Baby blue 4-door. $250. Hated it. Drove it hard. Indestructible.

Edit to add: Second car. '65 Mustang. 289 Hi-po. Finicky. Near-daily maintenance. Loved it. Go figure.

It was a Ford. Fix Or Repair Daily, that is FORD

even relatively quiet. To be fair (to the Fairlane) it required very little maintenance, I drove it to death, got rear-ended and ended up making a profit when the other driver's insurance company paid me more for the totalled wreck than I paid for the perfectly driveable car to begin with.

Still hated it.

Piece of crap. It was awful. At some point in the week I was driving it, a couple of guys driving a genuine rust heap admired my car and I told them that I'd trade on the spot except that this was a rental.

A few months earlier my sisters told me about a rental Mustang that was dreadful, and I had the genuine misfortune to unluck into one a bit later.

My buddy was a bar manager, I was a bartender for him. He was getting a ride from someone else so he tells me to take his car and he would pick it up the next day. Well I was buzzed, got lost, in the sticks of Michigan, went around a curve and wound up in the ditch, on a cold winter night, spent the night, daylight broke walked to the nearest store and I call my buddies Dad and he came to pick me up and get the car out of the ditch, I mean I was down in a deep ditch. Luckily I had enough gas for heat and my winter coat. That is why I say never again, that car was horrible to drive in the snow.

Light vehicle, flew like the wind.

That was my second car, baby blue convertible, stick shift, horrible in the winter, great in the summertime!

Loved that car.

‘72 VW Super Beetle. Kansas Beige. It was my grandad’s car. My dad drove it from Santa Rosa CA to Missoula, MT as a gift to me when I was 17. LOVED that little car. Never once got stuck in the snow during Montana winters.

in the Adirondacks. It landed on its wheels, the Mozart piano concerto kept playing as it happened and the back window popped out. I was strapped in and didn't know it was rolling (felt like any skidding off the road in the snow event). I've never ever had a problem using a seatbelt since.

who got one of those (used) for her 16th bday. I remember being fascinated, and confused, by an automatic that she could shift while driving without a clutch.

anything else.

I had my '04 at the dealer's for some maintenance last month, and they comped me a rental while they worked on it; same model, but 2017. The bells and whistles were nice, but the automatic drove me nuts, and I was happy to get my own ride back.

Then I bought a new bug in 69 for $2,295. Then had a 63 bug as a 2nd car in the late 70s.

No pics, alas.

Some years back when I told my younger son that my very first car was a convertible he looked at me in awe and wonder. I bought it in 1967.

I lived in Tucson, AZ at the time, and drove around with the top down during the winter. I have always had a high tolerance for cold, but my friends were never very happy.

I think that maybe someday I will own another convertible.

Oh, oh, oh. And it was so old (1959) that it not only didn't have a gas gauge, but the reserve tank thing, but also had a manual choke. I loved it, because I could control the amount of gas into the engine on cold mornings. Wonderful. Luckily for me, after I sold it I didn't own a car for the next seven years. My next car was a 1968 Beetle, purchased in 1976.

Sometimes with the heat on... Sun does shine in Arizona and Colorado.

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I did put up the top when I was driving around a friend who had a very young child. At the time I worked for the telephone company. This was 1967-68, and we were all relatively poor. We helped each other out with rides to and from work, and with groceries.

Before I acquired that car I walked to work, a distance of perhaps a mile, probably a bit less. I also walked home late at night after 10 or 11 pm. I never felt unsafe, I'll admit. Then I decided to enroll in a class at the University of Arizona, and since I didn't have I car and at that time the bus service was nearly nonexistent, I walked to school, probably about two miles. To my intense relief, a former high school classmate was in that very same class, and every day she drove me home, even though I did walk to school each morning.

Oh, to be young again.

I'm pretty sure it was a 1986 model. I got it as a gift from my aunt, who was upgrading her vehicle. The Accord was about 9 years old and had more than 200,000 miles on the odometer. She couldn't get any value on it on a trade-in. She could have sold it privately but she gave it to me to get back and forth to university.

I got a replacement engine from a salvage yard with about 70,000 miles on it. The car lasted me about another 5 years until it was rear-ended and went off to the scrap heap. It looked something like this:




Over the years, I've tried to repay my aunt for her generosity.

I now drive a 1992 Cressida, I had a beautiful all time 4 wheel drive Camry, stolen in Denver.

[link:

Don't think I have any pics. It was a red 4-door, 8 cylinder engine. It was fast car but got terrible mileage. I think it cost about $4000.

this is what I found, lots of oil spots on the driveway...

Look real familiar, lol.

Nova's were actually pretty good cars off and on through the years.

