What was your first car?

1975 Chevy Nova. My parents gave it to me when I was a sophomore in college.

Here's a photo of me, taken in August 1978, heading off to senior year of college in this car. Note how loaded down it was with all the necessities of college life. I had a drive of almost 400 miles ahead of me with that thing (an easy chair, which was the pride of my dorm room and the envy of everyone else, wrapped in a canvas tarp) lashed to the roof. No luggage rack of any kind here. Just bungee cords and balance.

Partly visible behind me is a 1978 Ford Mustang II my parents owned at the time, and that's our family pet, Barney the beagle, sitting on the grass just above the front edge of the Nova's hood. Kind of sad, actually, as he would die one year later at the age of only six from kidney failure.





Here's some photos of the car taken in March 1986. By this time, I was married, had one child with a second one on the way, my wife and I had bought a house, and the Nova, which had just over 100,000 miles at the time, was finally giving out, body and frame-wise. It was our second car by this time with the primary family vehicle being a 1977 Chevy Caprice we had bought used in 1984.

Note how rusty the Nova got along the rocker and rear quarter panels. I used to say that, in a good wind, it would play music as the wind whistled through the various rust holes. We traded it on a 1986 Dodge 600 4-door sedan, and the dealership gave us all of $100 for it on the trade. I'm sure they did that mostly out of sympathy. That '86 600 was the first new car I ever bought.

As I recall, these photos were taken just before we did the trade in. I'm not sure what possessed me at the time to snap the photos other than, perhaps, to record a bit of history as this car had seen me through thick and thin during the 10 years I owned it, but I'm very glad I did.

Ah, the memories.

 

Gawd,,,,, I still have mine! it's in a some what disassembled state at the moment..... for may years now, "ran when parked" in 2000

$550 in 1982 when I was 15, had to BIG TIME beg my Mom to loan me $50 witch I repaid heavily for! Pic below is from 1983 when I was closer to 17, worked and saved up for insurance. Picture is in the driveway of the first girl I took for a cruise, now that was a night to remember

 

You lucky bastard.

 

I was beginning to think you never had a first car.

 

If I drive, I have to have a first car at some point in time. Yeah, missing out on Mom's and Aunt karen's cars was just happenstance, out of anyone's control. But getting aced out of that '67, now that was a personal pisser, to be sure. I see another here in town, red with black interior and a very mean-sounding 327.

 

So............. your first car was really your fourth car!

Fannie's first car situation still confuses me. Why'd she stay with a guy who turned her first car into an off road truck?

I hinted that my second car was a 1954 Ford 2-dr. I lied, sort of. My second car was a 1931 Model A coupe I'd bought to restore. So maybe I lied and maybe I didn't. The Model A barely got driven around town and around the block after first buying it.

I notice a lot of nice first cars and decent prices. Altho in today's money most of us couldn't afford our first cars now.
Acoerding to the Automobile TV special Henry Ford's $5.00 a day is now equal to $350 a day. That really was good pay back then.

 

Interestingly enough I almost wound up with 49 Coronet last summer. I had a 4 wheeler the guy was begging me for and wanted to trade, Orange with black scallops, converted to 12 volt system. He was surprised I knew what a "Gyromatic" and "Fluid drive" were. haha After I test drove it, I was all in, he on the other hand, didnt like the quad as much as he thought and backed out. But it was a fun car, living close to Route 66, it could have been a fun cruiser.

 

Since I forgot to add the pictures, Heres a couple of my C10, this was the good side.. Dont have any pics of the other.



And I dont have any pics of the camaro before we pulled it out of the weeds, this picture is after we moved it to the front of the yard to load it. And the other pics are different variations of it while I had it.


2012, first season with it.

2013 I sat out with a blown engine, and a ladder fell on the car in the garage and we couldnt find a match for the paint, or deal with the chipping, so it was primered for the longest time. All through 2014-15


and the final variation was in 2016-2017..





and the final time I drove it was in Bethany, Mo. About 10 seconds after this photo was taken I destroyed the driveline, and decided enough was enough, I pulled the motor and transmission for the final time and traded it for my wagon.



