How About Your FIRST Car - when cost was an object

[JavaMan]

Okay, VAMike23 is revealing our coolest cars, and there are some gems in that thread, but who is willing to fess up and reveal their first ever car - the one you had to actually pay for yourself? (no hand-me-downs)

Mine was a late 1950s Ford, an English Ford that is. An English Ford Anglia Deluxe to be exact. Chartreuse in color, and a strikingly ugly shade of chartreuse it was.

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The price? It was right in my wheelhouse ...$100. Miles? if memory serves, it had around 100k miles on it - the equivalent of a million miles compared to today's models.

And in keeping with today's trend of full and honest transparency, I must reveal that my $100. gem didn't actually come in the condition of the one pictured in the above photograph. Condition wise it was closer to this one.

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But it was mine! My first set of liberating wheels. It served me well ...in many ways.

How about yours?

 

[Kaizen]

My first car was a used Ford Pinto (World's 15 Ugliest Cars)
That was in the 70, in my college, and I paid ~$600. I used for 2 years then traded in ($400) for a used Buick LeSabre.

 

[geneticrex]

My 1st was an original 70' T/A Challenger, 340 Six Pak, 4 speed. My biggest mistake was selling it.

 

[reno tony]

Mine had a 6 cylinder and a three on the tree.

 

[JRRRJ]

On a trip to Santa Fe in 1968 -- the year I graduated from high school -- three of us ditched the idea of taking the bus from Albuquerque (where Frontier Airlines dropped us from Denver) since I had some money I'd saved from my job clerking at a pharmacy. We went to a used-car lot (chosen because there was a gray '51 Plymouth station wagon out front that looked just like the one my folks had in the mid-50s). But it was $300, which was all the money we had between us. So the salesman steered us to this '53 for $100:

(Can't believe I found a picture in nearly the same color, which was obviously after-market.) We promptly christened it The Green Maggot (yeah, it was turquoise), threw our bags in the back and drove off to Santa Fe for a church conference. It came in handy for general transportation during the 2 weeks of the conference. We were considering cashing in our plane tix for gas and meals and driving home (to Connecticut), but a couple days before departure the top(!) of the battery fell off and we couldn't afford to replace it, so we left the Maggot in the parking lot of UNM Santa Fe and flew home.

 

[CL82]

'68 Ford Country Squire:

390 interceptor engine got 20 Mpg and yet was remarkably quick of the line. Two way tailgate and room for 10. The middle and rear seat folded down to give you a bed as big as a pick ups. Perhaps the finest motor vehicle ever made.

Link to more pictures

 

[CL82]

Doubting that seating for 10 are you? Well feast your eyes my friends:

Actually you could probably get 12 in there pretty comfortably.

 

[Sonny44]

Mine was a used (abused?) Simca. It sure didn't look this good. My dad bought it for me real cheap.
It had all sorts of problems, but the worst was the electrical system. Turn on the radio and the windshield wipers came on. Turn on the heater and the radio would turn off. Etc, etc.
One day I drove it home from school and went in for dinner. The kitchen was right next to the driveway. As we were eating we started to notice a strange smell. We looked out the window and noticed smoke coming out the car windows. The car was on fire, electrical fire, not ten yards from the kitchen table! Somehow [I know not how] my father managed to put it out.
That's not all. My father wanted to sell it for $100. There was a nice young girl down the street who wanted to buy it. Though she practically begged him, he wouldn't sell it to her. My father had principles. He wound up junking it for $25 I think.

 

[Sonofabeach]

Mine was a 1973 Pontiac LeMans paid $300.00 for it!

 

[CTrefugee]

A 1950 Oldsmobile that cost me $50. I would fill it up with Gulftane in downtown Storrs at 18 cents per gallon. This was the early-mid 1960's.
When I would take people to NYC for a weekend, they had to get out with their luggage and walk up that big hill on the Wilbur Cross Parkway and reload at the top.
Eventually, it was parked in a campus lot, because the heater still worked. Graduate students living in Wood Hall could use it as a warm and relatively private place to bring their dates.

