OFF-TOPIC What was your first car?

[BusinessBen]

I just bought my first car and i'm super happy about it. It's a 2006 Saturn Ion Quad Coupe.
Just wanted to share the feeling with others and ask what was your first car?

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

A $99 Datsun B210 -- yes, bought it for $99 because my mom refused to let me borrow her car.

Little did I know it was a death trap. The frame was rusted out and you could actually see the street in the wheel well. When the car went in for brakes (it also had bad brakes) you couldn't get it up on the lift ... the lift didn't LIFT the car, it went THRU the car. Hah, memories!

 

[jpanarra]

1993 Silverado pick up, bought it with 300K+ miles in 05 with basically no brakes, it would leak brake fluid everywhere and I would have to make a routine stop at the gas station to try and fill up my brake fluid. Alos had to start stopping a good 300+ feet back

 

[SteveO]

1959 Volkswagon Karmann Ghia. Three hundred bucks. 17 year old in the Marines. Did not pass the safety test so they would not let it on the base.

 

[Smuggo]

A $99 Datsun B210 -- yes, bought it for $99 because my mom refused to let me borrow her car.

Little did I know it was a death trap. The frame was rusted out and you could actually see the street in the wheel well. When the car went in for brakes (it also had bad brakes) you couldn't get it up on the lift ... the lift didn't LIFT the car, it went THRU the car. Hah, memories!

I am glad you survived... Living on the edge.

My first one and still the one I use is the Peugeot 308 from 2008. So far no problems. I can pack equipment for kiting for 3 people + bags, go to the seaside. Not big fuel consumption in city. I don't need anything else

 

[luniac]

It was the only thing they'd let me drive without a license. 10 bucks for 10 minutes of joy.

 

[RazorCut]

Not saying I'm old but....



Seriously though it was a Chrysler Alpine

 

[Jaden Jones]

1988 chev celebrity. Similar to MJ, it had some rust issues, front strut came through the body and dented the hood outward, we just welded on a metal plate and kept going. Paid $800 for it.

 

[Charnell]

2005 Cadillac STS. Bought it in 2012 when I was in the Marines at 21 after leaving Okinawa with a few thousand in the bank saved. Still have it and will keep it for another year or two before giving it to my dad.

 

[YoungPadawan]

Baby blue, 1998 Oldsmobile Cutlass. Man, I had to practically beat back the beautiful women that wanted to get with me because of that car... Not!

It was the granny-mobile express, but hey - I got it for free so I wasn't complaining.

 

[Danny Sullivan]

Congratulations on your first car. It means freedom (of movement at least) in some way.

Here's my first car and financial mistake anno 2004, a 1997 Mitsubishi Eclipse:

Probably wasted somewhere between 15.000 and 17.000 euros on this car (including the car itself), but boy was i famous for having it.

Looking back on this phase of my life i can't help but laugh about myself. So stupid.

 

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[lowtek]

First car was a 1995 Chevrolet Beretta, with ~85,000 on the clock.

What a shit box. The transmission died somewhere around 125,000 miles, the door handle broke, the brakes completely failed (almost killed me that time), the trunk leaked, the radiator went out...

Some solid mid nineties government motors engineering right there.

 

[Ninjakid]

1993 Cherry red Ford Mustang. Good condition, it just needed brakes and an engine.

I never drove it, and got rid of it because they crumple like tin cans in accidents.

 

[Raoul Duke]

1973 Datsun 240z with a 350 small block chevy. Ran like a scalded ape. Mom was totally against the idea. My dad convinced her though. 16 years old.

 

[SolopreneurGrind]

A few years ago, a 2009 Hyundai elantra. Wanted to learn standard so I figured "if I buy a standard car, only option will be to learn how to drive it".

Loved driving standard (took a week or two of practice), then sold it a year later when I moved to a bigger city right downtown.

