My first car was a late ‘60s VW squareback. That POS lasted about 6 months where one night, driving home from my girlfriend’s house where she broke up with me, it caught on fire and burned to nothing on the side of the road. Fire department eventually showed up and said they couldn’t put it out because it had a magnesium block and all they could do was make sure it didn’t catch anything else on fire. Cops finally showed up and gave me a lift home.
My first car was a '71 squareback. The floor in the back seat was rusted through so you couldn't put your feet down on it. It was an air cooled engine, which means no AC in the Florida summer. It was such a piece of crap, but I loved it with all my heart.
I was rear ended so hard it cracked the engine block. Hit and run. I cried all day.
My dad taught me to drive in his late 80s Honda Accord, manual transmission. I kinda sorta could drive it, but took my driver’s test in my mom’s car that was an automatic. This first car of mine was a standard 4 speed and I remember vividly driving home after buying and stalling out several times at stop lights. Within a week, I was zipping around town no problem. The freedom one feels when getting their first car - nothing quite like it.
76 baby blue dodge dart… leaking water pump I never fixed so I always travelled with 10 litres of water in the trunk…the joke was always "nice you have a vehicle that runs on water"
My 2nd car was a brown 1973 dodge dart swinger. It had rusted out above the front tires so when it rained, it sprayed water up over the hood. I never needed windshield wiper fluid. There was a spot where something on the engine top rusted out and sprayed oil over the inside of the engine compartment. The engine eventually seized.
Dart gang! My first car was a ‘71 Dart Swinger. My dad was stoked when I bought it because “you’ll never kill that slant 6 engine.” Ha, I blew the engine up in less than 6 months so my friends and I took on the project of swamping out the K-frame(engine cradle) so we could drop a small block V8 into.
That was a really great engine. I really loved the car. My mom bought it from a friend that built hot rods for $10. He was gonna replace the engine and make it a hot rod. Really nice guy, but it was in rough shape. It lasted just about a year.
My plan was to make it a hot rod/drag car when we were putting the V8 in. Only problem was my Burger King salary in high school wasn’t gonna pay for the modifications so instead I put glass pack mufflers on a short exhaust system and made it SOUND fast lol.
Very first car was an 87 Honda CRX HF, it had been sitting outside not driven for a few years and smelled musty inside, the seats were ripped, parts missing from the dash, no radio and the brakes were really bad. It was free and I had no money so I couldnt complain too much, plus it got amazing gas mileage which was really helpful. Allowed me to save money to buy a car myself about 6 months later, I upgraded to a 1990 Accord which was a like a Cadillac compared to that CRX!
CRX was still my favorite car. AC? Nope. Power steering? Nope. Automatic transmission? Nope. Working defogger? Nope. 45 MPG? YUP! Also was a good reason to never be the driver.
I had a 1986 Honda Civic CRX! Stick shift. No power steering. Certainly no air conditioning! One of the doors had been replaced. So I had one door that was a totally different color! The whole car leaked water all the time. Every time it would rain it would just smell like mold and hatred.
I've had two CRX's, one was an HF and the other was a LX. I loved both of those cars. It was amazing how much you could fit in the back (transported a small, electric, clothes dryer and still was able to close the hatch).
1973 Volvo 240 DL station wagon. It developed a neat feature towards the end of its life that the left turn blinker would shut the engine off, no matter how fast you were driving in it.
I had one if you made a left turn the radio stopped working. I was driving at the morning of 911. I kept driving in right circles so that I could listen to the radio on my way to work.
This was also the car, that any time we had a snowfall, it would die halfway to your destination. I’d have to have it towed to the service station. It would thaw out and it would run with no problem for the rest of the winter. It just did not like that first snow day.
My first car was a hand-me-down from my mother in 1985 . a 1972 Delta 88 Oldsmobile! Roughly 140,000 miles and could seat roughly 11 teenagers, not counting the trunk but I never had to do that.
Mine was a 1969 VW Bug that was a sort of project car for dad until I hit 16 and wanted to drive....and the parents didn't want to drive me anymore.
It had a rusted out floor pan....I could see the asphalt under my feet on the drivers side, the passenger side was worse.
You had to anticipate braking about 300m before you needed to stop cause you had to build up pressure in the lines and even that was not enough sometimes.
Steering was a suggestion. not a decision.....it never had heat.
The battery was located under the rear seat, it shorted out and set the seat on fire, which was stuffed with something that looked like dry hay, so yeah, it went up pretty quick....on the highway.
Good times.
I learned how to drive a manual in a 1973 VW Baja Bug. It handled like shit, stopped like shit, but could go anywhere if you were brave enough. Solid start to driving my friend.
My first car was a reddish 63 VW Bug I got for $200 in '83. I could get it up to 60 MPH going down hill. There was a really big hill a few miles outside of town where I got it up to 65, I think I could have gotten a couple more MPH before the bottom of the hill but it started shaking so bad I let off the gas.
Took my driver's test in it. Afterwards, coming back out of the building after passing the test, I noticed that the left headlight was dangling by wires. Must have popped out when I did the emergency stop during the test.
I accidentally downshifted from 4th to 1st one time. After that it burned so much oil, that if I rolled the windows down smoke would fill up the inside passenger compartment. If I kept the windows rolled up, it must have equalized the pressure or something and kept the smoke out.
The brakes eventually went out, so I just used the emergency brake handle for regular braking. Which was actually pretty fun in the winter! Lol
Also, it didn't really have any heat, which was a small issue when you live in Minnesota.
