Don't be shy! What was your first car?!

[Swimmerboy2112]

First car was a 1995 Civic with some 200,000+ miles.

One day after camping I was driving home really tired and fell asleep, ended up t-boning a tree doing 75mph. Walked away with only my pride hurt....

 

[psiems]

My first car was a 1970 Pontiac Grand Prix SJ. It came with a 400ci, 4bbl, posi. rear end and factory slap stick console shifter. I found this image on Google Images. Almost identical, without the white lettering. A bit much for a 16 year old, but it was a lot of fun. I really loved this car!

 

[Super-G]

I still have my first car. It's my 1968 Pontiac Firebird. I bought this car in 1985 when I was 17 for $800.00. I got it from the original owner with only 80,000 original miles. It was originally a 6 cyl "Sprint" car with a 3 speed stick. I yanked that 6 cyl out and replaced it with a junkyard 400 out of a 72 Catalina. Then after I blew the 3 speed, I replaced it with a 4 speed Muncie. The car saw numerous engine/trans combo's over the next few years as I street raced the snot out of it from 1985 to 1989 when I pulled it from the road because I had enlisted in the Marines.

By 1989 when I enlisted, Musclecars had taken off and I decided to store the car while I was away in the military instead of selling it. When I got out of the Marines in 1995, I pulled the car from storage and got it running. I ran it like that for several years and in 2000 I decided to pull it from the road and restore it. Over the next 8-9 years the car underwent a total restoration. The entire body was taken down to bare metal, all rust was cut out and new panels were welded in. The interior was removed and totally re-done. I redid the entire drivetrain. The car now has a 1968 400 that has been bored .030 over with a set of ported and polished 6X-4 heads, a Crower cam, Edelbrock intake, tricked out Rochester Q-jet carb, Hooker headers, ect. It's pushing out just over 400HP. All that power runs through a Muncie M-21 4 speed trans back to a brand new 12 bolt posi rear (out of a 68 Camaro). The rear was rebuilt with a new Eaton posi unit with 3:73 gears. I just installed the new rear in May of this year. The 3:73's make this car nasty but now have me thinking of a Tremec 5 speed trans for the future.

When I repainted the car I went back to it's factory original color of Verdoro Green which is a Pontiac only color. It's a rare one year only color for Pontiac and now 45 years later it gets LOTS of attention at car shows and cruise nights.

The car is a beast and gets tons of attention. Between the lopey idle of the Crower cam to the 2-1/2" Flowmaster exhaust it sounds as nasty as it looks. I will NEVER sell this car and as you can see in some of the pics, my son loves it almost as much as I do and he has already decided that this will be his car someday.

 

[hikenbike]

1988 Ford Bronco II. LOVED IT. Just sold it to some kid only 4 years ago. I was th only owner.

 

[BigNuge]

1980 Oldsmobile Omega. Ugliest car ever made, and I LOVED it (just because it was all mine).

My grandparents owned an apartment complex and one of our tenants had the Omega parked in overflow parking. It had been stuffed from behind and the woman who owned it needed it gone (this is long before junk yards would come and take junk cars for free). It still started/ran good & drove fine, it just needed a ton of work in the rear.

Bought the car when I was 14 (with my own money) and spent the next 2 years (and most every dollar I earned) fixing it up. Used to just sit in it with it idling, imagining cruising in it.

Finally got my license, got it on the road, drove it for 4 months.....totaled it (my fault, paying attention to the cuties at the bus stop while I cranked up the stereo).

Life's lessons come hard & fast once you're on the road....I'm just glad nobody was hurt (except for me, no seatbelt, I went into the windshield HARD). Good times having glass shards pulled out of my head in the ER, all while my old man was waiting for his turn at me....lol

What a nice trip down memory lane....

 

[bimrunner]

'79 VW Bus. Lime green, slow but easy to work on and could fit a boatload of people!

 

[JayceeP]

Got it just after high school graduation in summer of 2004: 2-door 1997 red Chev Cavalier!

Then:
April 2010: new 2010 4dr Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sahara
March 2013: new 2012 4Runner Limited

 

[cbielat]

Starting with my first:

1995 Honda Accord Coupe
1985 Chevy IROC Camaro
2004 Honda Civic Si EP3
2006 Suzuki GSX-R 600 in the mix too.

Sold my Civic for the 4Runner.

 

[drdolittlerwc]

That lasted me until about a year later when I sold it and bought a 1992 328i BMW 5 speed manual.

Drove that for over a year until I caught the 4Runner bug.

In 2002 I bought my 1997 4Runner and have been driving it ever since.

:banana:

I always wanted a 2002 BMW

 

[drdolittlerwc]

1969 Mustang Fastback.

Learned a lot from that car!

My Dad and I rebuilt the entire suspension, fixed the rust, and redid the interior. It only had a little 302 (.30 over) that we rebuilt in the basement.
With a tuned Holley 600, Edelbrock cam/intake, Mallory ignition, Headers, built C4 tranny, and some magic headwork courtesy of my Dad- that little sucker would run!

Favorite memory was blowing the doors off another '69 Mustang (Notchback) a guy at school owned. He had a mostly stock 390 with a 4bbl and gears which he thought was fast. I walked him as soon as my secondaries opened and watched his (open mouthed) face in the rearview mirror all the way into 3rd gear.

Miss her!

NICE!! Now that would be fun!:heh:

 

[drdolittlerwc]

Volkswagen T2. Loved that van, took it all sorts of places it shouldn't have been.

That's what I loved about my Beetle, it took me everywhere. I drove it to Wyo and out on all dirt roads, hydroplaned it a couple times, took it out in the blizzard snow they have there. When you have a car full of guys looking for trouble you care about getting stuck. Just pick it up and put it back on the road!!

