OT: Talking Cars Tuesday (on a wednesday)

Submitted by JeepinBen on

So, I'm a day late but we can still have a car thread today to bide the time until HARBAUGH goes and HARBAUGHS something else.

For this week:

What was your first car, and why was it the BEST first car and/or the WORST first car?

Edit - let us know when you got it. Having a 1991 BMW was a sweet first car in 1991. Less so in 2005.

Cali Wolverine

June 10th, 2015 at 2:26 PM ^

Best car because it was super reliable, worst car...even after I was in a bad accident, the car was not totaled because it was built so well...but never was quite the same.

JeepinBen

June 10th, 2015 at 2:28 PM ^

My first car was a 1991 Jeep Wrangler YJ (acquired in 2003) with the "4 angry squirrels" under the hood.

http://www.4-the-love-of-jeeps.com/images/1991JeepWrangler.jpg (stupid work computer won't embed)

It was the BEST first car because I had 4WD for the winter, a convertible for the summer, had to really learn to drive (no airbags, ABS, traction control was the clutch pedal, etc.), no one would ask to borrow it since the kick parking brake made it look like it had 4 pedals, it was easy to work on, got about 20mpg, was really slow but sounded fast.

It was the worst first car because it would snow through the soft top in the winter, the "sport" roll bar almost gave a friend a concussion over a speed bump and there was absolutely no room for anything that high school kids park cars for.

Naked Bootlegger

June 10th, 2015 at 2:29 PM ^

Got it in '90.   Probably a flood special from out-of-state.

PROS:  Sexy red.   Pure babe magnet.  ( /S).

CONS:  Changed the tie rod ends three times in 4 years.   Gas pedal would disengage periodically when accelerating, which made passing cars on the endless U.P. two lane highways a daring game.   I was always afraid of getting stuck on the Mackinac Bridge uphill climb.

But I loved that car because, well, you always love your first.

 

 

JFW

June 10th, 2015 at 2:33 PM ^

1979 LTD II.

Pros: huge. I installed ford premium sound (with a tape player!!!) from a '78 Lincoln. Smooth ride. Do 85 all day long without breaking a sweat.

Cons: huge. Drank gas like a kid drinks kool aid on a hot summer day. Tranny seals were shot so I had to drive with a case of tranny fluid in my trunk. No a/c. Seat frame was broke so I drove with the Detroit lean all the time.




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JFW

June 10th, 2015 at 3:14 PM ^

Man, I loved that car. We drove to Wilkes Barre in it with the top and doors off for a family reunion. The doors took most of the luggage space but who cares. 

mGrowOld

June 10th, 2015 at 2:34 PM ^

The year was 1975 and I had just turned 16.  My dad bequethed upon me one of these four door beasts that was burgandy with a red interior.  Not satisfied that my Catalina was sexy enough I set upon seeing just how much pinstriping it could take (a lot), put four Cragar mag wheels on her, a set of Monroe air shocks and I flipped the air cleaner over to give that Poncho 400 the "hoover vacum" sound we all cherished.

Looking back now I realize just how fucking ridiculous that car mustve looked.  But back in the day I was ready to cruise Woodward from Ted's Drive In to Northwood Shopping Center and wasnt the least bit ashamed.

CJRockford

June 10th, 2015 at 2:36 PM ^

I had a 1974 Musgang II. This was in 1990. Not a great car originally, but my dad and brother were both car nuts, so we all worked together on if, dropped the original 6 cylinder and put in built 302 and a C4 trans with a shift kit. We painted it black, put a spoiler and hood scoop on it, and I was off to the races. 5 speeding tickets later and I was back to driving my moms Dodge Aries wagon




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South TX MFan

June 10th, 2015 at 2:45 PM ^

I'm a big car guy and have been hot rodding and racing cars my whole life. My dad had a few cool cars when I was growing up and I loved helping him work on them. In '87 when I was 15 I got my first car, a beautiful red '81 Camaro Z28. It started my love affair with American pony cars that is still going strong today. My current money pit is a '15 Mustang GT.




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trueblueintexas

June 10th, 2015 at 2:48 PM ^

1983 Toyota Camary LE. Received it in 1991.

It 1983 it was two tone red & brown. By the time I got it in college it was, let's see...how did that girl put it??? ah yes, it was a delightful copper & rust. 

Best car: ran like a champ, got me through college and first few years of getting established. 

Worst car: the day it gave up, it completely gave up without warning. Cracked engine block. 

Best Story: Shortly after moving to Texas, the car was stolen. It was gone for about three months and then I got a call saying they had found it. A miracle in Texas because most stolen cars end up accross the border. I picked it up from the impound lot and there was no damage  except they had stolen my best tapes. Drove it for 3-4 more years after that. Nothing like being able to say you were driving a stolen car!

readyourguard

June 10th, 2015 at 2:53 PM ^

 

It was my mom's car but I got to use it in high school and up at UofM.  It had a 350 in it which I topped off with a Holley Carb.  IT didn't really make it go any faster.  I wish I had that car now. 

