Your First Car

I certainly remember mine, a 1964 Pontiac Tempset four banger with the auto tranny shifter lever on the dash.

But...........But....... the prize for the BEST FIRST CAR EVER goes to Boris Becker, the German tennis star. His first car (at age 19) was a Porsche 959 !!! And Porsche only made 237 of those teutonic beasts. I don't think anyone can top that !

1959 Karman Ghia ,36 hp with a crash box tranie. A little rust in the rockers but straight.asking price $150.00. The guy I bought it from said it ran real rough. I bought it for $75.00 and saw that the distribuator cap was only half cliped on,clipped it back on and she ran great! Imagine that! I was only 15 at the time. Sold it a few months latter for $150.00 and thought I made a killing.......

1957 Dodge Coronet...totally forgetable at the time, but wish I had it now...next one was a 1958 Chevy Impala convertible, wish I had that one now also...

My first car was a '62 MG Midget that I got for $210. It had a nearly new top and recent tires, which probably accounted for $200 of its value. The rest of the car was worth about $10. It had spent years on the Florida coast, so rust had a firm foothold. If you lifted the floor mats you saw pavement. The Clutch wasn't disengaging properly, so it wouldn't go into reverse, the drum brakes were poorly adjusted so you had to pump them to get the shoes out to the drums. There were quite a few other quirks, most of which I had to fix on a high school student's budget. Traded it (looking quite nice, actually) for a whopping $300 against a '71 Pinto.

Ha, I had a 4 cyl 166hp 62 & 63 Tempest! I remember no park on AT and transmission was in rear so floor was pretty flat. There was a 190hp V8 available too. A 326 cc was option in '63 - and then the 389 cc GTO came along in 64 - the pioneer of all muscle cars ! First car was a $325 '57 VW Sunroof bug (brrrrr!) traded it for the Pontiac that had heat. VW didn't have gas gauge - came with a graduated stick and reserve lever on the floor.

1st car, in 1961, was a '56 Buick Century convertable. Traded it six months later for a '56 Austin Healey 100-4. Three years later, I gave the Healey to my brother as he started his senior year of high school. Would love to have either one of them now.

'50 Chevy short window coupe. Froze up the crank so I went down the early '60's So. Cal. drag racing road.
I Put a built 283 V8 and a corvette 4 speed in it. It was pretty fast and equally dangerous. Traffic tickets & broken parts kept me BROKE!
That's when I became a "low rider".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rrsj_auEKs

55' Chevy, 2dr post; not only my first car but my first valve job, first paint job, first floor shift installation and first time to drag race :-)and first engine to blow :-(

WOOOOOO HOOOOOOO!!

'53 Stude Coupe with a '55 Olds engine and a slap in the number 2 piston.

1978 Chevy Camaro LT. V-8 baby blue metallic with blue gray interior. Car went 130 miles an hour. Glad I'm still here to tell you about it. The highways were often empty.

As a kid in High School I had 3 jobs at 3 different gas stations. I save every penny I earned and in 1965 I had enough to buy a brand new Mustang Fastback. (first one in Anaheim, CA)

I needed 1k more to buy a GT350 but I just didn't have enough so the 2+2 Fastback with a 271HP High Performance engine and a 4 speed had to do.

I bought that car in April 1965 which was just 2 months before graduation and everyone thought my folks had bought it for me.

The tough part was buying insurance and keeping it full of gasoline but I managed.

Go Larry. Imagine how different the world would be if a kid working kid jobs could buy a new Mustang today.

My first, bought off the pumps at Urban Auto, the gas station where I worked, was a 1967 Nova SS. Had a 194-inch L6 when i bought it, and a powerglide with a floor shift. That was in 1982. I paid $750 for it.

Sold it in 2003. Had a 350 and a Muncie 4-speed by then.

About 300 hp and a little under 3000 lbs. It was a like an amusement park ride. For fun I would take friends up on the highway in 3rd gear. I'd put a post-it note on the dash (a dollar bill with masking tape once), and ask whoever was in the passenger seat to try and peel it off. They'd lean forward, I'd hit the gas and slam them back.

By the time I was ready to shift to 4th they'd be screaming.

74 Chevy Vega GT!! Pure junk, reringed it in the driveway. Drove that POS for two years! 2nd car much better, 77 VW Scirocco. Drove the crap out of that for 4 years.

'68 Bug with a slush-o-matic. :( wrecked it...
then Danny's fav....'73 Vega GT Wagon...wrecked it...

My bad........The Tempest was a '61, blue

'47 Chevy vert, wrecked it screwing around with a carful of my friends (Oh no, Dad, we're all fine. This car came out of nowhere and ran us off the road). How many others used that story?

Mine was a 51 Plymouth convertible with a blown engine that my dad bought for me for $55. I had to rebuild the flat head six in it to get it on the road. I was very embarrassed by that car, since my friends all had 55, 56 or 57 Chevys. They called it "the toad," but I sure would love to have it now!

Not mine, but the same as this.

Summer of 1967:
'57 Chebby Bel Air...resale red 265 CI. four bbl, power pack heads and '63 Chebby Super Sport interior.
Bought it for a whopping $235.00 and a pack of Wrigley's gum.

'37 Packard hearse. It had 21,000 miles and cost $65.

Used 1957 Buick Special Riveria four door hardtop with no center piller. Bronze and Tan. V8 Dynaflow, with starter switch located on the accelerator pedal. Gangster whitewals. $1000. Sucker would roll out of speedometer range (120 MPH?), until I started to think about them bias ply tires and backed off.

Wife's (then girlfriend) first ride was a used 1957 Alfa Romeo Guiletta roadster, 1350 cc, five speed. $1000. Pretty sure that's how she kept me dating her.