GORGEOUS car, but actually a POS for repairs. I bought it used, and the f&cker lied to me when I asked if it had ever been in a wreck. I found out a couple years later that it had been hit HARD, frame bent and cracked. Numerous mechanical issues, and pretty damn helpless in snow. After three years and more in maintenance than in payments, I got rid of it. Still shed a tear over it.

After it was stolen and wrecked, it was replaced by a Corvair convertible.


.

When they changed the body style in '68 they got a little too pudgy looking for me.

Paid $25. for it, drove it 2 years and sold it for $15.

She kept her cars for 10 years - and I loved that car! This isn't it, but it's very close. Mine had a guard along the side to protect it from getting dings.

Saw this after I posted mine, not sure what year mine was. Mine did not have a guard rail.


Peace

So I was determined to get the car fixed, which I did, and the guy who repaired it - worked out of his house - did a stellar job and added the anti ding guard.

I lived in NY then and that car with that engine never stopped running. I had it for years, driving it thru the winter snows and salt on the roads that rusted out the rocker panels,

That transmission eventually went but the engine was still purring like a kitten.

I drove it, limping in second to the junkyard and left it with the keys in it. The engine never quit.

And I'm in New York, drove it in numerous blizzards. The only reason I had to stop driving it was the rust - it wouldn't pass inspection.

A friend of mine had one also and said it ran forever too.

It eventually was a second car and he'd change the oil in his other car and use the old oil in the slant six and it kept on chugging along.

I tried a lot of places, but they didn't want to go to the trouble, they mainly do insurance work. And the guy did such a great job after I got hit had passed away. I actually got offers for the engine, but I kept hoping.

It's not like it was out on the street in full view. *sigh*

with a 350 4 barrel. I inherited it from my parents when I was around 17. It was similar to this one but I remember it being a lot brighter red. I drove it until the quarter panels almost fell off. GM was using a really crappy form of recycled metal on the fenders and they rusted right through by about 1985.

It was a piece of junk but I loved it.

The day I drove it home the right front wheel came off. 😁

Didn't lose the wheel driving it home, but the clutch went out in rush hour traffic on Wilshire Blvd one evening. Some very nice guys pushed me on to a side street to wait for AAA tow truck.

I think I paid 150$ for it in 1983and before I left for army in 84. I salvaged the car and the junkyard gave me 25$ it was just rusted through and not in good shape.

1st car I found was 72 delta 88 w/ 58k. even w/ 1 so so valve? she lasted 4 years when the tranny go fried. next was a 73 new yorker, my mom's car. my great-aunt's 67 catalina, then my fav. the 73 delta 88. new cars meh. i want a driving couch.

Bought it new after walking to work for six months. This was after college. I am currently driving a 2002 Cavalier. I love that car. All five of our cars were purchased new, and my other car (the wife's) is a 2009 HHR. My nurse daughter shares the two cars with us.

Was a 1987 grey/silver Cavalier, I loved that car. They were/are good cars.

Best car evah...

my father decided to move up in the world from a Beetle to a squareback. The first one was a total lemon. Couldn't even get it home from the dealer when it was brand new. Imagine the whole family goes to pick up the new car and it dies on the way home. Get it back to the dealer, OK, all fixed up, try to take it home it dies again! I think we actually got it all the way home once or twice, but it continued to die and they could not figure out what was wrong with it. It got so bad that for awhile we were driving around in the dealer's VW Fastback. Eventually they gave us a new one (another new one) and it was perfectly fine. It had this habit of dying at this one intersection on the way home from the dealer. To this day, that intersection reminds me of the original squareback. Both were black with red interiors.

Sounds cool with "6000" in the name, but far from it. Mine had that lovely faded blue exterior from being neglected for years. It was an automatic and would get stuck in 2nd gear. I would floor it and eventually it would kick hard into 3rd almost causing whiplash. That was especially fun when cars would be lined up behind me wondering why i was moving so slowly. My favorite was when i was late to my first period art class senior year in high school due to the driver side door falling off as i opened it when leaving the house. Teacher didn't believe me. Man! I sure miss that car.

I got in 1994 I was 17, I loved that car.

That thing was a huge POS but got me where I needed to go for a couple of years. I ended up giving it to my brother's friend and he drove it for a while before it went to the junkyard.

...Lotus White automatic stick shift. Its under a tarp on blocks in the garage where its been since the 80s. I bought it for about $1500 in the 70s and learned to drive on it. The owners manual is still in the glove compartment.

The folks gave me a used one when I went to college. I loved the goofy thing and wish I still had it.

Had a 1970 that I bought in 1992. Rebuilt the engine (used a 1.8 long block to replace the 1.7), drove it for a few years, then it died one day and I never got it back on the road. Had the badly rusted out frame on the right side from the battery tray's location, sagged like anything (by the end, you couldn't open the passenger side door - that was probably all that was keeping it from folding in half!)