It was a great first car because it was free.  It also had a big hole in the driver floor board which could be convenient at times, I suppose.  The trans started to slip and within a week, it wouldn't engage at all.  We ended up giving it to my step-dad's mechanic for a few hundred bucks.

Trebor

June 10th, 2015 at 2:56 PM ^

My first car was a gold 1999 Pontiac Grand Am, with a beige interior. We inherited it when my grandma passed away, and it had sat in her garage for about a year while she was bouncing between the hospital and senior care center.

It was the best car because it was impeccably clean and had about 2000 miles on it when I started driving it to school in 2001. Not to mention that the gold-on-gold was, in retrospect, pretty awesome. However, it was the worst car because, while sitting in the garage for that long without being used, it constantly had problems. The worst of which was, when sitting at any traffic light for more than 10 seconds, it smelled like the exhaust was filling the cabin. It was easily the slowest car I've driven (well, up until I met my wife and her Kia Rio), it handled like ass, and didn't even get great gas mileage. Eventually my sister took it when I moved on to college.

ScruffyTheJanitor

June 10th, 2015 at 2:56 PM ^

1998 Chevy lumina. Say what you want, but that thing was a big ass car. I loved that sucker. My brother took over driving and ruined it, because he never kept it clean and weighed 400 LBS. He constantly would throw his full weight back into the seat, which literally broke the welding on the frame.

 

Of course, I did one worse when I turned in front of someone while I was driving my sister inlaw home from break. Totaled that magnificent bland beast. 

xtramelanin

June 10th, 2015 at 2:59 PM ^

bought if from a friend of my mom's for $500.  she felt sorry for me b/c mom had died when we were kids.   ran fine, convertible worked, and it was yellow.  but low point in dart history was when it snowed inside the dart on the way to hockey practice when i was playing for the jr. wings my senior year.   dart got swapped out in the spring.

Its me Dave

June 10th, 2015 at 3:14 PM ^

Kind of like the one on That 70's Show.  Best feature was the "Vista Windows"  On a typical Saturday night ride home, a lot of my burnout degenerate friends loved looking up through the back seat "Vista Window" and seeing the street lamps morph into LASERS!!!!!  PEEW!! PEEW!!.

His Dudeness

June 10th, 2015 at 3:17 PM ^

In 1999 I had a 1972 Buick Century.

She got stuck, she wouldn't turn over, she was cold as ice, but that there was the best dammed first car I ever had.

BlockM

June 10th, 2015 at 3:24 PM ^

Drove my parents' 95 Geo Prizm until a couple years ago when I bought my first, a 2010 VW Golf TDI. Not one hint of buyer's remorse, which I think is pretty good for a first car. It gets 44-48 mpg on the highway, and the low end torque gives it plenty of get up and go for me. It's also a 6-speed manual, so that's fun. At 6'6", I'm still amazed at the leg and headroom too, I don't even have my seat all the way back!

BlockM

June 10th, 2015 at 4:47 PM ^

It was a struggle. Went to buy wipers one time from AutoZone and the guy asked me if I sat in the back seat.

And yeah, the hatchback is clutch. Road trips in that thing are incredible. So much room, even for adults in the back seat, and one 14.5 gallon tank can keep you on the highway for 600+ miles easy.

sadeto

June 10th, 2015 at 3:26 PM ^

1994 Toyota Corolla, new. I was 30, still in grad school, never owned a car and didn't plan on getting one but I also didn't plan on having a newborn baby and his mom to support. So I took the bus down Washtenaw Avenue to where the car dealers were, determined to lease a new car so my son's mom wouldn't have to worry about servicing it. I tried to lease an American car, I walked into a couple of places, the second one was Dodge and they made it clear they had no interest in leasing a cheap car to a grad student who had recently started his first real job. So I crossed Washtenaw to Toyota, and in less than 30 minutes I was leaving with the keys to a Corolla with instructions to drive it for a day and if I liked it to come back with a check. Which I did. I've owned five Toyotas since then. Plus a couple of Hondas, and a Nissan, but I"ve never bothered walking into a dealer for one of the Big 3 again. And I've never spent more than about $300 fixing a car, and that was exactly once and it was my fault (left a window open during a storm and the power window motor burned out). 

Lampuki

June 10th, 2015 at 3:27 PM ^

First car was a 1978 Mustang II hatchback.  My dad worked for Ford (Ford's) so I think he got it pretty cheap.  Seemed to have more problems than bright spots. 

Best cars:  Three way tie

(1) 1991 Honda Civic ex.  Owned for 10 years purchased for $12k sold for $8000  and never once had a mechanical issue. Never. Once.  

(2) 2007 BMW 550ix.  Incredible car with few mechanical problems but a few electrical ones and clunky iDrive were only drawbacks.  Better in the snow and ice than any SUV and got over 30 mpg. 

(3) 1997 Land Rover Discovery II.  A bucket of bolts but never broke down, could literally drive over a fallen log and was so basic I could work on it myself. 

Worst

Anything from GM. 