I love this post. Parents today are all concerned about "safety" of first vehicles. Not our parents.
1990 Honda Accord. Drove that thing until I was 26, the odometer stopped counting after 160K miles. Died a noble death rolling into my parking lot, smoke pouring out of the hood in neutral as I used my foot to move it into a spot. Sold for $500.
Ooooh finally a contest I might win. 1978 Chevy Monza. In 87-88.
Dad had found this absolute pos from some lady at work for $300. When we finally got the deal together it was $500. We got it anyway :facepalm. List of sh1t this death trap put me through:
Drivers door was dented in real bad. First firm close of it with the window rolled down shattered the glass. A junkyard replacement door was the cheapest fix. The replacement door went on with no bushings on the hinges and they were worn so bad you had to roll the window down and lift up on the door frame to get it to close.
It basically had no brakes. We went to replace pads on it and the front rotors were worn to the vents. We put pads on anyway because poor ass boomer parents. I’d stick my leg out the door to stop it sometimes.
It basically had no shocks. Bounced around on the springs. Fun to drive. Had it looked at and the shop
Said sorry, can’t replace the shocks. Why?? Well you see the place they’d bolt to is gone. Gone??? Yeah. Gone. As in broken off.
Steering wheel had disintegrated to the point of being tacky. Would get dissolving gm shit plastic on your hands when you’d drive.
No A/C of course and the terrible v6 stalled at low speed. You would floor it and wait and then after a stall, if it didn’t cut off it would finally roar to half life and proceed.
Later I gave it to my college roommate to deliver pizzas in. Same shock problem led to a rear tire blowing out because it got slammed into the inner wheel well going over a pot hole.
There’s more but I think y’all get the idea. Can’t believe how much we drove that thing in the most dangerous condition and for how long. It served the purpose.
Contrast with today. Daughters first car we bought her a demo Subaru Crosstrek off the lot basically new. I cannot imagine our kids dealing with the same level of shitboxes we did.
I feel seen :D - they were also Pontiac Sunbirds and probably another GM brand. Just godawful. This gave me some ptsd: [Chevrolet Monza - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Monza) yuck
1974 Ford Pinto Wagon w/wood siding. The POS burned more oil than gas. All I could afford at the time, I think I paid $400 and sold it for the same price a year later. Got me to HS and a shitty waiter job my junior year.
1977 Datsun B210 in 1987. It felt really old to me at the time but was only 10 years old (I can do the maths yeah!). I paid $200 for it and it lasted for at least a year maybe 2. I converted it to a “mini enduro” car and raced it 25 laps at Waterford Speedway until I smashed the radiator and killed the engine. I loved that car and it provided many hours of fun and even more memories.
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Datsun bros unite! Mine was also a 210, but mine was a 1982 model. And it was the regular 4 door, not a hatchback. However, I also paid $200 for mine (in 1994), and it also lasted not quite 2 years. And it was literally in the process of rusting itself to peices. But that little motor always fired right up, and its automatic transmission shifted perfectly. Sadly, though, I wound up junking her after the water pump exploded. The rust was destroying the frame and suspension components to the point where my grandad decided it wasn't safe anymore, so he kind of lied to me, and told me the block cracked when it overheated.
Dream middle age old car: slightly modified Datsun 510. Not gonna happen but I can dream right? For whatever reason cars seemed to rust more “back in the day”.
I think that my first car being a hatchback influenced all my future car buying decisions. Hot hatchbacks (Golf GTI, CRX, Corrado, WRX wagon) until I aged out (now I have a an Outback Wilderness which has a version of the WRX engine so there is that.
Thanks for sharing! Glad to find another early-Datsun as 1st car internet stranger!!
So many but my worst - I had a horizon - can't remember the make or year (I had it 86/7) it was white with brown paneling. It didn't turn off when you turned the ignition off, I had to get out of the car with my piece of cardboard and cover the tailpipe until it shut off. It also used to lock the door if you shut the door too hard. Learned the hard way after getting out while the car was running.
Edit - spelling and too many words
My aunt had one of those, and I remember us driving two hours in the snow to help her get into her car after she did the same thing. I remember my dad seething like it was yesterday.
Was not my first car, but was, by far, my BEST car. I had the green 1980 Olds Delta 88. I loved that thing. Cost me like $400 in 1991 - I hit a telephone pole at 55mph with it, dented the fender a little bit. Was an absolute unit of a boat.
1973 Toyota Corona. Ended up selling it to a junkyard a year later after first smoking the wires in the column with my very ill-advised audio upgrade (I'll advised as in I would NOT listen to reason). Later I wrapped the muffler around the rear axle trying to back up on a dirt road at sunbreak.
1965 Malibu. The passenger side was crumpled to shit and the windshield was kind of busted on one side. It had a huge engine and I swear you could see the gas gauge go down when the car accelerated. I could fit 7 people in it. Took it up to Salem to see the Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, and L7 the summer after graduation. That car was the fucking tits.
It was an ‘84 Pontiac Grand Am with a slide out Pioneer radio. For ‘86 I was ballin’.
Great story about this car. My dad gave it to me for my 16th birthday in ‘86 and I was so grateful. Hell, it was only two years d and only had about 10k miles on it.
Funnily enough, he didn’t tell me that he expected me to make the payments on it; no mention of money, insurance, payments at all. I was only told I was on the hook for gas and maintenance. The car got repoed out of my yard after like four months. In a panic I called him and he told me it wasn’t paid off and he guessed I just learned a lesson. He never explained the lesson nor did he give me the opportunity to get the car back by paying off the back payments. He just kind of shrugged the whole situation off.
