My first car was a 1990 Chrysler New Yorker Fifth Avenue. I bought it from my grandmother for $500 that I earned slingin roast beef at Arby's. Man it was fucking sweet. The plushest seats I've to this day ever sat in, a Bose speaker system, the works. Too bad I was sixteen and too stupid to realize it was a luxury car and not a sports car. Needless to say I ragged it out pretty good. If I could get it again today brand new, I'd trade in my Maxima without thinking.
I lucked out somewhat and drove a 1963 MGB for my first car. My mechanical skills weren't exactly top notch so the car broke down about every other week but for the times it ran, it was pretty sweet. Some of the fun issues I constantly dealt with: Radiator boiling over after any trip over 25-30 miles(apparently valley heat and British engineering don't mix). Twin single barrel carbs that were damn near impossible to balance. Fucked up overflow valves on the carbs so on occasion gasoline would spit out when the fuel pump wouldn't shut off. Finding out the car was positive ground after attempting to install a cd player and watching the cd player arc when I turned it on. It was all a labor of love though and the experience taught me to appreciate any vehicle that doesn't break down every other week and the value of preventative maintenance.
When I was 18, my grandparents gave me their Buick Park Avenue (circa early 90's.) for the summer. The car was reliable for the short distances I had to drive, but one night, on the way to a friends house, everything in the car just shut off, the breaks stopped working, and the steering wheel locked up. And I was approaching a sharp turn still going around 20 mph. Luckily the wheel started working about 20 feet before the turn. Turns out the alternater was shot. I never drove that car again.
First time post here, 5+ year lurker on the RMMB and occasional poster. My first vehicle at 16 looked pretty much like this truck here, except me and my step-father did some body work to it and primered it grey. It was an '87 silverado 2wd I was going to paint it white but a guy pulled out in front of me and the front end got pretty smashed up. It only had 60k original miles on it. I was pissed I didn't get a 4wd truck but looking back it was probably a good thing. It was a good truck though, hauled my atv around and rode like a boat with its blown front shocks. I'm 24 now and I've owned probably 15 different vehicles since I was 16.
Up until this last saturday, I used to drive an '89 Honda Accord. It was a good little car, got decent gas mileage, and was in decent enough shape. It had its dings and dents to be sure, and a couple of small leaks. The driver's seat was in desperate need of padding, as some of the metal supports were starting to poke through. I am going to sell that car, hopefully to some high school kid who needs a decent car. I am now the proud owner of a 2008 Subaru Legacy. I love it.
A hand me down 1991 Ford Escort LX. It was the first vehicle I had sex in, the first vehicle I got a ticket in, and the first vehicle I learned how to drive stick in. Up until two years ago it was still on the road, having been handed down from me to my sister, and then my sister to her friend, and then through two of that friend's younger siblings. The odometer stopped recording miles when my sister had it at 190k miles. After high school I went through a weird phase where I bought truly awful yet unique cars. My prize was an automatic 1987 Chrysler Conquest. Not nearly as nice as the one pictured but rather in maroon with burgandy interior. Lady slayer!
My first car was an '88 Mazda MX-6. Grey with burgundy interior, affectionately known as 'The Tick'. I hit a dumpster, a deer, a Ford Ranger and a VW Rabbit with no damage other than a busted headlight. It would haul ass and got fan-fucking-tastic gas mileage (think 30 mpg). It was a pretty sad towards the end... dead paint, holes in the exhaust (you could hear me coming a half mile away) and no heat. The Tick died the day it overheated and got it started and drove it anyway. I have dreams, to this day, that I still have it and it's my 'other car'.
My first car: A 1993 Toyota Tercel. When I got it, it had 225k miles on it, due to my mom driving it almost 100 miles round trip every week day. No radio, A/C was out, seats were ripped, and there was silly string stuck to the ceiling that I may or may not have sprayed at my little sister. I proceeded to install a decent sound system, put tons of stickers on the back, and some pimpin' faux mink seat covers that shed like a long-haired dog with alopecia. Quite the stylish redneck, I was. Unfortunately, the thing burned more oil than gas, and adding 25k miles in less than a year and a half of driving was the death knell. I traded it in for $500 toward my current car, which has kept me in good stead since 2000.
1980 Oldsmobile station wagon. It had fake wood paneling on the side that, because of 8 years of New Orleans summers was flaking off, giving it a mottled, sort of camouflaged look. All of my friends had awesome cars. I had this giant POS. But, for a short while, I did have a mattress in the back. Classy.
My first car was a 1988 Chrysler LeBaron that a bought from my friends grandma for the grand total of $100.00. The entire dash was electric...which was cool until the whole thing would short out and not come back on for days at a time. After about a year or so I sold the car for scrap metal for $150.00 and moved on to a real set of wheels....and by that I mean a '98 escort.
My worst car, is my current daily driver. Its a Purple 1998 Neon. The thing runs so bad that it sounds liek a diesel. To make matters worse, while I was changing the alternator, I got my finget pinched. In an angry drunken hissy fit, the fenders got kicked in. That was last year and i'm still to broke too replace the fenders. Now, the dents have started to rust so it looks even worse. So I suppose it's my own fault that my car is a POS.