Definitely the best handling car I have ever driven - the 50/50 weight distribution with the mid-engine made it extremely agile. Almost never had to slow down going into a curve or turn - just turn and accelerate out, without a lot of roll.

I really loved driving that car.

Plus they had leg room galore, I'm 6' 4" and it was nice to be able to stretch out.

I had broken my right femur and was in a cast at the time. Sitting a few inches above the pavement with your legs straight out made it easy to hit the accelerator by slightly shifting my hips, and braking wasn't too much of a challenge, either.

I had a doctors appointment, so I borrowed the car and drove to the hospital. I hopped up on the table and tossed the key next to me. Doc asked how I got there, and, for some reason, got somewhat unnerved when I told him I had driven.

I'm 6', and always had to have the seat one or two notches forward from the full back position.

I always felt a little like I was wearing it, instead of just sitting in it.

Just like "Christine", only blue instead of red. When I had it (65-67) it was just a way to get around. Only when I saw the movie, did it strike me that "Wow! That was a spiffy old car!" It was not haunted by any ghosts or demons other than those common in most 1950's auto technology.

exhaust extension that stuck out over 1 foot because I couldn't get it off.

Great car for a teenager. The next county over was pretty much all dirt roads, creeks one had to ford after carefully assessing depth, etc. We took advantage of that in the big surf green monster.

Looked something like this one, but not nearly as nice.

I loved that car.

I loved and miss that car. It was a standard. You just can't find them anymore. It wasn't as nice as some posted on here but it was mine.

and one year later, had managed to acquire enough "stuff" that the return trip was in a 1957 chevy wagon.
both were the same color, as I recall.

My first "real" car, which was MINE...alll mine....was red 1974 Beetle. I called her Rosebug.
Orsen Wells aficionados liked the name.

previous owner had painted "Lady Bug" on the back. I had the football team pick it up in the parking lot and hide it under the fire escape!

Fun little car. My dad bought a second one, red and white, to use as a parts car.

They're worth a fortune today. Mine cost $600.

Plymouth Duster. Baby Blue. A rust bucket, but indestructible. Saw me through college. God awful in the snow, which taught me to drive in the snow. Had a bad starter at one point and when I was home on break and it was super cold I went out in the driveway for something and the starter was attempting to start the car all by itself. Which I guess was its way of making up for all the times I got in the car and turned the key and nothing happened. I will say, it ALWAYS eventually started.

It was my grandmother's car which she had given to my family for my sister and I to learn to drive on.


I actually just bought my 4th car last month. 2010 Subaru Legacy.

[div class="excerpt"

I learned a lot about fixing cars with that car.

This is a photo of such a car, but mine never looked this good.

Had a 225ci in-line 6 with a '53 head on it. 2 speed slushamatic transmission.

Can't say as I loved it, but it got me around.

I wish I still had, a '57 Chevy convertible with a 283 V8.

Those things are worth big money now.

Paid cash for it.
$1800.

Zippy 4 door with the 90HP engine and 4 on the floor. I paid $100 in 1972 for it to someone who thought it was falling apart. It was not hard to work on and I put every thing back on that fell off. I drove it for 4 or 5 years until it got totaled from front end damage. I sold the wreck for $350. It turns out that 4 door bodies were hard to find for that year. This particular car had been shipped home from Europe by a soldier, so it had a different configuration than the USA imports.

This was by far the best value in a car I've ever gotten. It was more luck than anything. The odometer was broken so I had no clue how many miles it had gone.

Loved that car. Manual transmission and first gear was so low it was like a truck gear--that saved me on many a snowy day.

looked a lot like this:



I inherited it from my brother who inherited it from our sister. It became mine around 1984. BIG car, although not as big as my next car which was a mid 70s Monte Carlo, the big one with the big swoops (whatever you call them) on the side panels.

Currently driving a 2010 Mustang, which I much prefer to my first car!

Not sure what year it was, got it as a hand me down from my parents.

Peace

Not sure what year this one is but mine looked like it!

I got a chance to drive a lot of them on many occasions, my Uncle was service manager at a dealership that sold import cars in Flint, Michigan back in the day, I was only 16, he hired me to prep all new vehicles for the showroom that arrived fresh off the truck. I got to drive Jaguars, MGBs, MGB Midgets, Austin Healys, Triumph TR6s, Triumph Spitfires etc. Only around the lot of course but I learned to drive a stick and get an appreciation for beautiful and fun foreign cars. I will never forget that job, one of my first and the best. Thank you Uncle Terry !

I bought my first car before I even knew how to drive a stick shift-- I thought it was so cool and I still do

When I was 15 I bought a 1968 Pontiac Firebird body from a junk yard for 250 dollars. Then bought a 350ci engine and transmission from a a Buick LaSabre for 250 dollars. My stepfather machined some engine mounts out of aluminum blocks (the only useful thing he ever did) and we put it in and then I spent the next year sanding and bondo-ing and painting.