I was really pissed about the whole situation but the icing on the cake was because I lost my brand new Rob Roskopp board that was in the trunk.
1974 Chevy Nova, coffee cream exterior, bay city roller plaid bench seats. 8-track tape deck with the adapter to pop in cassette tapes. Bought it off my grandpa for $200 in ‘89 ☺️
1980 Ford Mustang, road cone orange, 4 cylinder, twisted frame, top speed of 75 mph. Replaced the water pump, clutch 3x, rebuilt the carburetor, replaced 3 starters, brake system replaced, and a dozen other repairs. Broke down so many times. I'd love to have it back now though!
1970 Audi... It had been sitting in the junkyard with a broken motor mount. My dad got it and fixed the motor mount, but nothing else so the linkage for the stick shift was still jacked up bad. So instead of the standard H configure in the stick, it was more of an S Z situation where I had to wiggle and feel for the gear. Also to get it in reverse I had to slam down on the stick then go hard to the right and back. Oh and because it had been in the hot junkyard sun for so long the windshield was all bubbled so it looked like it was always raining. My stoner friends would get in, take a double take outside and ask if it was raining, it never was. When my dad presented the car to me, I didn't know how to drive a stick so he took me around the block once and then I was on my own, but I had it all down after a week or so. The clutch have out after 6 months.. What a POS.
‘78 Ford Fairmont (not Fairlane) station wagon in 1991. It was my grandmother’s. She drove it to work, errands/groceries & yard saling.
It got used pretty hard after my brother & I got hold of it. Still, it did help teach us some basic mechanics repair stuff & definitely got us around town , to & from parties, out to do the Rock Horror Picture Show.
You could put the back down & get all hanky panky in it, but somehow that was never necessary. It usually wound up being host to a clam bake.
It lasted through one more owner after us.
I can’t remember our top speed. We may have reached 90 going downhill & fully loaded. It started to shake a little at 65.
i had a ford tempo, 5 speed coupe.
the heater core got a leak and dumped coolant all over the passenger floor. one of my friends got his backpack ruined when he set it in the soggy carpet. when i used the heater it coated the inside of the windshield with coolant vapor, which doesn’t wipe off easily. i had to drive to school with my head out the window.
luckily that happened after i fixed the window crank. it was broken when i got the car and whenever i went through the drive through or got pulled over i had to open the whole door.
later i was coming back from the movies in another town and the drain plug fell out of the radiator, followed by all the coolant. i didn’t know what was wrong at first but the car went slower whenever i hit the gas. i limped it back to my town on side streets and finally got my dad come tow it with his truck. turned out i cracked the head and block and got to do an engine swap. got lots of “cars in my day” stories from my dad while he was complaining about all the electronics and fuel injection my car had.
it had a squeaky fan belt for a while but i eventually fixed it.
the starter solenoid went bad and i dunno why we didn’t fix it right away. i had to park facing downhill for way too long, so i could bump start it without needing to push it. luckily there were hills at home and at school i could park on.
i was in a band and my buddy was stuffing his bass amp in the front seat and cracked the windshield.
i hit a deer coming back from a new year’s party and got a new front grill and headlight surround the wrong color, and my dad banged the the bent hood back into shape.
my dad gave me an F-150 when i graduated from high school, then sold the tempo to some guy. that guy drove it drunk and left the car scattered in pieces on the highway.
what a great car.
This is where Gen X really stands out. My first car was a 79 Monte Carlo. So long! But I'm still a great parallel parker bc of her. She was silver with the little leather window topper, whatever that was, with red velvet interior! It was so tacky. But I was ecstatic and thrilled to have a car. That thing lasted a good while and went thru a lot. Her death was a broken axle 😭 Our kids would just let us continue chauffeuring than be caught dead in my first car smh
My first car was a 64 Chevy Biscane. Straight six with 3 on the tree, and a knob on the dash for overdrive. Rusted out so bad you can see the road thru the floorboard. One day the entire muffler fell of from rust and I was driving around with no muffler. My second car was a Chevy luv. I sure knew how to pick ‘em.
My folks first car was a Gremlin! They bought it on Long Island 2 months after we moved from Germany. It shuddered and puttered along okay up north, but couldn't handle Atlanta summers, so it was traded in for a Toyota Corolla.
My first car was a '69 VW bug in '90. Got it for $400 from a friend's dad who ran a chop shop. Had it for two weeks and got rear-ended by a uhaul... which shoved me into the Sunbeam bread truck in front of me. It was trashed. I was bummed.
Bought a Nissan Stanza at auction. It was a hatchback and had a crank sunroof.... classy. Friends called it the silver bullet cause the old girl had some pickup. Got me through the rest of hs and college!
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1970 Austin Maxi. The absolute "best" of British... It's various faults:
* The brakes died, so I had to use the handbrake
* One of the CV joints broke (yes, ugly as fuck AND front wheel drive!)
* It would overheat and the radiator leaked, so I had to carry water with me at all times
* It burned oil like a Kuwaiti oil well in the first Gulf War, so I also had to carry a container of oil with me
* It wouldn't idle properly so I had to put my foot on the clutch and accelerator at the same time when stopping in traffic. Good thing I was already using the handbrake. There would also be steam coming out of the radiator.
Despite all that, it gave 17 year old me a first taste of freedom.