First: 1979 Ford F-150 My dad gave me the keys to our old farm truck when I was 14 and said that it was mine as long as I could keep it running. That I did. I still have the truck, and what started out with a 302 V8 and a C4 3 speed auto transmission turned into a 460 V8, T56 six-speed manual machine with 4.11 gears and a tight positrack 9" axle. Bad motherfucker; traction is a bit of a problem though, even with the posi. I'll be getting it back from the body shop soon where it is being painted midnight blue, and I'll post it here. Here's a picture of a different '79 Ford incase anyone doesn't know what one looks like. "Worst": 1992 Chevy Camaro. Out of the six cars I have owned since I started driving, I never had one that you would call bad or lame (hell, I've never had a car or truck that didn't have a V8), but I bought this one a couple of years ago for $1300, and it had every kind of overheating problem you could think of (no front air dam, stuck thermostat, leaking water pump, clogged radiator, electric cooling fan that worked when it felt like it), and a fuel pump that had an annoying habit of quitting on me, then magically coming back to life as soon as help arrived. A few hundred bucks and some elbow grease later, I had it running like a bad motherfucker. Everyone loved it ( banged two girls specifically because they were attracted to the car), but my mom would turn over in her grave if she knew I drove it; she always thought such cars were for white trash. Last year a guy ran a stop sign and hit me on the passenger side, so I had to retire it. Once again, that isn't mine in the picture; mine was sun-bleached black with silver stripes.
My first car was a 1985 Toyota Tercel that I was forced to buy after my Dad leased it and abused it for 5 years. "Well, it's coming off lease and the buy off is $2300, so you have to do that so you have a car." I wrecked it in the rain a month later. My next car was a 1983 Mazda RX-7 which started me down my path of insanity: I've owned 11 since, the latest being a blue 1988 convertible with all the mods. Hopefully if time and money allow, I will be V-8 swapping it this winter, we'll see.
My worst car was my first car: a 1982 Volkswagen Rabbit. This thing was an EPIC piece of shit. It was my grandma's car, and she couldn't drive anymore, so my dad volunteered to hold on to it for her, and lo and behold, I had my first car. Some of the highlights: No radio. No speakers. The HOLES for the speakers didn't even exist. I had to throw a boom-box in the back seat to get music. This bitch was air-cooled. No Radiator. The result was that it would overheat easily, and then not start. Essentially, if you were driving anywhere remotely far (20 minutes of driving) you had to be staying there for at least half an hour for the car to cool down before it would start again. I was stuck at Walmart for 45 minutes waiting for it to start back up. Someone stole the fucking gas cap, so I had to buy one with a lock and key. One night, my friends decided it'd be funny to try to pick the thing up. They grabbed it around the frame and tried to lift, until they heard a loud crack and immediately freaked out. I don't know if anything actually broke, but that POS kept running (damn it). The brakes went out on it, in the middle of January, when it was snowing, and I still had to drive it home from work. Luckily, it was less than a mile away. My dad just said to use the emergency brake to stop, and not to put it in a ditch cause it wasn't worth the money to tow it. After I was done with it, my dad pawned it off on my cousin, who was stuck driving it until he graduated high school. I think it is crushed into a cube somewhere, now.
My first car was a 1974 Austin Mini right hand drive, just like jolly old England. It had the 990cc engine so it was dog slow but everything was factory original and cherry. I upgraded the rims to 10" Minilites and replaced the intake, carb and air filter. I sold after one year to some guy who then promptly used it to rear end a much larger vehicle. That pissed me off because I babied that thing, but not too much because I replaced it with a 1967 Mini Cooper with a 1340cc modded engine, I've had that one for 8 years. My first one looked like this. Current Mini.
First and current car: 1997 Dodge Stratus I loved the car when I got it my junior year of high school. I enjoyed how it has the tiptronic shifter, since I didn't know how to drive a standard at that time, and liked the feeling of shifting gears. Now has 120,000 miles, and I've put about $4,000 of work into it in the last two years. Three of the power locks no longer work. Nor do either of the back windows. The trunk lever stopped working. The fuel filler hose has a kink in it, and so I have to put gas in it as a trickle. It takes 15 minutes to fuel it up. The paint is fading, the majority of the trunk and roof are now primer gray. I have also replaced the starter twice, the valve cover gasket, the radiator, the fuel pump, the distributor, the crank sensor, the IAC valve, the PCV, the front brakes, and the plugwires. The best part is that during Hurricane Wilma, I had the car in the driveway, under the carrotwood tree in the yard(dumb idea). A branch fell off the tree and landed on the roof of the car, so now I have a wicked dent over the driver's side door. I plan on getting rid of it as soon as I pay off my credit cards.
1984 Oldsmobile Firenza was my first car. Old, worn out cloth interior made it smell like cigarettes and sex. Lots of both happened in that thing. Hell, two of my buddies and I all fucked the same girl in that same car at different times. It was destroyed by a drunk driver while it was parked out front of my house. This is what it looked like, only mine was two toned, with the bottom a dark blue and the top light grey.
1984 Pontiac Bonneville. I wish I could find pictures from when my folks first bought it to when I finally got it (in 1999)...it USED to be red, but when I started driving it, it was poo brown. The only good thing about that thing was the V8 engine - back when gas was cheap. Shitty A/C (and in Houston, that's terrible), hand crank windows in the front and swivel crap in the back, terrible radiator...you name it, that car had it. And I absolutely LOVED it.
My first car was a 1988 Volvo 240. That isn't the actual car but oddly enough it has the same paint/ interior as mine. Google image search reads minds. The steering was a little loose from the time I took out a row of hedges during my first experience driving in the snow, and the A/C had a tendency to leak on your feet, especially when you accelerated, but it really grew on me. My favorite part about it was surprising people who sat in the back seat. My brother and I went in on new speakers and subs, and sitting in the back with the sound system going was like a trip to the chiropractor. Eventually my dad decided he wanted me driving something safer and solved this problem by buying himself a new BMW and giving me his 1997 Volvo 850. I tried not to complain too much.