 

[B. Cole]

Had an ‘88 S10 Blazer, stickshift 2WD with no factory a/c, most baseline vehicle you could get. We lovingly called it the Candy Cane - it was white with red stripes, blue front fenders and a primer (performance lol) grey hood. My grandad and I got it for 50 bucks from a junkyard, it was totaled - whole front clip was caved in and the frame was bent. We fixed it up and got it running. I ran side jobs, strapped trim to the top of it, even hauled cabinets that would fit in the back (had to use vice grips to clamp the lift rods and hold the back glass up).

It used oil so bad! The low oil shutoff would leave me stranded sometimes when it got too low.

I remember once I was on the road and it stalled at a stop light. It wouldn't start because the oil was low, I was loaded down on my way to run trim in a house. I pushed it out of the intersection onto a vacant lot, drained the oil out of my air compressor and put it in the blazer so it would start and get me to the job. Totally wrong kind of oil haha! I hand nailed trim all day at the job so I wouldn’t burn up my air compressor, and picked up oil for both on my way home that evening.

It was our only car for almost a decade. My wife and I ran a paper route out of it at nights, took it to work during the day. Even got lucky in it a time or two.

Bid her farewell on a $500 trade-in toward my wife’s current ride - 2008 Chevy Equinox, during the Obama program to get old cars off the road in 2009.

The Candy Cane is probably an IPhone case or a soup can now.

 

[Shri Kanase]

2019 Mercedes C300
Bought it at 19 years old through my eCommerce business (well, I leased it)

 

[kanunay]

A $99 Datsun B210 -- yes, bought it for $99 because my mom refused to let me borrow her car.

Little did I know it was a death trap. The frame was rusted out and you could actually see the street in the wheel well. When the car went in for brakes (it also had bad brakes) you couldn't get it up on the lift ... the lift didn't LIFT the car, it went THRU the car. Hah, memories!

I once had a Mitsubishi pickup truck like this. The most memorable moment was one time a friend closed the passenger side door: the glass fell off the tracks down inside the door, and the broken pieces showered down onto the ground through the rusted-out bottom.

 

[Longinus]

Volvo 740 2.5 Diesel RWD, bought it for 1500 euro (which was too much actually). That was in 2009 I think. It was almost 20 yo.

A tank basically, I drove a lot on off road tracks with this one, just for fun. Had also a lot of fun drifting in the rain and snow in every corner. Very strong but extremely slow.

 

[ShamanKing]

White 1996 Acura Integra Gsr. Street racing and banging gears every Friday night.

 

[biophase]

1981 Ford Fairmont station wagon.

 

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[minivanman]

A $99 Datsun B210 -- yes, bought it for $99 because my mom refused to let me borrow her car.

Little did I know it was a death trap. The frame was rusted out and you could actually see the street in the wheel well. When the car went in for brakes (it also had bad brakes) you couldn't get it up on the lift ... the lift didn't LIFT the car, it went THRU the car. Hah, memories!

My very 1st car was a 1972 MGB hard top convertible. The fuel pump sucked so we pushed it more than I drove it. We would be out some place and it would die. It was a stick shift so we would try to push start it.... after a few miles, it would usually start. Like someone else said.... I didn't know how to drive a stick but by the time I was 15, I had been driving for 10 years (on the farm) so I caught on quick.

But my 2nd car was a yellowish/green/baby poop colored Datsun B210 Hatch Back. I used to pile everyone in that car and head to the motorcycle trails. Man, if you've never taken a small car like that on a motorcycle trail, you are missing out! My buddy had a Datsun station wagon and we would do the same thing except he would be driving and I'd be standing on the back bumper hanging on to the luggage rack flying over the motorcycle jumps. We called his the 2x4 even though it was only 1 wheel drive. lol

 

[Vic Sage]

A $99 Datsun B210 -- yes, bought it for $99 because my mom refused to let me borrow her car.