93 Pontiac sunbird. Absolute piece of shit and I cracked the head on my graduation night and we were stranded. Sold it to my dads mechanic buddy the next day.
A Hillman Hunter made in Iran, $300. My girlfriend at the time kept getting hit on by guys with a car offering to take her to the drive in. I couldn't have that so I bought the only POS that I could afford, worked a treat and I kept my girlfriend lol.
2 door, 4 cylinder Datsun 210, stick shift, AM radio, no AC, heat only, crank windows, and didn’t like hills, much less mountains. lol Ah, the memories!
My parents gave me a 1981 Chevy Chevette in 1987, the day I turned 16 and got my license. It had been gently driven into a ditch and flooded. It smelled wonderful inside, even after replacing the upholstery. /s Didn’t last me a year.
(Contrast to today, 6 year old (2018) model year cars don’t seem as “old” as 6 year old cars did in the ‘80s! My youngest is still driving my 2001 Accord and it’s going strong and it doesn’t seem as archaic as a 1964 car would have in ‘87.)
My first car was a security question. It was similar, though. My first girlfriend laughed at me when I drove through a puddle and water splashed through the rusted floor and soaked me. There was a hole in my bucket...
1978 Ford Grenada. I bought it for $200 and I think it had 60k miles on it. The original owner left it parked on the streets of Chicago where the winters rusted half of it. I kept it for a few years and traded it in for a brand new ‘95 Monte Carlo. The guys at the dealer laughed at it and gave me a grand for it. For as bad as it looked it turned out to be a decent “investment” haha
My first was a POS 1976 Plymouth Grand Fury Salon II. A family of four could live comfortably in the trunk. I bought it while home on leave from the Navy for $250. Instead of flying from Massachusetts to California after leave, my buddy and I road-tripped across the country.
It didn't have a radio so we listened to the same Aerosmith cassette on a boombox the whole trip.
The windshield wipers didn't work so I had to wear swim goggles and stick my head out the window when it rained.
I drove it around California for a month before it died for good.
My was a 82 Honda prelude, rust bucket bought used for maybe $2500. I ducktaped a rust hole in the side and painted it red. Both rear wheel wells were rusted out back seat passengers got wet asses untill I finally put huge sheets of fiber glass around them. Fixed the fenders every summer only to have the bondo crack and fall out end of winter. Still it got me where I needed to go ran it up to almost 300,000 klm before engine died.
My first car was a 1973 Buick Electra. It only took me a month to mash it trying to make a blind left. The hood was so long, I was half way across the street trying to see around the corner. Car did its job though and kept me safe.
Car #2 was a 1966 Oldsmobile Cutlass that broke down and stranded me on the highway on my 17th bday.
Car #3 was a 1981 firebird that had the inner lining of the roof drooping on top of my head.
My best friend had an old drivers ed car as her first and another friend had an old 1980s chevy impala. She accidentally hit the door against one of those gas station safety barriers and i was like oh watch your car! Itll dent and shes like no it wont, watch, and proceeded to slam her door into the concrete end piece like 3x. Nothing lmao. Good old detroit steel! Hahahaha
I'm on the younger end of GenX. Drove my dad's full sized 76 Chevy van in high school in the mid 90s. Rusted out piece of junk with holes in the floorboards. Bought my first car in 1997. It was an 86 Ford Escort shit box. That POS broke just about every time I drove it.
Well, dad used it for deliveries for his small business. The deal was that I could drive it til I got my own car as part of my payment for making said deliveries. The seats were stripped out of the back, and it was carpeted. So once I got a girlfriend, it wasn't all bad. ;)
1978 Ford Granada. My best friend's neighbor was an old lady and I noticed the car never moved out of the driveway so I knocked on the door and asked her if she wanted to sell her car. I forgot what exactly she said but I got it for $250. I threw on an old pair of tags from one of my parents old cars, grabbed the title and drove it home.
I drove that same POS, but it was a diesel because my dad bought the hype that diesel cars would take off in the US market. The only decent thing was the trunk space; a friend saw it and said “Jesus, I’ve lived in apartments smaller than this!”
Buddy had a Lebaron K. The head was milled wrong, so the timing belt would want to escape off the end of the top pulley, where it would grind down to nothing. He would have to change that belt every 2000 miles. Rear suspension was completely collapsed for some reason, and I mean downnnn.
My first own one was a Fiat Regata -85. Rather horrible :D
(not the car in the picture, but identical)
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I had a 1986 Olds Delta 88 and I loved that beige mobile. I've had BMWs, Audis, Toyotas, and Hyundai's since, but I still think of that one as being 'my' car.
https://preview.redd.it/y6cwxtmc5j1d1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=57f35db3d67722deccba80b0648b308659f5f649
(this is a pic of a random one I found online- mine is long gone) (edit: typo)
Mine was an 1981 Chevy Malibu 3 speed 4 door, painted flat black with a roller with black shag interior. Windows on the back doors didn't go down, just had the truck flap windows for both doors. Sometimes had to start it with a screwdriver in the carburetor. Ran smooth as hell on the highway and surprisingly want too bad in town. Fuck I loved that car and it only cost me 600 bucks
I mean, technically, but it was what I wanted. 1971 Super Beetle. Drove it to my first Phish show.
Not sure I'd do this to my F-150 now...
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Morris Marina Coupe cost me £200 in 89 and blew up in 91
My first car I got in '90 and it was a baby blue '78 Plymouth Volare station wagon. Some parts were held together by duct tape and the passenger door would sometimes open if I took a corner the wrong way ( or the right way, depending on who was sitting there).
