 2-speed auto. AM with an added FM tuner.

Drove it for 8 years, 112K miles before it got rear-ended in Iowa City in the spring of my last year (82) and sprung the frame.

Mine was much rustier than this at the end, but here it is/was.....

View attachment 10076

 

[headlock]

1966 GTO

 

[Seth53]

1966 GTO

Tri-power Goat?

 

[headlock]

Tri-power Goat?

No I put a 750 double pumper holly on it 389 engine elder Brock high rise manafold crane cam & hooker headers

 

[scojo3]

Buick opel...looked like a bubble on wheels. It worked. Sold the vehicle for a song...observed the vehicle parked in the parking lot of Chances (a club in Sioux City) some years later.

 

[okeefe4prez]

1982 Buick Park Avenue. Saved a woman's life in it once. I was driving through Beaverdale and stopped for a woman crossing at a crosswalk. Elderly thing. Some lunatic driving a Dodge Omni rear ended me like a bat out of hell. That Park Ave drove away and was fine. The Omni had to be hauled out on a flat bed and the driver was transported to the hospital via ambulance. The guy said "it felt like a hit a wall." I had let off the brake a little but there was no way in hell I was gonna let him the old lady. She came up and thanked me about a thousand times because I saved her life. Watch for pedestrians out there, people.

 

[Grady]

1972 Toyota Coralla. Not many of those around Waterloo back then. I got access to it in 1974, put in a great casstte player and killer speakers and drove it to h.s. every day, then down south when in volunteer service. Blew out the head gasket in '77 on a freeway in Tennessee...towed it to a shop which had never seen a Toyota before. They installed a new gasket which lasted 60 miles and then the engine blew, so installed another engine. I had a huge "Legalize Marijuana" bumper sticker on the back windshield, which resulted in regularly getting pulled over by the cops in the south for no particular reason -- other than the sticker.

Drove it back and forth to CA when going to college from '78-'83. My new girlfriend in SF was supposed to drive it to pick me up at the end of a road race I was in, but turns out she'd never driven a stick before, the gas pedal stuck, and she blew a piston completely through the engine...those 1500 cc engines only cost a few hundred bucks, so I put in engine #2.

Favorite story was in '84 when my future wife was visiting from CA. I was working on a political campaign driving from Iowa City to Marshalltown on Thanksgiving weekend. Those early Toyotas used really thin sheet metal and the floor was rusted out and by then I was putting newspapers over a sizeable hole in the floor. It started snowing, first a flurry, then moderate snow, and eventually blizzard conditions. Snow was piling up on the road, and there was snow literally flying up through the floor on the passenger side where she was sitting. Being from southern California, she'd never seen anything quite like that before.

 

[Fryowa]

1991 Pontiac Sunbird 4-door. Decent car for a 16 year old in 1997. Wrecked it.

Cars I've had in chronological order in my entire life...never owned more than one at a time, and I'm 42 years old currently. I am not a car guy as you can see. The only reason I got the Sorento brand new was because they were giving vehicles away during covid. 0% interest, $4,500 rebate.

91 Sunbird
90 Chevy Cavalier
86 Chevy Celebrity
96 Pontiac Grand Prix
01 Pontiac Grand Prix (brand new)
04 Chevy Impala
96 Buick Park Avenue
94 Ford F-150
01 Dodge Dakota (My dad's after he died)
20 Kia Sorento (brand new)

 

[okeefe4prez]

1991 Pontiac Sunbird 4-door. Decent car for a 16 year old in 1997. Wrecked it.

Cars I've had in chronological order in my entire life...never owned more than one at a time, and I'm 42 years old currently. I am not a car guy as you can see. The only reason I got the Sorento brand new was because they were giving vehicles away during covid. 0% interest, $4,500 rebate.

91 Sunbird
90 Chevy Cavalier
86 Chevy Celebrity
96 Pontiac Grand Prix
01 Pontiac Grand Prix (brand new)
04 Chevy Impala
96 Buick Park Avenue
94 Ford F-150
01 Dodge Dakota (My dad's after he died)
20 Kia Sorento (brand new)

You must have taken the closure of Pontiac pretty hard.

 

[99topdawg]

1983 Cutlass Supreme

Bought it cheap, did some work on it, drove it for 2 years. Was driving home from college one day (20 minute drive) and everything shut off as I was going down the road and I was just coasting. Still had steering, but or brakes or power of any kind, just silence. All of a sudden flames came up from both sides of the hood. Was able to drive it off the road going up a hill. Got into some tall grass (flat ditch) and took off running. It was about a minute (not really sure) before it finally blew up. Didn't really care about the car other than the fact that I put a lot of work into it. Was pretty upset that I lost my baseball cleats and glove. Maybe I was fortunate because I bought the best damn glove I've ever owned to replace it. Just restrung it this winter.

