Your first car

[Doc_Klueless]

My first car was a 1978 Ford Fiesta. Orange in color with a moon roof. Rusty, beat to heck, the floorboard was so rusted that the only thing keeping you from putting your foot through the floor was the carpet. Whenever I'd hit a water puddle, the carpet would bulge up and water was squish through.

:::Sigh:::

I did love that car. It required almost NO maintanence outside of oil changes and such. My dad owned about 7 of them from which to pull parts so I never had to pay for parts if something DID go wrong.

Went forever on a tank of gas. I used to fill it up with the change in my pocket (of course, gas was muuuuch cheaper in 1984).

Then I got shipped off to Germany. The car sat for two years and I wasn't able to salvage it.

 

[nerfherder]

First car was an '86 Austin Metro Mayfair (been trying to find a picture, as I'm sure that most non-Brits won't have heard of it). It was meant to be cheap, but for some reason its tyres were in metric units rather than imperial, so they cost about 3 times as much as they should have! It was supposed to be the replacement for the mini and, even though I'm 6' tall and my girlfriend was 5'8", the back seat still had to be tested for, ahem, comfort...

Cheers,
Liam

 

[Finster]

The Trashmobile. A '75 Chevy Vega Cam-back. Calico colored. You had to start it with a lighter over the carb, the tires were like driving on balogna, and you could sleep in the back with the seats folded down. The driver's side door was stuck in the shut position (except after my friend Bill wrecked it, but it popped back on).

Its name originated from the fact that I kept a hefty layer of fast food wrappers and spent cigarette packs on the floor.

Not the worst car I ever owned

 

[LightPhoenix]

I still don't have a car, and I'm 25.

I'm saving now though, and hopefully by September I'll have one. I figure, why spend 300 on something that is an investment. No sense in that, IMO.

 

[Jdvn1]

1994 mazda 323 (3-door/hatchback) ... still running and getting over 30 mpg.

Hatchbacks rock!

 

[DarrenGMiller]

My first car back in 1986 was a 1979 Mercury Cougar. It was maroon with a white hardtop. It sat low to the ground and was a LOOOOOOOOONG car. I put gold rims and some mud guards on it, fuzzy dice on the mirror and fuzzy seat covers. It had 1000 watts of stereo coming through 16 speakers. I replaced the rear armrests with speakers. The backseat was referred to as "the pacemaker" since everyone said if I put a dead person back there, the bass would restart their heart. When I came home at night, my parents could hear me coming when I hit the highway behind the neighborhood. It is a miracle I still have my eardrums. I had no dashboard lights and at night, the "shotgun" passenger got the privilege of checking the speedometer with a flashlight. I went through 5 radiators and 2 transmissions on that car. The A/C was 2/60... 2 windows at 60 MPH. A girl I knew my freshman year of college who drove a Chevelle loved that car because she could curl up comfortably on the floor in front of the front passenger seat, while in her car, it was cramped sitting in the seats. I drag raced it a few times behind the high school and when it didn't stall, it did pretty well. I also used to practice my dirt track turns at 60 or 70 on the dirt roads near home. I would get it pretty well sideways coming out of the turns and practiced control coming out of the skid. I LOVED that car!


My second car was a 1984 Plymouth Voyager mini-van.

DM

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

A 1972 Ford Capri--brown with a black roof. (I think it was shipped over from Germany to the US in the early 1970s--the previous owner was from a military family who had been stationed there). I purchased it in 1988. It didn't last long, but it did provide a nice bonus when I traded it in while buying my first new car (due to the obfuscating shenanigans of dealer accounting practices).

 

[Raging Epistaxis]

Mmmmm Cars....

My parents sold the '64 Chevy II Nova that both of my brothers got to drive during high school 3 months before I got my license... The original 165 straight 6 froze up on my brother, so we replaced it with a larger straight 6 - 235? then they sold it a year later.

I got to drive the '76 Chevy Suburban for about 6 years through high school and college. Rust orange with tan strip around the middle. It got 9-12 MPG, whether it was empty or pulling my parents 25' cabin cruiser across country. 454 V8, large bore exhaust, initially dual glass-packs which were exchanged when the neighbors complained that the truck was waking them up when my parents left for work. Geared down as part of the trailering package, but I still had it up to 110 by it's speedometer on a flat straight country road one day. Central Illinios - there are a lot of flat, straight empty roads. The Beast was shimmying like mad, and my buddy who was acting as co-pilot (conspirator?) was white faced, white knuckled, and wimpering... I could probably have pushed it further, but my latent self preservation finally kicked in. Besides, we were approaching a major intersection... Ahh. good times. Drop the middle seats down and you could put a twin bed in the back. Not that I ever did, as far as anyone knows.

Then drove an 80-something Chevy Citation hatchback for a year or two. Don't really remember much about that car either way.

Within a year (~1990) I was given the first car to have my name on the title- a 71 Chevy Malibu/Chevelle that my great aunt bought new and it had <50K miles on it. Garage kept its entire life and no rust. Kept it until August 2000 when it was totaled by being rear-ended by some young punk in a delivery van who didn't even have the decency to ask if my 8.5 mo pregnant wife (who was alone and driving) was ok. Fortunately no one was seriously hurt (he left the scene before I got there), but dang. I miss that car.

1994- first car I paid for and still drive - a 1992 Civic VX hatchback. Aztec Green. Great little car. 200K miles and counting, no major problems. We routinely get 43 MPG and have gotten as high as 55, and as low as 38.

2000 - Honda 1986 Accord 4dr to accomodate our growing family. An ok car for its time.

Replaced in june 2004 by our first new car - a 2005 Scion xB. Great car. Nothing else like it on the road. 32-35 mpg, plenty of interior space for our family of 4. Great value. And cool to boot.
Ours is silver/grey like the first picture: Thundercloud Metallic, IIRC the 'official' name for that color.
[sblock]

[/sblock] Not for everyone, I realize, but works well for us.

 

[the Jester]

Shelly, a '78 Dodge Colt. Yellow, with a stereo with a TAPE DECK!! (That was very exciting in '86-'87).

I eventually wrecked it while breaking up with my girlfriend at the time.

Yes, WHILE breaking up. Ran right into a concrete barrier.

Lesson learned- do your breaking up when you aren't in a moving vehicle.

 

[diaglo]

Shelly, a '78 Dodge Colt. Yellow, with a stereo with a TAPE DECK!! (That was very exciting in '86-'87).

I eventually wrecked it while breaking up with my girlfriend at the time.

Yes, WHILE breaking up. Ran right into a concrete barrier.

Lesson learned- do your breaking up when you aren't in a moving vehicle.

my 73 Chevy C10 had an 8 track tape player.