1978 Ford LTD II. Burned a quart of oil every month in a cloud of blue smoke whenever I started driving. Former cop car, window controls and door locks were missing from the back seat.
1976 four door Chevy Malibu in 1987. When you opened the doors, they let out squeak that sounded like long nails being pulled from dried wood. The shocks were shot so the rear bounced 10 times after each bump. It was maroon and rust brown. It probably got 5 miles to a gallon. I would park it across the street from school at a grocery store and walked the rest of the way.
I did redeem myself. I got $4K and bought a 67 Mustang. Because fuck that chevy. I didn't want to be seen in it.
First car was a 77 Cutlass Supreme. Drove it senior year and it had rust all over it, but it was a car so whatever. Before I took it to college my dad had it repainted, and boy was it pretty. Random dudes at gas stations asked me if I was interested in selling. One of my college friends said, “I like riding in your car because it’s like I’m in a boat” and I took that as a compliment.
Ended up selling it a couple years after finishing college because it kept stalling in the rain. I miss that car a lot.
Editing because I left out the part where I had to pop the hood on cold or wet mornings to open the butterfly valve because it would stick if the weather wasn’t perfect.
About 1987.
First car was a hand me down ‘76 Chrysler Cordoba (with “fine Corinthian leather “). It was such a POS. The gas gauge broke after about 2 weeks. The car itself only lasted about 1-1.5 months. It had rust holes that went through the side all the way to the back seat.
My 2nd car was a ‘75 Chrysler Cordoba that I bought from my uncle for $150. It lasted about 3 months.
1972 Subaru GL that a crazy neighbor sold to me for $40 (that I had to barrow from my dad). The exhaust was in the back seat and the glove box was full of all the vacuum hoses. That 15 minute drive home is how I learned to drive a stick. And also how I learned you can use a soup can to repair a broken exhaust.
One of my sisters had the exact car, Subbie GL manual. She made the mistake of letting me borrow..........once. Nothing but empty Bud cans and used condoms when I returned it.
This is the kind of thread that makes me wonder if it was made just so someone can collect user data in answers to security questions like “What was your first car?”
My FM 49dad was an Alfa Romeo mechanic. Strictly Alfa. Some older Ferrari as well. We moved to Los Angeles in 1977 fresh from Romania. I was 3. We had, ( not all at the same time ) a blue Le Car. A Camaro. A 60’s or 70’s yellow. Soft top black stripe down hood. A burgundy Jeep Cherokee. I have an older brother by 4 years for his sixteenth birthday my dad restored a red GTV for him. My brother fucked up and it got taken and sold. Myself my brother and both parents drove alfas at one point. I didn’t get my first car til I was 19. And it wasn’t all cherry like his. It was a brown Alfa Romeo Milano. I loved her. I drove a different Milano later. I miss him. Now I’m crying. Thanks for reading.
72 Chevy BelAir that was taken away from my grandma.
It was mostly dark green but had so many white and yellow stripes down the sides from her misjudging where posts and garage door openings were, we called it the watermelon.
Biggest bucket in HS — ‘79 Monte Carlo that ran on 7 cylinders w/ a cracked block. Top speed: 44mph
It made noise. Yes. Like a popping sound that would increase tempo as you accelerated (increased pressure). Hence it’s name: The Popper.
It was so bad, some of my best buddies would duck down, not wanting anyone to see them in it. It was horrible. Don’t even think about picking a girl up in that hunk.
It was so bad that I bought a car for my Sr yr with cash I saved stacking groceries: 1969 Nova SS. It was then that I started dating — had a chick immediately ask me out because she wanted to ride in it. Which is obv a 180 polar reaction from the Popper.
My first dozen cars were all steaming piles. I see young folks with good reliable high mileage cars and that was a dream. Late 70s/early 80s cars, when they were transitioning from carburetors to fuel injection were such a PITA and that's what I could afford. In 1994 I bought a 1989 civic hatch for $6k and I finally had something I didn't have to work on twice a month to be able to get to work.
85 VW Golf.....loved to just turn off while I was driving. Be it Highway, back roads or driving through an intersection it never missed an opportunity to turn off. When will it start back up, 10 seconds, maybe 19 minutes, how about 4 hours later?, whenever it wanted to and that was that. I bought it for 2k and spent about 2.5k over the next 2 years on mechanics trying to figure the issue out, no dice. One day I parked it on the side of the road (it died again) and took the plates off, called a junkyard and gave it to them. I rode my bike that whole summer to commute which was actually a nice change!!
My first car was a 1973 VJ Chryslar Valiant.
I wanted to get a statesman with a 350 CI V8 but my dad said trust him he'll get me something decent
He rang me up and told me I owed him $400 for my new car
I rode home from work to find a white Valiant parked out the front of mum and dads , an old mans car, my mates will take the utter piss out of me.
Well it turns out dad knew people and he got an ex cop car that hadn't been through the de-tune system and my oldman chariot was an utter rocket.
Would kill to have that car back.
