If you love your teen, get them a (safe) beater car as their first, then once they get some experience and have proven themselves behind the wheel, get them a nice car, whether classic or modern.
My dad’s 1974 Olds Toronado had air bags. AFAIK, GM was the first to equip their cars with air bags. And it didn’t catch on until years later–GM stopped until at least the late 80s after that.
I agree. Whether it is a Corvette or any other vehicle, teens are likely to have at least one accident in the first 4 years of driving. All three of my children did, and they are not unusual.
Wife was cool, in 68 cougar xr7, she was not an airbag and I never needed one anyway.
There’s no better video to show how cars have improved in the last 50 years. I’d have that '59 as a hobby car, NOT a car for my teen.
That’s interesting. My 74 Olds didn’t have them but it did have the seat belt interlock. Couldn’t start it until you buckled up or raised up off the seat.
Laniel, I agree with those who say that the cars listed in your post are not good vehicles for a teenager, I sure wish my parents had been so generous. I bought my first car myself, a 1961 Beetle. Of course it WAS still the sixties!
If you have the resources, you’d be much better buying them a new econobox. No classic vehicle is as safe as a modern econobox, and one with a performance envelope far beyond any teenager’s skills is even that much more dangerous.
I hate to degenerate into this but parents need to be parents, not best friends. Sometimes parents generate that feeling of worth by providing things to their kids that they were denied. Me too, but there need to be limits so that they also can experience a little bit of want that will be a motivating factor. Also parents need to show judgement for safety that kids may not always appreciate. To simply give kids everything without earning it is robbing them of the joy of achievement. To give kids a dangerous tool that they cannot handle might be robbing them of their future.
Geeze, I sometimes think you guys are some of the crabbiest uptight old farts I’ve ever known.
There’s got to be some middle ground here. In my case, I’ve had collectible cars since before my 3 boys were born. They grew up riding in my '67 convert, and are still here to tell the tale.
What I did was first make sure they were competent drivers. (Which they were and are.) Then, for the first couple of yearsafter getting their license, the only way they could drive it was with either me or mom along. Never got to use it alone. This got them used, in a controlled setting, to all the quirks and idiosyncosies an old car like that will have. They had to demonstrate to me they knew all of the controls, could change tires, shift the transmission properly (It has a Muncie 4 speed.) and had a good understaning of where everything was under the hood and what it did.
I think most parents do know their kids pretty well, and I knew my kids were not irresponsible idiots prone to doing dumb things. (For the most part…) After they were past 18, and had a couple of years worth of driving under their belts, I started letting them take it out on thier own, and never worried about it. Never had a problem. In fact, lately they’ve been on my case to get it back on the road so they can drive it again. (It’s been down for about ten years for major rebuilding and upgrades.)
I think you guys need to lighten up a bit sometimes.
Way back in the 70’s I used to feel that way about safety improvements, till a friend of mine lost a whole bunch of teeth due to an unpadded dashboard.
Better to be safe, than have a lifetime of regrets, cool as it may not be.
@DrRocket - your method for teaching your kids was OUTSTANDING. Two years of one-on-one is the best way to teach driving, and it got them through the 2 most dangerous years. NONE of what you describe was mentioned by the OP. When an anonymous stranger asks me a question, I answer in a way that works for everybody. And it worked for me.
And remember, the fact that you survived really doesn’t mean anything. Those that didn’t, don’t post here.
Some facts: Cars are 10X safer than they were in the '60s, teens are 3X more likely to be in a fatal crash, and driving deaths are the leading cause of death for all teens. So a teen + classic car = 30 TIMES THE DEATH RATE.
If my son wants to buy a ‘classic’ with his money, and pay to insure it, that’s fine (once he knows the facts). For his first car, no way.
This puts the teen driving danger in perspective. 16 year old males are at 10X higher risk of death than a middle aged person.
An eighty five year old is even worse.
As a matter of fact, my oldest turned out to be one hell of a mechanic, and has built a few of his own project cars, including a fully caged Mazda MX3 race car that they run stage rallys with.
@Bing Air bags in the 70s for GM cars was a $300 or so OPTION! Few owners ordered them since they found the cost excessive. GM then discontinued them till they became mandatory.
The infamous seat belt interlock was another “passive restraint” system that met with great resistance; putting a bag of groceries on the passenger seat prevented the car from starting. Many dog owners despised it. Congress itself then moved to have this eliminated.
My dad had a Plymouth with that “feature.” What a PITA.
Another one I hated was the shoulder belts that moved up and down the side window frame. I was backing my brother’s car out of a tight spot one day, opened the door to get a better idea of how much room I had, and was darn near garroted by that thing.
Has the OP made a decision? I am curious as to what he decided to do in this situation. I am on the side of safety. Not to seek sympathy, but I lost my wife 24 years ago due to a Chevy Cav. Wagon. That is all I could afford then, so because I was of modest means I purchased an inexpensive car without thinking about safety. As a current high school teacher, I can also confirm that teens boys are crazy stupid behind the wheel. All the parenting in the world goes out the window due to their immature brains and peer pressure. Add cell phone distractions and the odds of an accident is very high indeed. Get him a safe car or better yet, make him earn his own car.
@jr4488–In one of the OP’s other threads, SHE finally revealed that she is the teenager in question, and that the car is for herself.
While it is true that teenaged boys do tend to be “crazy stupid” behind the wheel, over the past few years I have observed that, by the time that they get into their twenties, many (perhaps most) young women are just as foolhardy on the road as are their male counterparts.
In any event, the one thing that the OP’s multiple posts have in common is that her possible cars of choice have essentially nothing in common, except for low levels of both safety and reliability. Then, in her other–most recent thread–she threw a Tesla into the mix, along with an old Jag and an Austin Healey that would have to be at least 4 decades old.
Does any of this make sense to you?
It certainly doesn’t make any sense to me.
This is good example of the use of an ignore button use as one member stated a few months ago.
Auto insurers make little distinction between teen boys and girls these days as far as rates are concerned.
All we know so far that OP is good at keyboarding, but we don’t even know if she or her parents (likely) have the money to actually buy a car.