 

[drdolittlerwc]

First car was a 1995 Civic with some 200,000+ miles.

One day after camping I was driving home really tired and fell asleep, ended up t-boning a tree doing 75mph. Walked away with only my pride hurt....

WOW! That's a close one....

 

[drdolittlerwc]

i still have my first car. It's my 1968 pontiac firebird. I bought this car in 1985 when i was 17 for $800.00. I got it from the original owner with only 80,000 original miles. It was originally a 6 cyl "sprint" car with a 3 speed stick. I yanked that 6 cyl out and replaced it with a junkyard 400 out of a 72 catalina. Then after i blew the 3 speed, i replaced it with a 4 speed muncie. The car saw numerous engine/trans combo's over the next few years as i street raced the snot out of it from 1985 to 1989 when i pulled it from the road because i had enlisted in the marines.

sweet ride!!!

 

[piccrazy30]

Paid my grandma $500 for her 86 camry.....stupid me (only 17) at the time didn't change the oil or keep up on any other kind of maintenance. She lasted around four years and made it to 256,000 mile til she said enough and died on the side of the road. That was when I knew Toyota made top notch stuff if you could trash it and it would still keep going, of coarse theres NO WAY I would do that now. It was a great little car though even did some off roading!!!!!!

 

[Benjamn88]

88 Chevy Silverado 350 Parents bought it brand new when I was born and saved it for me. Been a great truck and her ticker is still tickin!

 

[mikebontoft]

2002 Focus Sedan... I had just got back from looking at a few ZX3's. The first one I saw truly was the best. it was black, DOHC, lowered, had different wheels and in good condition. Think they wanted about $4500 for it. Dad wouldn't let me buy because it was the first one we looked at. they were even willing to take $50 a week payment! lol.

Got fed up with looking for cars and stumbled across a real POS focus sedan... split bumper, hole in the roof (later found out it was one of those "lead" cars for oversized trucks) SOHC etc. Pushed to buy it because I wanted a car. Enjoyed it for about two years making all kinds of mods, trying to justify them to my parents.

Day 1:

Height of it's life so far...




Engine took a crap on me the last week of winter break before I went back to college. Fortunately I had towed My Mazda up to school a few months earlier...

I bought this 1990 Mazda 626 GT for $750 from my boss. Actually bought a 98 626 from my high school shop teacher for $100 and turned a $1k profit on it so I could buy the GT! Free cars are nice . Needed a clutch and some cooling work. And some TLC.

Day 1:



Height of it's life:



Of course, I couldn't leave well enough alone so after I blew up the stock turbo on the dyno, I spent $500 and did my own upgrades in a week. still not done, needs tuning etc... but it does run well. Unfortunately it left me stranded a few times so the next summer I started looking for a truck.

Stumbled across my 4Runner left for dead (again, to my boss) and fixed her up... total cost into it was about $2k for the car and rebuilding the engine etc. So far she's dead reliable and I'm not modding much of the engine

The night I got the engine in:

And last week at work:



Also throughout the years, as my Focus sat dead, I ran through many ideas. Had a Chevy 350 in it for a year... pulled that last year and now I'm building it with a 5.0 efi and actually this weekend I'm putting the solid rear axle in it.



And then there's this 1975 BMW 2002 that I just bought a month ago... also too much of a project car. I have trouble letting cars go. I still have them all.

02 by mikebontoft, on Flickr

Long enough for ya?

 

[Jpm1609]

I got my first car right before graduating high school in 1986. It was a 1981 Celica ST. Don't think I have any pictures. Remember having a lot of fun with it and experiencing all the freedom. Had it for about 2 years.

After getting hit I got a 1984 Celica GT hatchback. That was an awesome car. Drove from Boston to FL for spring break in '89 and had a blast. Did a road trip back to FL when I graduated college in 91.

Bought a 1987 Supra Turbo Targa when I started my first post college job. That car was the devil! Too fast and gave me too much confidence with my driving ability. Never crashed it, but got pulled over a bunch of times. Sold it in 1993 and didn't have an other Toyota until this year when I got the 2013 4R. Nice to take a trip down memory lane.

 

[CookieRoe]

First car........... aaahhhh

My first car was a hand me down. It was my mother's car. I hated it, but when I was given the keys to it, I immediately started taking care of it. Changed the oil, detailed it often, it was great. BUT, mechanically it was a pile of crap. While my parents bought it brand new, it was always at the dealer getting something fixed. In the short time (close to 2 years) I had it, I didn't have any problems. It was then sold to my aunt who neglect it and it went into disrepair. Quite sad. Anyway, it had the (in)famous HT4100 V8 engine in it. Slow as hell, but it rode like a cushy couch.

Here are some pics I found on the web (not mine, but pretty much identical).

In 1993, for those who remember "the Blizzard of 93" here in the northeast, my mom got scared and convinced my dad that we needed a 4x4. I WANTED a 4Runner, but Jeep had debuted the Grand Cherokee and it had an airbag and all sorts of nice features. I still wanted the 4Runner, but my parents were not having any of it. Turns out, this Grand Cherokee and the following 3 Grand Cherokees were the worst cars our family had ever had.

We are finished with Jeep.

FOREVER.

I miss my Caddy

 

[4Running Daily]

I few months after I turned 15 I was handed the keys to this pile that had been sitting on our property for 2 years only being driven once every couple months.
Here it pictured next to my then recently acquired bike

and after some stupidly long hours, stupid amounts of money, stupid amounts of blood sweat and tears
I have this as my first car

DSC_0150 by 4Running Daily, on Flickr

 

[Limbwalker]

77 VW Rabbit. 2 door, sunroof and was told it had a scirocco motor in it? $200
Anyway, I didnt know a thing about cars, so I blew it up in pretty short order