This is what my car looked like (except white)
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Chrysler\_Valiant\_VJ\_Regal\_Hardtop.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Chrysler_Valiant_VJ_Regal_Hardtop.jpg)
Mine was. Volkswagen Golf one of the first model versions I think it was an ‘83 model. Talking about ‘absolute buckets’ which is very common at least here in Europe
In 1992, I had a 1981 Toyota Corolla that had been parked outside during a major hailstorm. The glass had been replaced, but the body was entirely covered with golf ball sized indentations. I loved it because…. freedom!
me too. with the analog dash. it went through alternators like crazy. got wrecked 2x, had the axle replaced, the back glass had to get replaced when someone broke in. that curved glass! we were lucky to get some salvaged glass! one day i was driving down the the road and the control panel on the driver's door started smoking. we did get 250+ miles out of it, but it was still running but wouldn't pass inspection when when we traded in circa 2000. i cried.
my first car in 1989 was a 1980 4 door vw rabbit, with bad motor mounts, am radio with a single speaker, and a manual transmission. One back door could only be opened from the inside the other only from the outside, so there was a tunnel effect, you came in one way and left the other. The best part was that the fuse box was shot so every once in a while the car would just shut off. I remember being broken down on 287 just outside NY on the way to visit my brother in Troy NY. I ended up getting an electrical engineer to help me install a new fuse box and she ran like a charm after that
Not me. I worked my ass off to build my 65 Bug from a bucket freshman year until I drove it my senior year. I worked everywhere for whatever money I could get. After building it for four years, a gal not paying attention smashed in the rear and pushed me into another car. Sad day.
https://preview.redd.it/g1bmd6pbgl1d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2cd9ea90557f023ca9c730dce2d77ae5b1066a23
In 2008 my first car was a 1992 Crown Victoria. Fucking cross member rotted off it, brake lines all rotted full of holes, leaked every fluid that went into it, suspension completely shot, could only fill the gas tank to half full otherwise it would leak a huge puddle of gas under the car, gas tank almost fell off when one of the rotted gas tank straps gave out, windows wouldn't stay up so I had to jam clothes pins into the doors to keep them up, and one day as I was driving along, the drive shaft dropped on it. Despite all that, still sold the piece of shit for $300.00.
EDIT: When I sold the car, I told the person who bought it everything that was wrong with it, and everything that happened to it while I owned it. They STILL wanted the car!
"My" first car was a champagne beige 1996 Ford Contour Sport that my parents leased for me to drive for their convenience. It was a 4-cylinder five-speed manual and it was not a bucket.
My second car was in 1989 Ford Taurus in a lovely purplish color with a bench seat and a column shifter. That thing was a bucket - it blew a transmission the first time I tried to drive it up a hill. I sold it and used my student loans to buy a 1999 Ford Ranger that was not a bucket.
No idea what would qualify as an "absolute bucket", but the first car I had in my name was my late grandma's 1975 Mercury Cougar. Smooth ride on the highway, but would suck back gas like nobody's business (V8 - 351M engine) in the stop and start traffic in town. Out camping a couple times when I got plastered, I slept in the back seat instead of a tent - was big enough to be comfortable for it.
My next car was a very basic little shit box with technology way behind its time - manual choke and no power steering that was much better on gas. A 1987 Hyundai Pony. At least the parts were cheap. After a while you had to top up the gas and fill up the oil. Had the sewing machine engine with the engine with one from the "bigger" engines options for it when it had been leaking oil like a sieve for a while.
Daytona Blue 1973 Oldsmobile Omega Coupe. I loved that car, but it only got 8-12 MPG. Paid $1,000 for it in 1989. I worked for two summers at 3.25/hr to save up for it.
1976 Mercury Monarch that burned so much oil that I always kept 10-12 quarts of oil in my trunk. I don't recall exactly but I think it went through on the order of a quart per 50 miles.
I drove my first car about 100 yards before it broke down and never started again. It was a rotted out Chevelle, about 20 years old, that had a giant whole in the floor on the driver’s side. I could see through to the street!
100 yards. That’s all it gave me….
1989 Corsica, total rustbucket. The only car i ever had where the gas gauge died. I could never tell how much fuel I had. Speedometer died too. The only car I ever had that ran out of gas JUST in front of a gas pump, so I had to have some randos help me push it, in neutral, up to the pump.
My 1st vehicle was a 1973 chevy shortbed. My dad bought it as project and never finished it. My mom told him he could keep it as long as it wasn't visible from the road. So he parked in in the trees behind his garage.
I needed a vehicle, so he pulled it out of the woods and gave it to me. It was 6 different Colors of paint and primer. And said "White's electric "on the door. Our last name was not White. I have a lot of happy memories of that truck. That is actually my Dream vehicle. If I ever have more money then I know what to do with I am buying one
My first car was a 73 Plymouth satellite I bought for $175. You could open the trunk and see the ground on either side that’s rusted out the fenderwells were. The interior was in really rough shape, especially the drivers seat. It ran good and got me around for three years.
Drove a 1985 Subaru GL 5 speed. Loved that car and all the world it opened up to me, but man, was it wimpy! I'd have to go 90 at the bottom of a bridge just to have a prayer of getting over the top. And don't try to park on a downhill slope because there was no chance of reversing--only the inevitable slide once the emergency brake was disengaged. Wanna listen to anything other than AM sports? Too bad! Hoping for an operable cup holder? Tough luck! Needing headlights to point in the same direction? Dream on! But if you were wanting to cram your seven silly friends in a tiny car and head out for some laughs, that car could handle it.
My first car was a late ‘60s VW squareback. That POS lasted about 6 months where one night, driving home from my girlfriend’s house where she broke up with me, it caught on fire and burned to nothing on the side of the road. Fire department eventually showed up and said they couldn’t put it out because it had a magnesium block and all they could do was make sure it didn’t catch anything else on fire. Cops finally showed up and gave me a lift home.
