What was your first car?

As simple as the title states, what was your first car? and Whats the story?


My first car was a 1981 Chevy Camaro, I got it at age 15 in 2011, it was in a friends backyard in the weeds for over 10 years. It needed the engine rebuilt, the rear end reassembled, and a transmission put in. He told me to take it, make it race ready and he'd pay me everything I had in it back. After the first season, I had more than he wanted to pay for it invested so I was told to keep it. Had it until about a month ago.


My first daily driver was a 1985 C10 with a 305 and a 700r4 that I paid $1400 for in July of 2012 I bought it from a guy that spoke no english, me being 16 and impatient I took it. I had it 5 months, it dog tracked almost 3 inches to the left, huge dent in the bed, carb quit on me, driver window shattered going down the highway one day when it fell off track, and the radio was on a toggle switch which drained the battery every night. so i popped the hood and un hooked the negative terminal every night. Sold it for $1500

 

First... omg your from Joplin! We had a prominent member from Joplin. I feel like I should know the place he used to talk about it so much, maybe you know him...lol. I'm kidding. However he now lives in Chicago.

To answer your question, my first car was 1969 Nova (orange). I loved that car hubby decided to put it on a 4x4 truck frame that was the end of that car.

 

1st Car - Yellow 1970 GTO convertible 400 4barrel,

Just moved out of NYC, got my license (age 23) and wanted a convertible
Paid $900.00 for it sold it when job compute was 63 miles each way, couldn't afford the gas at $ .72 a gallon.
Got my Alfa

 

My first car? I remember like it was yesterday. I went to help my grandmother take care of grandpa after his heart trouble, my mother's parents. I was smarter than my dad, got tired of giving half my income, like $5.oo gross so he wasn't getting much. So in reality after staying with a friend my grandmother gave me a nice place to live.

By then I had my license and a real part time job. Stocking shelves and carry out at a grocery store. Making big money then! I was talking about needing a car. My uncle lived next door. I told my uncle I wanted something like a 1949 Mercury V-8 or a '49 Ford V-8.

Uncle Carl was smarter than this high school boy. He found a like new dealer's daughter owned 1949 Dodge 2-dr Coronet coupe at the Chrysler dealer down town. I'll admit it was a pretty car, maroon with wide white wall tires and chrome everywhere. But a six with Fluid drive.

Now this fluid drive was a mix of a 3-speed and a fluid coupling meaning I could start and stop in any gear only needing the clutch if I wanted to shift. Fast? NO! S L O W. My uncle drove a new 1956 Ford with I believe a 390. He knew a V-8 flathead Ford could be sort of fast and a Dodge six with slushomatic couldn't be fast. Still that Dodge was in such good shape all of the stickers and tags still hung from the dash and engine compartment. I learned to like it.

This was back when custom cars were the rage of that far west coast. I was reading all of those "little books" of custom kool cars. I removed the hood and trunk emblems, shaved the door handles, used real lead and a propane torch to fill and smooth the holes, added VW starter solonoids to cables and buttons for fancy modern remote doors and trunk. I used lowering blocks in back and a friend heated the front coils. I had a rare custom in the cornfields of Illinois when only a few custom Fords and Buicks roamed our streets.

I met a redneck farmer's daughter from Minnesota and we terrorized the A&W and pizza palaces of the surounding towns with a single muffler and split tail pipes. I was never quite right from then on!


My second car was a 1954 Ford Custom 2-dr V-8! That's another story.

 

I got my California driver's license on October 26, 1967 - the day I turned 16 years old. No car for me then, though. It was the 'house rule' that you could have a license and use the second car the family owned when it was available (in this case, a 1964 Ford Falcon Futura 4-door sedan, red), but you could not buy your own car (with your own money, of course) until you graduated high school. For me, that would have been the summer of 1969. Took a couple of weeks after graduation to get dad to take me out looking, but I found 'my' car at a local Ford dealer used car lot, for the pricey sum of $750. It was a 1963 Oldsmobile F-85 Cutlass post coupe. Had bucket seats, and.........an aluminum V8(!!!!!) engine. This isn't it, but it looked just like this:

 

In the fall of 1980 i bought a 1975 AMC Matador for $700.00

 