Thanks for reading along, sorry for the photo spam. This car was built 98% by me, I had some help from friends and my family but I took the car from the weeds and made an 11 sec machine out of it. Something I was pretty proud of, im glad to see that it went to a guy that wanted it for a father son project and he traded me his wagon for it because the kid wanted an old camaro.

 

grwoing up in Germany, my dad bought a 1970 Chevy Townsman wagon for the business-was the only one in Germany . So I grew up on a huge wagon for those little streets. Its what i learned to drive in. My first car there then was a 1966 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme 4 door-black with white interior. it was the chauffeur driven car for the local John Deer plant president. Bought the car in 1977, was immaculate. Got lots of strange looks as a young guy in Germany driving that big boat while all others drove BMW, Citroens, Ford Capris etc. Will post a pic if I can find one.

 

Stranger than fiction.
Back when we lived in central Illinois my '55 Chevy wagon was in Classic Chevy magazine. Another member from 50 miles away began exchanging letters and phone calls. We became friends yet never met only 50 miles away. He moved to central Florida. Years later I retired and we moved to NW Florida, maybe 100 miles north of the friend. Where he worked in Tampa he had real estate connections so sent me several ads for homes and a few acres in NW Florida where we decided we wanted to retire. We realized we'd rather live in NW Florida than central or farther south. Too main reasons, too crowded, and NW is nearer family in Illinois.
So with leads from this friend we checked a small town realtor and found what we wanted after checking south central Florida briefly and only two places in NW Florida. After we got moved in I called the station wagon friend and we drove down to meet. Nice guy, like all station wagon owners.

Now for the fiction strange part. I bought a 1948 Chevy 1/2 ton panel truck. My plan was to put an 80's Camaro subframe and rear under it like my 1941 Ford already has.
Local Thrifty ad paper, before internet. I found a 1980 Camaro not more than two miles from home on all dirt roads so I could safely haul it home. The Camaro appeared to be in great shape with only one thing wrong. The V-6 engine and tranny was missing.
I got it home and my young son removed most of the front sheet metal and subframe himself. Those few 3/4" bolts holding the subframe to the firewall and under the seat were no more than 1/4" inch thick! Rusted away. I wondered how many subframe cars wrecked because the subframe broke loose while driving?

In the glove box were all records, owners manual, service records, etc. Last owner was a teenaged girl in Tampa. First owner was my friend from Illinois now living near Tampa! I called the friend and described his light blue Camaro. One of the first things he asked "how's it running?" I answered "the engine is missing." He replied " I know the engine was missing. That's why I sold it before moving to Florida, it wasn't running right."
It took awhile for him to understand the Camaro engine really was MISSING!
I cut up a perfectly good 1980 Camaro for parts and scrap!

 

That might have made me swear off driving all together........ I guess you were destined to be a Ford man.

 

My aunt told me when I was in high school, if I graduated from college, she would buy me a new car. I did.....she didn't.

 

You can't trust or believe relatives. Maybe she forgot. My uncle helped me get mine with my money. Still he found the car, made the deal, and took me to the bank.
So, what was your first car and why?

 

Especially over the '67. I spent all four years in Sand Dog riding bike, bus and the 'sneaker express.' But sitting here, thinking about my days in San Diego, I forgot about no-go #4 (you'll have to excuse me, my mind and memory are mush). My buddy Oatie Oates and I went to the Ford dealer in Nasty City to look at cheap new transpo (the credit union on base was having a new car purchase event). This was, oh, at least a year after the Impala debacle. Anyway, we were checking out the Ranger pickups, one of the vehicles the credit union would approve on, and I figured I'd just get a 4-cylinder stripper, no frills. Oatie did the test driving, gave his approval, so I went to talk to the salesman. On my way to the office, I see some fresh Rangers getting unloaded, and I realize something: the truck we drove had been second;stickered, a com.on practice in Cali at that time. I look at another truck that was the same as the one we drove, except black, not white, and its MSRP was $4300 plus a few bucks. The white one's second sticker said $5800.
So I called the salesman's attention to it and asked him what reasoning they had raising a new car's price above MSRP. His answer? " Because it's for sale in California." I tell him the factory figured that into the MSRP, and that if he wanted to make a sale, that the second sticker would be dispensed with, and any deal we struck would be on the $4300 price. He refused, Oatie and I left.

 

So even the first Ford I looked at wasn't my first car.