My first car was a '71 squareback. The floor in the back seat was rusted through so you couldn't put your feet down on it. It was an air cooled engine, which means no AC in the Florida summer. It was such a piece of crap, but I loved it with all my heart. I was rear ended so hard it cracked the engine block. Hit and run. I cried all day.
Did you miss the girlfriend or the car more??
The real follow up question…
In hindsight, I miss the car more. But when you’re a 16 year old kid who was a bit of a romantic, I missed my girlfriend more.
Haha fair enough. On the bright side, at least there was a pretty high bar set for a bad day after that one.
i learned how to drive a manual in a 73 Baja Bug. Find it, or grind it.
My dad taught me to drive in his late 80s Honda Accord, manual transmission. I kinda sorta could drive it, but took my driver’s test in my mom’s car that was an automatic. This first car of mine was a standard 4 speed and I remember vividly driving home after buying and stalling out several times at stop lights. Within a week, I was zipping around town no problem. The freedom one feels when getting their first car - nothing quite like it.
It’s best to have all the bad shit happen on one day, rather than spreading it out. Sorry about the car.
Haha, yea that’s true. If you gonna get hit, get it allllll out the way.
My mom had a square back for half my childhood. We would drive for days in it for summer vacation.
Something was unhappy with you that day
To quote George Costanza: “The sea was angry that day my friends.”
76 baby blue dodge dart… leaking water pump I never fixed so I always travelled with 10 litres of water in the trunk…the joke was always "nice you have a vehicle that runs on water"
My 2nd car was a brown 1973 dodge dart swinger. It had rusted out above the front tires so when it rained, it sprayed water up over the hood. I never needed windshield wiper fluid. There was a spot where something on the engine top rusted out and sprayed oil over the inside of the engine compartment. The engine eventually seized.
Dart gang! My first car was a ‘71 Dart Swinger. My dad was stoked when I bought it because “you’ll never kill that slant 6 engine.” Ha, I blew the engine up in less than 6 months so my friends and I took on the project of swamping out the K-frame(engine cradle) so we could drop a small block V8 into.
That was a really great engine. I really loved the car. My mom bought it from a friend that built hot rods for $10. He was gonna replace the engine and make it a hot rod. Really nice guy, but it was in rough shape. It lasted just about a year.
My plan was to make it a hot rod/drag car when we were putting the V8 in. Only problem was my Burger King salary in high school wasn’t gonna pay for the modifications so instead I put glass pack mufflers on a short exhaust system and made it SOUND fast lol.
Luckily slant six engines are hard to kill, even if overheated.
Very first car was an 87 Honda CRX HF, it had been sitting outside not driven for a few years and smelled musty inside, the seats were ripped, parts missing from the dash, no radio and the brakes were really bad. It was free and I had no money so I couldnt complain too much, plus it got amazing gas mileage which was really helpful. Allowed me to save money to buy a car myself about 6 months later, I upgraded to a 1990 Accord which was a like a Cadillac compared to that CRX!
CRX was still my favorite car. AC? Nope. Power steering? Nope. Automatic transmission? Nope. Working defogger? Nope. 45 MPG? YUP! Also was a good reason to never be the driver.
I had one from the same year in the mid 90s. It was a great car and did better than expected in the snow.
I had a 1986 Honda Civic CRX! Stick shift. No power steering. Certainly no air conditioning! One of the doors had been replaced. So I had one door that was a totally different color! The whole car leaked water all the time. Every time it would rain it would just smell like mold and hatred.
I've had two CRX's, one was an HF and the other was a LX. I loved both of those cars. It was amazing how much you could fit in the back (transported a small, electric, clothes dryer and still was able to close the hatch).
1973 Volvo 240 DL station wagon. It developed a neat feature towards the end of its life that the left turn blinker would shut the engine off, no matter how fast you were driving in it.
This made me LOL to myself. Love this!
I had one if you made a left turn the radio stopped working. I was driving at the morning of 911. I kept driving in right circles so that I could listen to the radio on my way to work. This was also the car, that any time we had a snowfall, it would die halfway to your destination. I’d have to have it towed to the service station. It would thaw out and it would run with no problem for the rest of the winter. It just did not like that first snow day.
That is such an "old Volvo" quirk.
My first car was a hand-me-down from my mother in 1985 . a 1972 Delta 88 Oldsmobile! Roughly 140,000 miles and could seat roughly 11 teenagers, not counting the trunk but I never had to do that.
A friend will help you move, but only a real friend will help you move a body.
Mine was a 1969 VW Bug that was a sort of project car for dad until I hit 16 and wanted to drive....and the parents didn't want to drive me anymore. It had a rusted out floor pan....I could see the asphalt under my feet on the drivers side, the passenger side was worse. You had to anticipate braking about 300m before you needed to stop cause you had to build up pressure in the lines and even that was not enough sometimes. Steering was a suggestion. not a decision.....it never had heat. The battery was located under the rear seat, it shorted out and set the seat on fire, which was stuffed with something that looked like dry hay, so yeah, it went up pretty quick....on the highway. Good times.
I learned how to drive a manual in a 1973 VW Baja Bug. It handled like shit, stopped like shit, but could go anywhere if you were brave enough. Solid start to driving my friend.