 

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

June 10th, 2015 at 3:39 PM ^

 

Think we had this thread not too long ago, but I'll bite again.  This is not my 1995 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser, but it's exactly like it.  Got it as a graduation present in 2000 - my folks used the money I freed up for them by getting my college paid for by ROTC.

Pros: Insanely good gas mileage for a car of that weight and displacement.  (Generally about 25-26 mpg, could top 30 under just the right conditions.)  Has roof rack.  Hauls enormous amounts of stuff and is therefore perfect for trucking my worldly possessions back and forth the 10-11 hour drive to school.  Capable as well of hauling a sofa on the roof.  Incredibly durable wagonbeast - only ever had to put about $30 worth of repairs under the hood.  (The serpentine belt tensioner seized up and took the belt with it.)  Seats folded very flat to maximize storage.  Comfy cloth seats.

Cons: Vintage 1984 interior design.  (Exterior, too, but I still kinda like it.)  Had obnoxious dashboard vibration at exactly the freeway speed I like to travel.  Really heavy gas pedal canceled out a lot of the pickup you should get with a 3.8L V6.  Utterly stupid location of battery terminals made it incredibly difficult to jump/offer a jump.  Handled like a warehouse.

Verdict: BEST FIRST CAR.  One of my greatest regrets in life is not getting a picture of the car stuffed to the gills, roof rack piled high, and two bikes on a bike rack in the back - the result of driving myself and a buddy back home from school with both our stuff.  That car was a trooper.  Plus even though it wasn't much good on freeway entrance ramps, it was surprisingly excellent accelerating from 60 and up, the better to pass people on two-lane highways.  And had I ever gotten in a crash I have little doubt I'd've been solidly protected.

MGoAero

June 10th, 2015 at 3:42 PM ^

1998 Volkswagen GTI, in 1998.  Slow version, though -- 2.0L I4 w/automatic.  My dad worked for Volkswagen, and the company car perks he got (and still gets as a retiree) for the family were amazing.  Mostly because it meant a new VW every year for my brother, dad, and I, and included corporate fleet insurance.  I'm 33 and still have never had to get car insurance.  I can only imagine how much $$ that has saved me and my family over the years.  I'm on VW #18 now with one Audi thrown in there.  He was just a normal white collar office worker, not a manager, and is now retired.  I still can't believe the deal VW gives their employees!!

NYWolverine

June 10th, 2015 at 3:56 PM ^

The year was 1998, and both the car and I were 16 years old. Inherited for free when my great-grandmother stopped driving. Had been sitting for three years at that point. Selling points: low mileage and free.

Car was s*** brown and rusted, interior canopy fabric had detached and ballooned down, speakers were shot, so I replaced them with a free set I picked up from a friend. A real hatchet-job cutting the replacements into the door-panel to fit. 

Best Car? It got me an A+ in Physics, when our teacher asked who in the class had the least valuable car for a momentum experiment, gauging force required to push car in neutral from a dead stop. EVERY hand in the room went up and pointed at me. 



Worst Car! Would stall in the middle of intersections. It was automatic transmission, but I'd have to constantly put in neutral when stopped with foot on gas, because it would stall. Totalled it in a rainstorm when the brakes gave out, I spun out, and cracked the axle and suspension against the curb. No cars or pedestrians were nearby, thankfully. 

My brother and I pooled our money together and bought a 1992 Audi 100. Was a comfortable car, but all the lux computerized dashboard detail either went to shit or never worked properly. Friends and girlfriends would actually get in it. The stereo went, but it got us from point A to B.

First car I got for myself was a 2004 Honda Civic EX. BEST CAR. 200K miles later, I'm still holding on. LOTS of good memories in Black Betty.

BlueMan80

June 10th, 2015 at 3:57 PM ^

Yes, I had quite the chick magnet as my first car.  This car was my dad's idea of a perfect first car for a college student.  Yes, lots of room to haul stuff.  My oldest brother, who attended Michigan in the 60s got a Ford Falcon, so I had a feeling what was in store for me.  I was a junior when I got it.  I gladly accepted it.  He made it a big surprise.  Any car is better than no car.

It had a weezy four banger, a four speed manual, and no tach.  I just learned to shift by the racket under the hood.  No options what so ever.  The vinyl interior was sweat inducing on a summer day.  AM radio with one speaker in the middle of the dash.  My parents lived in Massachusettes while I was at Michigan, so I drove from Ann Arbor to the Boston area with only a lousy AM radio as a companion.  No cruise control, too, so I'd switch over to my left leg on the accelerator when my right got too stiff.  During my second year of employment after leaving Michigan, I traded it in as a down payment on a Mercury LN7 if anyone remembers FoMoCo's entry level, 2 door, sporty car from the early 80s.  So much cooler than the Zeph-mobile!

Blue in Denver

June 10th, 2015 at 4:12 PM ^

'81 VW Rabbit Diesel in '87.

49 horsepower.  Robin's egg blue.  Four doors.  Possibly the single most un-cool car in the history of cars.

On the other hand, it got 51MPG and diesel fuel was cheaper than gas back then.  

I loved that car, but I love any car I own.  I get attached to them.  I like them more than I like people.