Your First Car....

[HoosierDaddy]

Mine was a 1955 Chevy purchased in 1964....

 

[Harp]

A M151A1 Jeep $5,000, which had a M109A1 $14,000 radio bolted down. Payroll signature ordered.
What I really wanted was a '64 Chevy Impala.

 

[BobHufford]

^^^^^ I passed up a '64 Impala convertible as I didn't want the old family hand-me-down.

Instead I went for a 1951 Willys wagon. 2WD, F-head 4 cylinder, 3-speed with overdrive. Was a $300 back-row beauty on a used car lot in 1976 and the brakes failed on my test drive (managed to get it back around the block and into the lot with the emergency brake). Put me in a good negotiating position.

Used about a quart of oil a week and I could see the driveshaft through the floorboard. Made sure I kept my shoe laces tied.

Excuse the washed out slide scan. The only pic I've found of it.

Kept it for six months and then bought a '69 Austin Healey Sprite.

 

[CatsCan]

1970 Mercedes W115 /8 midnight blue. Purchased 1990.

 

[Harp]

^^^Took the Opel Russelsheim, Rhein Main tour, factory floor followed by lunch.
Beneath our plates purchase contracts were laid, offer of shipment USA no problemo.
Sorry I didn't bite more than a sandwich that day.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

Quite often you are very difficult to understand......

 

[Harp]

Quite often you are very difficult to understand......

Sorry. I passed on buying an Opel in Frankfurt, West Germany, which would have been shipped free.
Later inherited an '81 Pontiac Sunbird, drove into the ground. Borrowed my sister's Honda Accord.
Later still, I saw a Jaguar exit a hospital parking lot. Surfed the net, looked for a high end dealer
that would not take junk for a trade in. At McGrath-Lexis, Chicago I found a '94 Jaguar XJS convertible
for $5,200. Fifteen miles per gallon but a joy and great in snow.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

So your first car was a Jeep or Sunbird......

 

[Harp]

So your first car was a Jeep or Sunbird......

A Jeep was my first real ride which of course belonged to Uncle Sam, I did sign for it, responsible
for care and maintenance, and the M109 radio also signed for.
The '94 Jaguar was my first actual vehicle purchase.

 

[Edward]

First car I owned, I bought when I was about twelve, for GBP17.00. Lot of people in those days were just getting rid of "twenty year old cars" that needed a bit of work to get them up to MOT standard. I guess it was a bit like nowadays people selling stuff "buyer collects" for 99p on Ebay just to get someone to take it away. The car was running, needed just a little overhaul and a front wing tidying up as I recall. Sold it on at a profit and it's somewhere in Ireland now, fully restored. Not my car, but the same model, a Morris 1100, mid-Sixties:

Mine was a lighter green, which I believe was known as almond green - this colour:

Sold it a year or two later, and bought a 1959 Ford 100E Popular (like this, not mine):

These were Ford's 1959 modernisation of the 'sit up and Beg' popular they introduced in 1953. During it's 53-62 run, the Popular was "Britain's cheapest new car". The reworking of the body was the most radical thing about the 59 model; mechanically, it was a small upgrade from the previous engine, still an old school sidevalve with a top speed of 69.9mph, and a 0-60 of 20 seconds. That noe got sold on too after a year or two.

I lost all interest in owning a car as soon as I turned 17 (legal age to learn to drive in the UK). Insurance in NI is crazy through the roof; for a 2CV (basically a tractor) in 1991 it would cost me, as a new driver, the equivalent of somewhere around £1500 per year in today's money, scratch I didn't have when at school. I eventually did my test when I was 19. Around those couple of years, to keep the insurance down, my dad also put on the road a 1982 Daihatsu Charade. Something like this, though I think ours was a two-door...

Cracking little motor - easy on fuel, 900cc and a five speed box, could sit at 90 all day, perfect example of Japanese efficiency. Alas, my dad got hit in an accident travelling between work meetings, and it got written off a month or two after I did my test. When my brother passed, Dad bought us a blue, early eighties Ford Fiesta which we shared and split the insurance bill on. I think it got changed twice for other Fiestas - I don't really remember, I only drove the blue one, and that once only, and only within our village. I hated driving, never felt comfortable doing it. I think actually one of the reasons I chose an extremely limited social life (especially in those pre-internet days, and with the last train home from town at night at 9pm) was to avoid having to drive. I sold my interest in the last Fiesta when I moved to London 22 years ago next month; the last time I drove was, I think, an MGB GT MY Dad owned at the time, the night before I moved to London.

Of all those above, I supposed the little Daihatsu was probably my true "first car" in terms of being one I actually drove on a few occasions, though I think the Blue Fiesta - the twice I can remember driving it, both times within the village - was the first I actually drove without my dad or an instructor in the front seat. If I could have any of my "first car(s)" back today, it'd have to come down between the Charade and the Pop. As they wee, likely the Charade, but if they could be converted to electric power, definitely the Pop. For now, I have no need of a car in London, but if ever I can into money, a nice electric conversion of a classic would probably appeal as an indulgence.

 

[AeroFan_07]

My first car that I purchased on my own was a 1982 Saab 900 turbo. Purchased it in 1992. 5-speed, 8Valve head, Bosch LH-Jetronic mechanical fuel injection, and a fun if complex little monster. Got me though college with rather few issues, had a lot of fun with it too. No-one was ever "neutral" about it. Love or hate (and a lot of hate for that body style.) Didn't matter to me.

