The First Car You Ever Owned

[ReCycled]

And adding in pictures would be nice. If you don't have personal shots, the internet will do.

My first car was a used Ford Cortina that I bought for 500 bucks from another guy at my college in 1974. The car was a typical British import - mechanicaly a POS, but it was such a joy to have the freedom of your own wheels. Good bye public transit forever.

[|iR|Focalor]

1989 Pontiac Bonneville



This isn't a pic of the car itself, but it was the exact same color. V6, front wheel drive. It was a hand-me-down from my folks. Had upwards 120k miles on it by the time I got it. Man, what a piece of shit that thing was. I'll try to recount all the problems I had with it...

It was HELL on brakes. I'd have to get a brake job every 4 or 5 months. The front ones would go bad and start screeching, then I'd get them replaced. Then 4 months later, the back ones would go bad. Then another 4 months would go by and the front ones would turn to shit again. Etc etc etc. One time I let the front ones get so bad that it damn near sawed the rotors in half. I can remember driving through Dunwoody one night on the way to a strip club with my buddy. We were going down a pretty steep hill and the light turned red. The cars in front put their brakes on and I tried braking... I had both feet down on the brake pedal with veins popping outta my neck trying to get it stopped. Luckily it ground to halt about an inch off the bumper of the guy in front of me. Whew.

The headliner came unglued. For the longest time, I couldn't even see out the back because the huge fabric bubble in the middle of the car prevented me from seeing ANYTHING outta the rearview mirror. I thought about paying a friend to cut it open and reglue it, but I went for the cheaper option and paid maybe 2 bucks for a pack of those screw tacks.

The paint all came off the hood. GM used some different kind of clear coat on the hoods of their vehicles back then. They'd all do that if left in the sun. Even my grandpa's old GMC Sierra did it.

Some kinda ignition box that provided spark to all the cylinders went bad on 2 or 3 of the cylinders. They wouldn't fire while driving, they just slapped up and down. It made the whole car shake VIOLENTLY AS FUCK if you got over 20mph. I think it cost about 400 to replace.

One time the front trans-axle broke. I drove about 20 miles into Atlanta that night pick up some weed for me and a friend. I was hauling ass doing over 100 at times down the expressway. I could feel the car acting kinda weird the whole time. At times, the steering wanted to jerk to the left all the sudden which was REALLY dangerous because the shocks were completely and totally shot. It wouldn't have taken much to over-correct, break the tires loose, and turn it sideways. I had a guardian angel looking out for me that night I guess. Anyway, I get back to my buddies house to drop his weed off and as I'm backing out of his driveway, the front wheels drop down over the rolled curb at the end and that was the final straw for the trans-axle. It fell the fuck out. I heard a loud KA-BAM and then when I'd hit the gas it would just make a grinding clicking noise and the speedometer would swing up to 130 even though the car wouldn't move an inch.

Speaking of shocks... one night I was coming home from a strip club and stopped by a gas station for a pack of cigs and a few beers. When I got home I started unloading my pockets. I was kinda drunk. I reached into my pocket to get my wallet out and it wasn't there. I looked in the spot where I normally set it thinking maybe I had already taken it out of my pocket. It wasn't there. So I raced like a fucking lunatic up towards the gas station thinking I had left it sitting on the counter. I had probably 400 bucks in my wallet, so I was a little anxious to get it back. Anyway, I hadn't driven quite so fast on this curvy road before and ended up taking a corner over a hill too fast. The front wheels came up off the pavement just long enough to break them loose. I see a corner up ahead so I turn the wheel and it just keeps on sliding straight. I continue turning the wheel all the way to the left and slam on brakes but I end up sliding off into a fully stone masonry mailbox and into a ditch. The mailbox fucking EXPLODED into a thousand little pebbles. I tried backing up out of the ditch to continue on, but like I mentioned, it was front wheel drive, so all it did was spin the right tire in the mud. Luckily the house was abondoned so no one sued me for killing their mailbox. The guy next door came out and let me use his cell phone to call a wrecker to wench me out. The amazing thing was that it didn't smash the headlight completely to where it stopped working, NOR did it demolish the BRAND SPANKING NEW radiator I had just replaced a week before, NOR was I wearing a seat belt. Another guardian angel I guess. While waiting for a wrecker, a cop drove by and asked me if I was okay. I was shitting bricks since I knew I had been drinking a little. He said he was on the way to a call and that he'd swing back afterwards to check on me. Thank Jesus Buddha Jim Jones Christ the wrecker got there before the cop made it back. I get back home and... of course I had set my wallet in a different spot than usual in my room. Fuck me running.

Front wheel drive sucked ass. I got stuck in mud several times in that pile of shit. Had to call a wrecker to wench me out of a soggy spot in a friends back yard once on god damn easter sunday at 3am which ended up costing me 150 bucks. It would've only cost me 40 or 50 if it had been a normal day and not a "holiday" in the wee hours of the morning, but I absolutely had to be somewhere, so I just had to suck it up and shell it out.

It had power windows and power seats, which I HATED to death. The passenger side window motor was worn out and you could only crack the window a little without it getting stuck and having to grab both sides of the glass and pull it up while hitting the button. The motor on my side eventually died completely and the window wouldn't move at all on its own. I pushed it up and down so many times that the gear eventually chewed up the plastic zip track that guided it up and down. I had to take the door apart and rip the plastic out that was all wound up around the gear. After that, the window wouldn't even stay up. So I had to take a piece of wood shaped like a thin little doorstop and jam it down in the bottom of the window to keep the window up.