 

[Fryowa]

You must have taken the closure of Pontiac pretty hard.

Actually the Park Avenue was my favorite. I bought it in '07 and it was loaded with low miles, some old lady had it and never drove it. Was like sitting in a La Z Boy and absolutely floated down the road. Had the 3800 so I had gobs of power getting on the interstate, passing people, etc.

I'd love to have it back and I'd drive it happily for the rest of my life.

 

[HuckFinn]

I had a bright red, white vinyl interior, 4 on the floor, 2 door, with the biggest engine available in that model. OK. OK. So it was a VW bug. 1962 version.

Story: My Dad parked it in the garage without my knowledge and described it as above before he took me out to see my new vehicle. Typical for Dad.

Kid ran a stop sign and totaled it. I walked away with a couple of bruises. Lucky.

 

[Hawkboys]

'81 Escort Wagon. Sold it to a petting zoo.

 

[Chickenlounge]

I, for one, appreciate everyone posting what is likely one of their "secret questions" to reset their password on most any banking site.

Anybody feel like posting their 2nd grade teacher's name? or the street they grew up on?

 

[Glass1/2fullguy]

Technically the first car was a hand-me-down from my mom, to my oldest sister, to the younger sister, then to me. It was a 1985 oldsmobile cutlass ciera w/ about 185,000 miles. In HS it was given the nickname "neutermobile" because a friend one day said it had no balls.

Now the car i actually consider my first car was when i turned 18 my dad cosigned a loan and i bought a 1989 ford thunderbird super coupe from a one owner for $5,900. The car only had 62,000 miles and garaged in the winters. 3.8L super charged V6 5 speed manual transmission. It could hit 100 mph in third gear. I recall not too long after i had the car i was going down a hill to see how fast it'd go. The max the speedometer read was 120 and just about the time the needle went roughly 10 mph past 120 i heard an extremely loud fast shuttering sound. It scared the shit out of me as my first thought was i blew the engine but the moment i let up on the gas I quickly realized it was just the windshield wiper vibrating against the windshield.

 

[Seth53]

Actually the Park Avenue was my favorite. I bought it in '07 and it was loaded with low miles, some old lady had it and never drove it. Was like sitting in a La Z Boy and absolutely floated down the road. Had the 3800 so I had gobs of power getting on the interstate, passing people, etc.

I'd love to have it back and I'd drive it happily for the rest of my life.

My first new car in my life was a 1983 Pontiac Gran Prix...it looked just like this one sans the fancy wheels.

Great car. Sold it to help pay for my wedding. Still miss it.

 

[Fryowa]

I, for one, appreciate everyone posting what is likely one of their "secret questions" to reset their password on most any banking site.

Anybody feel like posting their 2nd grade teacher's name? or the street they grew up on?

Nuccio is the teacher, but my childhood street name is a cul de sac with only 3 houses on it to this day and the name is too unique.

 

[Fryowa]

Technically the first car was a hand-me-down from my mom, to my oldest sister, to the younger sister, then to me. It was a 1985 oldsmobile cutlass ciera w/ about 185,000 miles. In HS it was given the nickname "neutermobile" because a friend one day said it had no balls.

Now the car i actually consider my first car was when i turned 18 my dad cosigned a loan and i bought a 1989 ford thunderbird super coupe from a one owner for $5,900. The car only had 62,000 miles and garaged in the winters. 3.8L super charged V6 5 speed manual transmission. It could hit 100 mph in third gear. I recall not too long after i had the car i was going down a hill to see how fast it'd go. The max the speedometer read was 120 and just about the time the needle went roughly 10 mph past 120 i heard an extremely loud fast shuttering sound. It scared the shit out of me as my first thought was i blew the engine but the moment i let up on the gas I quickly realized it was just the windshield wiper vibrating against the windshield.

Your folks must've been LOADED to afford insurance on a 18 year old with that car.

 

[okeefe4prez]

I, for one, appreciate everyone posting what is likely one of their "secret questions" to reset their password on most any banking site.

Anybody feel like posting their 2nd grade teacher's name? or the street they grew up on?

I have a vulgar phrase that I use for every one of those questions. I've had to call customer service before and when they ask me the question and I respond with it there is usually a bit of unease but there's never any doubt that they have the right person.