 

[meyers7]

A Honda (circa 1981 or 1982?) hatchback. 1300cc, blue like this one. No A/C. Had it mostly in Florida. Could get up to 50 mpg though, on the highway at 55mph.
It had been in a wreck and my cousin and uncle had down the body work on it. Bought it from them in '83. Don't remember how much though. I was in the Navy though, so I had steady income.

 

[VAMike23]

A hand-me-down 1968 Ford Falcon, similar to this one but mine was 4-door.

Gramma (who only put 35,000 miles on it) ---> to my brother (who drove the out of it and put on another 40,000) ---> to me!

 

[Uconnrick]

My first (second, third and fourth cars too) were given to me by my father. Sounds cool huh? Well, he owned a gas station in Waterbury and I got the cars his customers refused to fix cause the cost of repairs exceeded the vehicle value. So my first car was a 62 Chevy Wagon with a bum solenoid, no side window, no wipers and lets see.................a broken frame. I drove that car through high school (didn't park near the cool kids) and actually used it my first semester in college until the muffler fell off and it lost 2nd and 3rd gear. Rather than tow it home, the old man had me drive it back to Waterbury from Central Ct.

I then got a 66? Olds wagon with a 3 on the tree, a 394 with a dead cylinder, NEW RECAPS!!!!!!!, no wipers (not broken, missing wiper motors) and Clot and Skinner carved on the hood in large letters next to 2 bullet holes. Hey, the radio worked! I fashioned a plywood divider to divide the back from the seating area and cut a round hole big enough to fit our empties. My buddies payment to me for multiple rides to the bars or the beach was that they cleaned the back of the wagon out. A singularly disgusting job that left more than one puking in the parking lot.

My third car.................well, you get the picture.

I'd be in jail today if I did that to my kids but it was my Dads way of toughening me up. Just like tossing me off a boat at 6 years old near Middleground while blue fishing (in October) or sending me to high school with a crew cut in 68. My kids think I'm full of it when they hear these stories, and I am full of it on lots of stuff, but not this.

 

[Rixxx]

How about a 1960 Plymouth police car? I owned it briefly in its ugly shape, was in an accident and for an extra $75.00, I had the car painted blue. Not the beautiful blue shown. It was a boat....

 

[cabbie191]

Just before my senior year in high school, I inherited a 1964 Rambler American from one of my uncles. The price was right - $0.00 - but that didn't include the cost of having it towed from Uncle Lou's house to get it operational.

Definitely not a vehicle designed to enhance one's dating odds! It lasted about a year before it was declared a menace to society.

 

[VAMike23]

How about a 1960 Plymouth police car? I owned it briefly in its ugly shape, was in an accident and for an extra $75.00, I had the car painted blue. Not the beautiful blue shown. It was a boat....





View attachment 14665

that's a sweet ride

 

[lne001]

1962 Pontiac Tempest convertible - used. Car had unbelievable over steer, horrible transmission linkage. But it was mine.

 

[pinotbear]

'68 AMC Javelin, baby V-8 in the front, and absolutely no weight in the rear - which made it very exciting, driving on snowy roads in upstate NY.

 

[Nuyoika]

No offense. Really, I mean it.... but how old are you guys. I have never seen any of these things on the road lol. My first car was a 2001 green Ford Escort.

 

[Patty Bailey]

First one parents paid for: 1979 Mercury Capri
First one I paid for: 1981 Toyota Corolla
First new one: 1991 Hyundai Scoupe

 

[Alydar]

1967 Dodge Dart Convertible. Slant six and 3 on the tree. $500.00 and the seller threw in his 8 track player and a box of tapes.

 

[CCinCT]

Car # 1 1959 Renault Dauphine $200

Car #2 1962 Chevy II $100

 

[CCinCT]

First new car

Car # 3 1970 Renault R10 $1910 out the door

 

[uconnell]

My dad bought me a '39 Ford with no brakes, never drove it. Next he bought me 45(46?) Chrysler convertible that had a mind of its own ( started when it felt like it). Drove it for many years even to work in Stamford from Norwalk on the old Rt 1.

 

[Adesmar123]

1960 VW white convertible bug...could a Uconn student in 1969 be prouder?