To start, I actually did not get my driver's license until after I left the Navy at 24, even though I had taken Driver's Ed in high school. As my parents saw it, I had bad grades, so no license, let alone a car. But, Mom was looking to buy a new pickup truck, and instead of trading Grandpa Fred's '66 Delta 88, she was going to entice me to study better (yeah, right) by offering me the Delta if I pulled my grades up. But then she was forced off the street in downtown Seattle, so the damaged car was traded in on her new pickup, in the late Fall of '80. Then, my Uncle Otis died of a heart attack, so Mom's sister, Aunt Karen, came to live with us. She was actively looking for a job, and was going to buy a better car when she found one. Well, she and I both found jobs, at the same company on the Bangor sub base, so I had made her an offer on her car, a '70 Impala 2-door postless, gold with gold interior, gold vinyl roof, 350/400. BUT, the guy who owned this company, he had been dipping into the coffers, so he took off in a hurry, the contract was pulled by the Navy, and neither of us got a job. Strike 2. So. Now, I'm serving in the U.S. Navy, and my leading Petty Officer offers me 'such a deal!' He had a '67 Impala Sportroof, black/black, 327/PG, buckets, console, etc., and for only $300!!! However, I had to go from NAS North Island to my bank to draw the money, then make my way out to La Mesa, by bus, and when I get there, I find the car (and it was in great condition outside and in the interior!), go knock on his apartment door, no answer. Stuck around for an hour, perhaps more, waiting to see if he had gone somewhere after leaving the ship. But, a no-show. So I make my way back to the ship, and the next morning, as I find him in the workspace, I asked him why he wasn't home. I had seen the car and barring anything, like, the engine is missing, or something like that, I wanted to buy the car. He tells me that he had sold the car to his neighbor when he got home directly from work. So he aced me out of his car while I was riding the freaking bus! Strike 3! That's how three GM cars were supposed to be my 'first' car, but none were my first car.

 

A rusty '56 Chevy Bel-Air 4-door sedan which ran as smooth as a watch and had loud lifters. I bought it at 15 for $100. I had to wait until I got my license, before I could drive it on the road. Drove it back and forth on the driveway, until dad parked his ride behind mine, after work. I was impressed by how good the tube radio sounded. So, I would often sit in there munching Reese buttercups and listening to tunes. As soon as I started tightening the lifters, to try to get the noise out, it stopped running smooth. I tried backing off of the adjustment. But, couldn't get it right again. Kid stuff. Nothing I'd do these days. I ended up finding a Tennessee body and filled it with the rust bucket's innards. The original 265 was replaced with a 283 from some '63 full-sized which I rebuilt in highschool.

 

Weren't the 265 engines solid lifter-equipped?

 

I sort of think they were solid lifters too! I've had 265, 283, 327, 305, 307, and 350's. All but the 77 Vette were orange. That's all I remember.
Coincidentally the orange Vette had a black engine. Black made it doggy!
So twinkiesilverhobo what was your first car and why?

 

If I'm not mistaken, the '55 had solid lifters.

 

Growing up in a single parent home, we never had a car. Mom rode the bus to work every day. When I got my license, my uncle and his friend had a 2 dr 51 Ford sedan that they drove to work everyday. Six banger with 3 spd overdrive. He said he would give me his share if I bought out his friend's share. It cost me $15. It had a smashed front fender and some rust. I found a fender in a guy's back 40 and gave him $5 for it. I fixed the rust holes with bondo and covered the rusted floor on the passenger side with aluminum flashing that I pop riveted in and put a piece of masonite over. I went to the insurance salvage store and bought some naugahyde and covered all the door panels. Another of my uncle's friends had a home made portable compressor that the spray gun acted as the air tank. You had to let it pressurize and then shoot. Then you had to wait for it to pressurize again. I bought my primer at Western Auto and had it all primed and ready to paint. Had to pick my Mom up from the bus station that evening and while waiting the old lady next to me backed out. Here bumper caught my car and creased it from the door to the rear tail light. I was highly pissed. Spent more time and got it ready to paint again. Bought some midnite blue paint from Western Auto and painted the car in the neighbor's garage. Installed a mystery shifter on the floor and drove it to my summer job. I used to go down to the football field for tires. At the end of the summer, I had enough money to buy a set of Fisk, 2 ply tube type tires. They were on sale for $10 each.

Drove it until I graduated from high school. Sold it for $125 and bought a 56 purple and white BelAire 2 dr hardtop with a 265 Power Pak. Passed that on to my younger brother when a 57 Ford Victoria belonging to a local Ford mechanic came up for sale. He had ordered it special from the factory and for some unknown reason, it was faster than hell. It was never beat in local races, including a 62 Ford with a 406, a 62 Chevy 348 with a 4 spd, and a 63 Vette with a 300 horse 327 and a 4 spd. He had a 4.56 rear end in it and tore me up off the line. Then he ran out of gears and I flew past him just past the 1/8th mile. I was still in 2nd and it would do 115 mph still in that gear as it crossed the 1/4 mile mark. Unfortunately, I later fell asleep at the wheel and wrapped it around a telephone pole. I pulled the engine and trans, and between myself and my brothers we had it in 3 different cars after that.

 

Prepare to be underwhelmed. My first car, at age 24, was Dad's '78 Fairmont 2-door sedan he bought new. It had 132k on it, but still going strong at that time. Mom and Dad gave it to me so I could look for a job and go to school.

 

1957 Chevrolet 210 2 door sedan, turquoise & white.
Davidsons Used Car Lot $275.00

 

1st wagon was a 1964 Chevy2 283 PG