I got it in 82 after I graduated from law school and had a job. I think I paid 2500 for it. My brother christened it Ghetto Cruiser. I don’t believe my soon to be Bride ever sat on the hood. I attempted to teach her to drive in it, but she said it seemed to be too big of a boat for her to feel safe piloting it. The Escort that we got in 83 was more her speed and she graduated from the McClarey school of driving instruction soon thereafter and got her license.
What was your first car?
The first car I drove regularly, back and forth to high school and community college, was a 1963 Plymouth Belvidere that had been handed down from my grandparents. It was slightly older than me and had an automatic push button transmission. I did not find out until years later that it was considered a “muscle car” and a collector’s item
My first car was a 1965 Dodge Polara with automatic push button transmission. I purchased it used in 1978 while in college and shared it with my sister. It was bright red and creaked like an old ship when turning, so we called it “The Ark”. It served me well for the next few years!
Being on the youngerish side here I don’t have as cool a story, but for what it’s worth, it was a mint green 1993 Mazda Protege. 5 speed. I loved putting it in neutral and coasting down hills and mountains on my long drives back and forth to school, although I *might* have topped out at 45 going up the mountains.
More in line with the topic, even when I was a kid in the 80’s, we still had my mom’s first car – a bright red 1970 Mercury Montego. It was a boat and she loved that car. It went in 1986, but even until her departure from this world she would always speak fondly of that Montego.
A 6 y/o 1963 Green Rambler hand me down that used as much oil as gasoline. A quart every 25 miles. My dad had a penchant for weird cars. This one was a stick, but had an auto clutch. His last car was one of those god-awful 2/4/8 cylinder shut down GM cars. To add insult to injury. It was metallic lavender. My mother literally gave it away just to get rid of it. Then she went out and bought a BMW convertible.
A brown 1970 Plymouth Duster. It had a decal of the Tasmanian Devil on the trunk. The Duster was the counterpart of the Dodge Dart.
A bronze colored 1970 Chevy Malibu, not the SS but the 4-door sedan version. It still had the 350 V-8 engine that wanted to fly, and even with an automatic transmission, I had to be careful not to push the pedal too hard after a stop light or stop sign, because it would “lay rubber” very easily. I paid $800 for it in my last summer before leaving for law school, 1976. Only problem was that, after I graduated in 79 and moved to my first job in St. Louis, I realized that a car without air conditioning in the St. Louis climate was not a wise choice. 😑
‘”Vannessa”, my 2009 Dodge Grand Caravan. She was dark green with 2 sliding doors and a 3.0 liter V6.
She got like 18 MPG somehow and handled amazing, even on the gnarly back roads of Wyoming and Montana.
Never had functioning air conditioning though.
She was my horse…
Still have her plates mounted on the wall though.
1974 emerald green Gremlin X.
304 V8, standard transmission and the A/C had a setting for ‘Desert Only‘ 😀
I loved that car! I learned a lot about fixing cars while keeping her on the road but boy howdy did I go through a lot of tires!
I had a 2000 Ford Taurus that my parents gave me in college with the understanding that when my sister needed a car I would be graduated and supporting myself. When that time came, I bought a black 2002 Buick Lesabre. My coworkers laughed at the old man car, but it was great until 200,000 miles 🙂
1980 Chevy Monza! Stick shift. Had an eight track player in it, so my friends and I would go to garage sales looking for some to play. I remember having Queen, Foreigner, and the soundtrack to Grease. This was in ‘92. We lived near bottom of a valley and when it snowed even a little but the car couldn’t make it up the hill because it was rear wheel drive and all the weight of this was in the front. I kept telling my Dad that, but he responded with the 1992 version of “skill issue.”
So one day after a snowstorm he tried to prove me wrong, and went to the bottom of the valley…
And couldn’t even get back to our house. So he helped me find something newer. He was the service manager for a dealership, so that wasn’t hard. I really liked that car, actually.
I didn’t get my first car until I was 23 and had been in the Navy for four years. It was a 1986 Isuzu I-Mark. Gremlins were about the same size as Escorts.
I was 1980, I was 17 and a junior in HS when I bought my first car, a 69 baby blue VW bug. I bought if from my aunt who bought it new and she kept it in the garage. It had a sun roof. I drove it 7 years.
1966 Dodge Monaco, tan with a vinyl roof – a gift from my father after he bought himself an even bigger “boat”. It worked fine and got me from point A to point B. And it had AC and a good stereo. My second car was a dark green Plymouth four-door government car bought for a few hundred bucks at a government auction. Not nice looking, but it got me from point A to point B. I was never attracted to cars, except for 1959 Chevy Impala two-door with a sweeping roofline and those big fins over the tail lights.
1962 pale blue Triumph TR-3. My brother and I bought it for $600. We took turns taking it to college. I was naive. The garage for a tune up charged me for 6 spark plugs. A week or so later when I opened the bonnet, I saw the engine was only
4 cylinder. Eventually learned how to change a tire and change the oil. Loved that car.
Second car was a 1972 metallic burnt orange MGB with spoke wheels, my $3100 ensign car. My husband drove it to NAS North Island; he left it in the BOQ parking lot for his squadron pilots to drive it when they came from NAS Cubi for Top Gun. It was left in California with a friend. For our 20th wedding anniversary my husband surprised me with a 1972 red MGB. We still have it. When my older son comes to town he has a car to drive with the understanding that he works on it.