I was a married man with two kids before I bought my first car. I did not buy one until they stopped bus service to the trucking company I drove for. It was a 52 Plymouth for $20 in Feb, of 1961. It was sitting alongside a building in North Buffalo and I had to bring a snow shovel to dig down to it, A $1.50 junkyard battery and a squirt bottle with gasoline in it. After I dropped in the battery and squirted a little gas in it it starter right up and ran great. With the chair height seats and tons of leg room it was the most comfortable car I ever had. First new car was a 71 VW Bus, $3020, full list price with a radio. Loved the Bus, hated the air cooled engine.
Although I bought my first car late, I had been driving for a long time, I started when I was 12 and I never got stopped before I was 16, maybe because I was already 6’ tall at 12 and looked older. I also started drinking at 12 and quit when I turned legal. (21)
In 1976 or 1977 I bought a 1967 or 1968 Dodge Charger 383 4bbl automatic for $300. First new in 1980 for $5000 Chevy Monza, repossessed in 1983. Next new car 2020 Buick Envision.
First car: 1960 Dodge Dart Seneca, two door sedan 318 with push button torque flight, $250 in 1966.
First new car: 1984 Dodge Rampage, 2.2 ‘Prospector’ 5 speed, 5th was OD.
Car I wish I could have kept: my father had a 46 Chevy1/2 ton pickup, when we moved to the city people did not drive trucks so that was traded on a 50 Nash Statesman.
Of my own-62 Sport Fury convertible with a 361.
The Rampage was replaced with a T-Bird when I needed a backseat, nothing but Fords since then.
My first car, was a '71 Dodge Charger SE.
I could have bought a car two years earlier, when I began my first full-time job, but my father counseled me to save my money so that I wouldn’t have to go into debt for a car purchase. For those first two years, I used his car for my work commute, and he walked the mile or so to his job. I really have my father to thank for my good finances over the next 50 years.
Anyway, that Charger was a beautiful (for those times) car, and it was also problem-free. However, its not-so-great gas mileage caused me to replace it after just three years, and that was one of the biggest mistakes that I ever made.
In a quest for better gas mileage, I bought a '74 Volvo, which proved from day one to be a badly-engineered POS. I gained ~5 mpg with the Volvo, but I sacrificed reliability in the process.
Don’t feel bad about regrets. I was watching a 2wd pick-up trying to unsuccessfully climb a sand hill. I bet him $20 my Charger could do it. I figured I could get up it with speed and momentum. I was right. The front tires crested the too of the hill so fast, they kept going up. Then they landed and broke the steering linkage. I still missed the trees. Coolant was everywhere. I sobered up the next day, went back and somehow a bunch of sand got into the internal engine and transmission. It was a nice car. But $20 bucks is $20 bucks.
Your story reminded me of a friend that was trying to impress a small crowd by doing a neutral drop. Big buildup with lots of engine revving and people yelling. Then he dumped it and the axle promptly broke free of the diff side first and flailed around tearing up the underside of the car before he could let off the gas. Quite the cacophony and destruction. The car unceremoniously rolled about 2ft total before it all came to an end. That ended up following him for years- remember when Mark…
Hmmm … well i basically inherited my 80’ Camaro w a v6… installed a 350 myself at 16 yrs old… so doesnt count
Next was a car i paid half for… an 86’ Pontiac Fiero 2M6 4 speed manual… rolled it over in VF park one night… i guess this one only half counts…
First car i paid for myself? … 78’ Toyota Celica GT hatchback… Zero Rust, 20R engine with a 5sp. $300 bucks out in San Diego. What a great car owned over 10 yrs and sold it to a buddy while it was still running flawlessly…
One i wish i kept? 82’ Jeep CJ-7 Golden Jamboree edition… listed as possibly the most collectable Jeep in history. It was number 253 i believe, i paid $1800 for it… Shouldnt have sold that one… but the offer was difficult to pass up. $3000 cash along with a Pristine Black 89’ Mazda RX7 Convertible w BBS Wheels … sold the RX for $5500.
Newport memories. I was still young and stupid (now I’m just old). My Impalas carb started on fire in Indianapolis. I decided to walk to town and drive anything back. Found a Newport of that vintage with shag carpet everywhere on it. I had a nickname for it that I can’t publish nowadays, but I really liked that old boat.
Wow, I had completely forgotten about that bright green “fur” I had put on the rear package tray. That was big back in the day. Someone actually broke into it and stole my FM converter and a pair of $5 speakers…
I was looking at Rabbit diesels back then. There were waiting lists for them, as gas was rationed using odd/even license plates.
I bought a 1979 Toyota Celica as my first new car. I still have it, and love it, though its not my daily driver. It looks and runs like new. Easy to maintain (if there was any car designed for DIY maintenance, this Celica was.) My first car was a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle.
This is what mine was- except for that tan at the bottom was the color of the whole truck. Completely stock, completely boring. Paid $1,000 and traded a van that my parents gave me for it.
Had a weak Inline 6cyl engine (250ci?) when I bought it, my dad and I rebuilt the engine a couple years in. I installed my own stereo in it, added rear speakers, repainted the inside, added a review mirror off a 91 Firebird (it had dome lights in the bottom of it, lol.) I learned A TON by doing my own work (with guidance much of the way,) on that beast. Sold it to a coworker who quit shortly thereafter, and never saw it again.
I’ve never bought a new car.
My vehicle list is short:
1981 Chevy Pick up
1977 International Scout
1991 Chevy Silverado
2000 GMC Sierra
2002 Ford Taurus (that I purchased for my son because he ticked me off…)
My wife has a 2012 Chevy Malibu that she bought new before we got together, so I don’t count that one as one of my purchases.
Everybody remembers their first car. Mine was a 1948 Chevrolet 4 door stove bolt 6 with zero options. Bought it off a classmate in college in 1958 for $150. It had a powerful heater and was a favorite with co-eds on a date. And it always started.
It turned out to be a good reliable car and saw me through school, after which I gave it to my kid brother who drove it another 4 years as a student. By then it had well over 100,000 miles on the clock. Other than a ring job and a valve grind, it had few repairs.
The first car I bought was a 1957 Olds Super 88 in my senior year of high school 1067. Paid $200. Looked exactly like this one except I didn’t have the fender skirts or the front shade over the windshield, but the colors, interior and exterior are the same.
No one really wants to hear about my 1960 Morris Minor anymore that I bought at 17 in 1966. It was a piece of junk. The advertised price was $195 but before I wrote the check, the Rambler dealer knocked the price down to $125. Something was missing in the carburetor but I didn’t know what back then. The brakes were shot. The transmission gears were shot. I had it painted GM yellow anyway for $20. My self-imposed budget was $250 so I wouldn’t detract from my school fund. When I hit $250 and still had the engine, brakes, and trans to go over, I sold it to a guy at the restaurant. Later I thought he was going to kill me, but I had told him everything it needed. Sore loser I guess.
My brother’s first car was a '54 Ford six cylinder, with three on the tree.
IIRC, he bought it in 1961, from a local Shell station. After a few months, it burned so much oil that he used to buy gallon cans of “straight” 40 weight oil from Pep Boys, because that was the cheapest oil that he could find, and the higher viscosity did help… a bit.
Except for the oil burning, it was actually a decent car, and he was able to keep it on the road for a couple of years.