By the way, all you early Tempest owners above, that auto transmission at the rear axle is a Powergllide without a PARK. It is the same as used in all the Corvairs. Not sure who had it first, Chevy or Pontiac?

Rope drive?

1951 Chevy.

I was 17 in '57 and spent most of the summer brazing holes, prepping and painting. Did it all myself, including the respray. Had 72 louvers punched in the hood by a shop in Portland Oregon, replaced the Chevy script on the grill with a plain one from a '52 model which had no script, also cut a complete turn out of both the front coils, nice rake! Jimmy 270 with a floor shift. Knocked the baffle out of the muffler and welded 4 inch exhaust pipe which exited in front of the rear wheels, nice bass sound.

Beat the draft in '58 by joining the Navy, end of chapter one.

55 VW bug. Small window, semaphores, 36 hp.,burgundy with black custom vinyl interior, wood steering wheel, nerf bars all around. Later became a dune buggy when I bought my 61 Austin Healey bugeye Sprite with a Lotus 7A engine and tranny built by Hollywood Sportscars. Life was simpler, gas was cheaper and I was much thinner.

Hey you guys make me feel young! And I have been driving since 1981.

Mine was a $300 1973 Audi 100LS two door sunroof coupe. Orange.

Larry Jowdy:

What high school did you go to in Anaheim, and what color was the Fastback? I have vague recollections of somebody having the first one around.

I went to JFK in La Palma, class of 67. Grew up in Buena Park.

Michael B:

Had an Audi Fox. Worst car I ever owned. Elecrical nightmare and then the air conditioner compressor fell off on the San Bernardino freeway at 75 mph and took the exhaust system with it. Traded it for aVW bug with an automatic transmission. At least it always started and always got me where I wanted to go. Never a moments problem with the engine or the transmission. I'm still hesitant about Audi's.

My first car was, no kidding, a fiberglass car that looked a lot like a Speedster. I was 4 years old and my dad saw this car for sale on the side of the road. It was electric powered and was a few years old when we got it in 1958. He bought and gave it to me. We painted it Caterpillar Yellow because he had a lot of Caterpillar equipment at Pierson Contracting Company. The color pic is my first car and my first girlfriend, Sandy. The B&W pics are when I first got the car. My mom and dad and a couple of buddies checking it out.

Being in the UK my choices were somewhat different to you guys !

First car was a yellow, '62 mini, engine rocked so much that you had to hold it in gear, and you could see daylight thro the floor :)

But,.Proved a couple of times that you can do it in a Mini, LOL !!

Also in a TR 3 Triumph, where there a will.... there's a way~

Me at 16 with my first Porsche; a 1954 Speedster sold it for $600.00!!!

Hey Will, that chick in the first pic looked pretty hot...
she may have only been 6 yrs old but she had the body of an 8 yr old..

Geeze Tom you start the thread off and get the year wrong on your first car. The trans in the rear was novel - surprized it didn't catch on. Wonder how the 4 speed std worked - as that would be some wild linkage and guess clutch up front?

Bob Garrett
I went to Loara High School..

Sept. 1962 I entered 10th grade, (3 year high school) From Sept. 1962 through Jan. 1963 we doubled up at Magnolia High because Loara was still under construction and although we were doubling up at Magnolia High, we were still called students of Loara High)

We were always the senior class. When I went into the 11th grade, they brough in 10th graders and when we were Seniors, the school was full. It's now a 4 year high school.

I bought my Fastback at McCoy Ford on Anaheim Blvd and it was Springtime Yellow with a tan interior

'68 Firebird, bought for $650 from a police impound in St. Louis.

Flathead V8 with 2 speed automatic, a very nice car, got it in May 1962 for $300 and promptly beat the snot out of it....top speed 90 mph down hill


2nd car was this, 312 with aftermarket 3 on the floor, unfortunately made out of compressed rust.....

'56 A coupe, 1600 Normal purchased for $600, I think, in '66. It was dented big time, rusty and whipped. Just how whipped it was I was to find out soon enough. It ran for maybe another 500 mi, then I had to spend all of my summer earnings rebuilding the motor. Once that was done, the thing ran well enough for many years, but still looked like a dented, rusty POS. It did carry me cross country and back in '67 and served well on my first trip down the PCH from SanFran to Sandyeggo. The best day of its life w/ me is shown here. Also had the extra foot ventilation thing going on. Clever use of floor mats, sheet metal and roofing cement was used to keep the water intake down on rainy days, all of which does not show in this photo. When it left the building, after having sat for many years waiting to be turned into a dune buggy (I had bought a '61 S90 by then) it left in two pieces, front and back halves, it was that rusty.

PS, Larry: I had a similar HS experinece w/ a new school. Had to double up w/ another school for 10th grade (what a zoo that was), but then we were the "senior" class for the next two years in the new school. All of this WAY before my driving days started. Actually, during that time in HS I had my eyes firmly fixed on what was to be my 1st car: my dad's old '49 Packard -- no pix to show of this beast. A great whale of thing w/ a huge straight 8 flat head in it. But alas, it was not to be. Dad died my junior year at the tender young age of 50, and mom said "no way!" and sold the car. I do not think I have totally forgiven her yet for that cruel move. I was only 15.

I started with a 1957 VW oval window sedan, bought for $25 in 1967. Planned on turning it into a Dune Buggy, but ended up dropping a 356 SC engine in instead. Later I sold the engine and finally made it into a Dune buggy with a rompin', stompin' stock 36 hp in it.

2'nd car was a '65 Mustang Notchback, 289 4-speed which lasted about 200K miles when I was commuting to College, followed by a non-export Toyota Corona MKII, bought in Japan and brought back by an Army guy.