Man what a piece of shit that thing was by the time I got rid of it. I was gonna trade it in when I bought my truck, but they were only gonna give me 80 bucks for it.  I told them to get fucked and sold it on my own for 700.

[The Happy Friar]

'94 ford escort wagon.  Engine blew ~350k miles.  Even had the rear shocks & springs welded in because they went through the body. 

[Whirlingdervish]

The car I drove when I first got my license was a V6 '94 Ford Ranger. I used it for about 3 years, but it was my dad's extra vehicle so not technically mine. Over the years I crashed it twice, got a buttload of speeding tickets and boned a good cross section of the female population at my highschool and college in the bed of it. It got turned in on the cash for clunkers program last year and decomissioned, in return for 4 grand of the government cash that went towards a hybrid Nissan Altima that my dad uses to commute now.

First one I owned outright, was my bitchin 1980 Honda Accord:



I bought it for 600 bucks, put about twice that into keeping it running for 3-4 years and eventually sold it to a guy who wanted to rebuild it to drive around on the weekends, for a grand total of 200 bucks cash. It still ran at that point, but had some trouble finding second gear on occasion and needed some body work done to cut out the cancer. All told, except for the occasional parts flying off on the freeway (2 blowouts, a power steering belt and one electric fan), it held up really well and was incredibly fun to drive around on and off the road.

I happened to find this shot of it with the for sale sign in the window, on google streetview more than a year after it was sold.

[ReCycled]

Holy shit Foc....you need to write a book. I don't mean on cars, but anything. Too bad newspapers are going down the tube because you're a natural writer/reporter.

PS: And you wonder why GM lost market share, on their way to bankruptcy?

 

[Scorch]

1984 Dodge K-car    shit brown exterior, tan interior, paid $400 for it and the thing lasted me two years with no issues, was awesome in the snow.  Sold it off because I left for the navy and didn't need it anymore.

[peewee_RotA]

78' buick skylark...


...bought it in 2003 for something like $200


Something like this, except that the red reflections would have been rust.



Came with an 8 track with a Doors Greatest hits as a well as a Paul Mcartney album.

[Arm0r]

I was gonna post a pic of the first car I ever pwnt....was a great match, 11-0 and the car got chain spawn.

[UUD-40]

2007 Ford Fusion, I bought it with 34 miles on the odometer. 

Like foc's car, I had problems... Once a CD became jammed inside the in-dash 6 CD changer. I had to take it back to the dealership to get a free replacement... Oh, I had to change the tail-light once too. 

[|iR|Focalor]

HAHA! Smart ass.

Nah, just trying hit it out of the park on the point that it was ALWAYS SOMETHING with that piece of shit. And looking back now, I can't believe I put up with that piece of shit for as long as I did. I always rationalized it by saying, "Well, it's better to pay for occasional repairs than having car payments." One part of that was the idea that older GM parts would be cheaper than newer parts for a newer vehicle. I was also keeping my fingers crossed hoping that the transmission wouldn't shit itself. By the time I started having so many problems with it, it had maybe 150k miles on it and the original transmission, which was never serviced properly. By that time, you couldn't GET a new transmission for it anymore, just a rebuilt one. By the time I had the money to focus on maintaining the transmission (in between brakes, tires, and other repairs), the transmission fluid had turned to a thick black sludge. I was praying and hoping that when they flushed it out, it wouldn't come up with a leak somewhere. It did however start making a little more noise from the transmission, which made me nervous as hell. Luckily it held up until I got enough for a down payment on a new ride. By the time I parted with it, it looked like it had survived about 2 or 3 destruction derbys, both inside and out. The interior looked like homemade shit-on sin. I smoked in it, had burn holes in the headliner, the seats, ashes and dirt and trash all over the place, even a little bit of dried vomit under the passenger seat where my buddy puked Jagermeister and cheddar popcorn. I never vaccumed or attempted to clean the interior with the exception of maybe swiping the dust off the plastic over the dash guages with my hand.

[{TNP}Dukie]

1975 chevy monza.  Got it in 79.  Mine was a little more metallic blue than the pictures, but I did put louvers on the rear like the pic.  I had better wheels.  It had a 350 in it (somehow they fit that engine in there) and a holly 4 barrell carb.  I loved that car!  It was ragged by 84 when I bought a brand new Silverado.

[ReCycled]

Just as an appendum to the original idea of the thread, here's ALL the cars I've owned so far:

1970 Ford Cortina
1975 Dodge Duster (slant 6)
1980 Mazda 626
1984 Mazda RX7
1988 Honda Civic
1987 Mazda RX7 2+2
1994 Acura Integra
1997 Ford Aerostar (cargo van)
and today
2003 Acura 1.7EL
1999 Toyota Tacoma

Most reliable - 94 Acura - 217K miles tranny/engine still good. Underneath, a pile of rust. 88 Civic was a close 2nd.
Least reliable - 97 Ford Aerostar - every 2 weeks something to fix, overheating constantly, dumped it for $300
Most fun -  84 RX7, by far - too many stories to recount
Least fun - 75 Duster - fairly reliable, but bland, underpowered, crude suspension.

[[BTF] Reflex]

84 Ford Escort

Nobody ever bothered taking a pic of this car,  ever.

[:iR:goatkilla]

1984 300zx 5speed manual , the car would peel out all first gear and chirp second , not bad for a car that was my age at the time!

[RRBM [NL]]

1989 Volvo 440 1.7L   Owned it for 4 years.  The car was 14 years old when I bought it for 500 bucks.