This is really close to that car, I have some analog photos I could scan sometime:

 

[Lean'n'mean]

My first car was something like this.....

I think it was red too.

 

[GHT]

My first car was something like this.....

I think it was red too.

I know just the thing for your last car too:

 

[Benny Holiday]

My first ride was a 1967 General Motors Holden HR Premier model. 186 "red" motor, two-speed Powerglide transmission. It looked just like this:

I bought it in June 1987 for, if I remember right, $2500. I drove it for seven years before selling it on. That model was prone to rust in the lower doors, but it was a reliable unit mechanically.

@Edward my parents had a dark red Morris 1100 in the mid-80s. I remember washing it for them!

 

[Edward]

My first ride was a 1967 General Motors Holden HR Premier model. 186 "red" motor, two-speed Powerglide transmission. It looked just like this:
View attachment 306745
View attachment 306746

I bought it in June 1987 for, if I remember right, $2500. I drove it for seven years before selling it on. That model was prone to rust in the lower doors, but it was a reliable unit mechanically.

@Edward my parents had a dark red Morris 1100 in the mid-80s. I remember washing it for them!

Those 1100s were nice little motors - almost forgotten now. It's a rare to see one these days, and people often confuse them with the Austin Maxi (once everywhere, now even rarer). I saw the first one I'd seen in years about ten months ago, just before the first lockdown, in a local supermarket carpark. It was the rare Vanden Plas model (a Dutch name, so the 's' is pronounced). A coachbuilders, VP did luxury versions of a lot of higher end British cars - not always the obvious ones, either. There was even a Vanden Plas Austin Allegro! If memory serves, typical features were a wood dashboard when plastic and vinyl had become the norm, leather seats as pleather and textiles dominated, and a very distinctive upright grille that had a bit of pre-war throwback style to it. The Allegro model even had fold-down tables on the back of the font seat like you'd see on a train or plane... (I think others did too). These were all done on the Riley Kestrel 1100 model, as memory serves...

Your Holden looks a lot like a Vauxhall Viva from the early-mid seventies; were Holden connected to GM / Vauxhall / Opel?

 

[CatsCan]

General Motors Holden HR Premier model

were Holden connected to GM / Vauxhall / Opel?

Yes, all GM.
We had the Opel Admiral and Opel Diplomat. I remember that we called them "Strassenkreuzer", hard to translate, maybe something like "Men-O-War on wheels". They rusted badly, unfortunately, but so did all other cars back then. Huge cars for the time and for european standards. The oil crisis ended this evolution, though. But when I think back to my W115, how huge it was compared to a Golf 1. If the 115 Mercedes parks next to a modern Golf Model, the Golf is a giant compared.

 

[tonyb]

I owned a bunch of cars in my teens and 20s, bought cheap and for the most part driven until something major broke, at which point I called the gnarly old guy with the roll truck who took ‘em to the crusher.

But the first was a ‘58 Karmann Ghia, bought, if memory serves, for $65, which is roughly $400 in today’s money. It was a kinda root beer colored metal flake over its rearmost two-thirds and a primer gray in front, this on account of the nose having been crunched and straightened and the job never quite finished.

That gray primer obliterated much of a diagonal racing stripe that had spanned the front of the car. It actually had been a race car. The gas filler protruded through the front “trunk”; it had no functioning reverse gear.

 

[CatsCan]

But the first was a ‘58 Karmann Ghia

This car was built by Karmann in Osnabrück, 15 km from where I live now. I had many friends who worked there until it closed down. Wilhelm Karmann Jr. was one of the supporters of our University and also some of our Museums. The Ghia is one of their most famous cars, but they also built all VW cabrios and some of the special edition VWs until 2010. They worked for Audi, Chrysler, Mercedes Benz and others, too. An interesting company!

 

[Doctor Strange]

A green (with black roof) 1975 Dodge Dart I bought used in 1983.

I only had it about three years: I foolishly continued to drive it when the oil pump failed, despite the red light on the dash, and nearly killed the engine. I had a great mechanic who managed to resurrect it... but it never produced decent compression and was only usable on local roads; it strained to make it to 35mph.

Hey, I was in my twenties and it was a learning experience! I've never ignored the oil warning light again on any of my later vehicles...

 

[CatsCan]

2CV (basically a tractor)

I had a blue 2CV. I bought it 1999 for a bit over 1200 €. It was dead cheap here in Germany, insurance and all because of it's little motor and based on accident statistics - they were either driven by only a few very careful women or drivers (me included) were too anxious to cause an accident with it. The doors were as thin as a pizza box and not much sturdier. A friend was waiting with his at a red traffic light when someone crashed into his 2CV from behind with 18 mph. The enemy car compressed it right to the back of the front seats. But you could drive it in next to any terrain, even across a ploughed field. I sold it 2003 for 4000 € when I met my wife and bought something safer with airbags. If I had it now, it could sell for unbelievable 10.000 €.
I love to remember the winters in this car. There was ice at the persenning roof, but inside! Was no problem, as the inside temperatures never climbed high enough to melt it and make it drip. Changing the gears was fun, as it was very unusual. If someone tried to steal it without experience, he would not have come from the spot. A wonderful car. Wished I still had it.