Little did I know it was a death trap. The frame was rusted out and you could actually see the street in the wheel well. When the car went in for brakes (it also had bad brakes) you couldn't get it up on the lift ... the lift didn't LIFT the car, it went THRU the car. Hah, memories!

OMG, the only new car I ever owned! It took me over a year to sell it, because nobody believed I would sell a new car that didn't have a major problem. The problem was I just hated it.

 

[Vic Sage]

Oh, forgot--my first car was a 1965 Triumph Spitfire. Just thinking of it makes me feel young.

 

[Fox]

So I nearly died on the very first day of getting my first road car.

I bought a 1994 Opel Corsa in the morning and the plan was to drive that evening by myself around two hours to go work with my uncle for a few months for the summer.

Looked like this...



I think it was a 1.1 or 1.2 engine. In Ireland, because insurance is so high you have to drive super underpowered cars when you are younger to avoid massive premiums.

I load up my tiny unpowered new car with all my stuff for the summer and head off across country. I have had "field cars" for years so I know how to drive but at this stage am definitely not road experienced. Highly over confident ha.

So about an hour into my journey, I get stuck behind one of these guys...


Except its Ireland so it is a tractor. Couldn't find a better picture.

It is on a tiny backass road so there is no room for this guy to pull in and let me pass. So I drive behind maybe going 40/50km for a while. After about 10 minutes I decide I have had enough of this and go to pass him out.

Road looked like this...



So I go to pass him out when there is a little bit of a straight stretch (Irish country roads are not that straight ha) but when I pull out there is zero power. My relative speed to his is about how fast you would walk to the kitchen in the morning.

So I am literally walking-speed passing this guy out and I get halfway and there is a corner ahead. I don't know whether to slam on the brakes or just stick with it. I decided to just keep going and pray I make it before the corner.

As I get to around the 3/4 mark I see there is now also a car coming around the corner too. I got maybe 100 meters to make it. I figured I could make it so I just stuck with it and managed to just pull in in time. I think the other car expected me to brake or something cause they never slowed down at all either. Either did the guy driving the hay.

To this day I think its the closest to dying I have been driving. It was like one of those videos where someone crosses a railway track just before a train zips by. I think what happened mentally was just my complete inexperience of driving on the road plus not realising how underpowered a car like this is for accelerating.

I remember being shuck for the rest of the day afterwards and making a promise with myself to never ever do something like that again ha.

---

So I checked Youtube and found this...

But imagine it with an extra 100+ kg haha.

It was accelerating like a train leaving a station.

 

[The Abundant Man]

I'm spoiled

I had a 2008 Saturn Aura as my first car. It looked exactly like this:
http://carphotos.cardomain.com/ride_images/3/48/921/25117960023_large.jpg

 

[GPM]

First car was a 1990 pontiac grand prix in grandpa blue. What a dream that was. I got it for $1500 in 2003.

True story: the most I ever paid for a vehicle up until 2015 was $3500.

 

[Sire Bryan]

1972 Chevy Nova with the top end in a milk crate. Picked it up for $300, got it running and raced the hell out of it. Man, I wish I still had that car....

 

[Guest24480]

Bought a 2009 Corolla about a year and a half ago for $5k cash from some guy on Craigslist who was upgrading. Have had zero major problems with it and went into zero debt to buy it. It also gets like 36mpg highway. Best decision ever.

 

[Pauly-FL]

A 1974 VW Thing - Acapulco edition. VW only brought the Thing in from Mexico for two years: 73 and 74. They didn't want to invest in the new 5mph bumper and other safety mandates for the 75 model year.

Looked like this, but with a heavy, very hard to remove fiberglass hard top. It was geared lower than a Beetle and was really slow.

It was great fun to cruise around Ft. Lauderdale with my high school friends on weekends with the doors off. Girls called it "cute" but did not help our game any....

It lasted until my first accident where someone turned left in front of me. They got ticketed, my Thing got totaled.

picture found on image search, from bringatrailer.com ad.