Just after I turned 17 it was ready to go (after adding air shocks and 15x8 snowflake wheels from a 78 Trans-am). I went on one date with my girlfriend where we got pulled over and I got a ticket for having an expired inspection sticker (she still laughs at me about that every now and then. We've remained in touch on facebook).

About a week later a friend of mine came over and said he knew a place downtown Dallas that would sell us beer so we went and got a 6-pack of Bud and a bottle of M/D and proceeded to get trashed. Then I ran the car into a telephone pole and totaled it.

Lucky kids we were - no serious injuries, nobody else hurt and no police. Never drove drunk again. But man I miss that car.

Interior looked like this.

I bought for $125 in 1973, while I was stationed at Lowry AFB in Denver for training. Had a cracked 3rd gear, but you could shift it as long as you kept a good amount of oil in the gearbox to keep it from overheating too much. Bad rings - got a ticket for air pollution one day as I was headed out toward Golden. Cop said, "Do you know your car is smoking?". Didn't care for my answer too much - "Well, it *is* old enough".

Planned to drive it back across to Plattsburgh AFB, NY when I shipped out, but it blew the engine about a week before I left. Really blew the engine - started sounding like a washing machine full of tools. I pulled into a gas station and called a friend to come and get me. When i explained what happened he brought another guy. I started it, and while they yelled "Turn it off" I gave it some gas to show how bad it got...and it made a loud bang and started to run much more smoothly. They pointed to the large and spreading pool of oil where it had blasted a pushrod through the oil pan.

Drove it for 3 or 4 months - and definitely got my $125 value out of it.

I flew to NY, and a few months later my father gave me his 1965 VW Beetle Convertible, which I drove for a while - then pulled the body off and made it into a Bradley GT kit car.

4 speed manual transmission.
Flathead 6.
Battery under the driver seat.
Front bumper had been "manufactured" by a competent welder. It was a 'bull pusher'; somewhat resembled a headboard from a bed, but was very solid. Rear bumper had been fabricated out of flat steel about 4 inches wide by 1/2 inch thick.

But somewhere along the line the oil filter had been removed, so the engine sort of started smoking after a couple years, and it wound up in a farm garage for storage, then got lost when the farmer passed away while I was living in another state.


I'd really like to find it or another one. That thing was fun to drive, although i spent a lot of time working on it.

https://www.barrett-jackson.com/Events/Event/Details/1941-DODGE-PICKUP-193972

It was a red 2door with 3 on the floor. Loved to drive it but it was a piece of junk.

Only car I sold for more then I paid. As the new owner drove away I realized my mistake.

Every time I see one I feel feel the sting of regret.

that only cost me $100 on the day I purchased it in 1974. Of course, more after that.

I had it a month, and only got to drive it for about a week of that month. Lesson learned! At least my next car ($50, plus the cost of a brake cylinder and brake line bleeding) lasted six months before it hit the junk yard.

One more used car after that, then I went for new vehicles for almost the rest of my life, or at least very lightly used ones. My current ride, a 2012 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid has about 71K miles on it, and being as I'm 62 and retired, it just might be the last car I ever buy in my life. My lady owns and drives a 2005 Acura MDX that has twice as many miles on it, but she says she's going to get over 200K on it, maybe by the time she replaces it (she's retiring this year, too) she'll buy us one of those self-driving cars. That is, if I can convince her that the self-driving car would probably drive better than the average NY/NJ driver from the town we moved from!

It was a bit dated, but I liked it. I saw an ad where they drove a Volvo off a cliff and the passenger compartment stayed protected so I was like "That is the car for me!" I have never been a very good driver. I haven't driven in about 25 years. City driving completely freaks me out.

Banana yellow, former California DOT vehicle. 200K+ miles (milestones written onto metal headliner), shag carpeting and "Keep On Truckin'" decal in the back window. Drove it for a few months, dropped the tranny onto a busy thoroughfare and sold it to a friend, who fixed it up and headed to Alaska, where she remains.

Prolly looks like this now:

I remember that "Keep on Truckin" guy. I remember shag. That van has some memories.

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Cost me $350.00. The one in this pic is going for $28k. Mine didn't have the Kombi windows or fancy hubs but it ran solid if slow. 0-45 in 11 minutes. Downhill it could break 55 mph.

Was a 1971 Cutlass S Supreme. At the age of 15 I worked as a waitress at $1.25 per hour at a restaurant at Bagnell Dam in Missouri. After the summer ended I taught myself how to make jewelry and sold it with mom's help . I paid cash getting $50.00 from my folks. The original cost was $2700.00. I paid $1850.00 cash for it. A proud time for mom and I.It was avocado green and had 5 speakers and an 8 track tape. I was 17 years at the time.