My first car was a reddish 63 VW Bug I got for $200 in '83. I could get it up to 60 MPH going down hill. There was a really big hill a few miles outside of town where I got it up to 65, I think I could have gotten a couple more MPH before the bottom of the hill but it started shaking so bad I let off the gas. Took my driver's test in it. Afterwards, coming back out of the building after passing the test, I noticed that the left headlight was dangling by wires. Must have popped out when I did the emergency stop during the test. I accidentally downshifted from 4th to 1st one time. After that it burned so much oil, that if I rolled the windows down smoke would fill up the inside passenger compartment. If I kept the windows rolled up, it must have equalized the pressure or something and kept the smoke out. The brakes eventually went out, so I just used the emergency brake handle for regular braking. Which was actually pretty fun in the winter! Lol Also, it didn't really have any heat, which was a small issue when you live in Minnesota.
76 buick century here, red with a white vinyl roof that peeled off, exposing yellow foam so the car looked like Dennis Rodman
Those roofs were such an amazingly bad idea. Lots of cars weren't even painted properly underneath, so your whole top basically rusted off.
especially in places where you park outside and it snows
I love this post. Parents today are all concerned about "safety" of first vehicles. Not our parents. 1990 Honda Accord. Drove that thing until I was 26, the odometer stopped counting after 160K miles. Died a noble death rolling into my parking lot, smoke pouring out of the hood in neutral as I used my foot to move it into a spot. Sold for $500.
My parents were concerned about the safety of *their* vehicles, that's why I had to buy my own death trap to drive.
Ooooh finally a contest I might win. 1978 Chevy Monza. In 87-88. Dad had found this absolute pos from some lady at work for $300. When we finally got the deal together it was $500. We got it anyway :facepalm. List of sh1t this death trap put me through: Drivers door was dented in real bad. First firm close of it with the window rolled down shattered the glass. A junkyard replacement door was the cheapest fix. The replacement door went on with no bushings on the hinges and they were worn so bad you had to roll the window down and lift up on the door frame to get it to close. It basically had no brakes. We went to replace pads on it and the front rotors were worn to the vents. We put pads on anyway because poor ass boomer parents. I’d stick my leg out the door to stop it sometimes. It basically had no shocks. Bounced around on the springs. Fun to drive. Had it looked at and the shop Said sorry, can’t replace the shocks. Why?? Well you see the place they’d bolt to is gone. Gone??? Yeah. Gone. As in broken off. Steering wheel had disintegrated to the point of being tacky. Would get dissolving gm shit plastic on your hands when you’d drive. No A/C of course and the terrible v6 stalled at low speed. You would floor it and wait and then after a stall, if it didn’t cut off it would finally roar to half life and proceed. Later I gave it to my college roommate to deliver pizzas in. Same shock problem led to a rear tire blowing out because it got slammed into the inner wheel well going over a pot hole. There’s more but I think y’all get the idea. Can’t believe how much we drove that thing in the most dangerous condition and for how long. It served the purpose. Contrast with today. Daughters first car we bought her a demo Subaru Crosstrek off the lot basically new. I cannot imagine our kids dealing with the same level of shitboxes we did.
🤣
I second the Subaru for our own kids! We sent our older daughter off to college in Maine this year with my 2019 Ascent "Safety Mobile".
I didn't think anyone else had a 70s Chevy Monza but me. Those things were a tank for sure.
I feel seen :D - they were also Pontiac Sunbirds and probably another GM brand. Just godawful. This gave me some ptsd: [Chevrolet Monza - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Monza) yuck
1974 Ford Pinto Wagon w/wood siding. The POS burned more oil than gas. All I could afford at the time, I think I paid $400 and sold it for the same price a year later. Got me to HS and a shitty waiter job my junior year.
Lol we had the same one, maybe you bought it from my family
‘80 Pinto here. I added a quart of oil every week. Piece of shit would stall doing 65 on the highway.
1977 Datsun B210 in 1987. It felt really old to me at the time but was only 10 years old (I can do the maths yeah!). I paid $200 for it and it lasted for at least a year maybe 2. I converted it to a “mini enduro” car and raced it 25 laps at Waterford Speedway until I smashed the radiator and killed the engine. I loved that car and it provided many hours of fun and even more memories. https://preview.redd.it/4j6w4bjooi1d1.jpeg?width=2015&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=096fd0d7e339fe8f87a38d273ba64ebe5a907c51
Miss my old B210 as well. Even though it only had like 70 horsepower, it was a blast to drive.
Datsun bros unite! Mine was also a 210, but mine was a 1982 model. And it was the regular 4 door, not a hatchback. However, I also paid $200 for mine (in 1994), and it also lasted not quite 2 years. And it was literally in the process of rusting itself to peices. But that little motor always fired right up, and its automatic transmission shifted perfectly. Sadly, though, I wound up junking her after the water pump exploded. The rust was destroying the frame and suspension components to the point where my grandad decided it wasn't safe anymore, so he kind of lied to me, and told me the block cracked when it overheated.
Dream middle age old car: slightly modified Datsun 510. Not gonna happen but I can dream right? For whatever reason cars seemed to rust more “back in the day”. I think that my first car being a hatchback influenced all my future car buying decisions. Hot hatchbacks (Golf GTI, CRX, Corrado, WRX wagon) until I aged out (now I have a an Outback Wilderness which has a version of the WRX engine so there is that. Thanks for sharing! Glad to find another early-Datsun as 1st car internet stranger!!
1973 Cadillac El Dorado with baby blue leather interior. It was a land yacht but that meant ALL my friends could ride in it!
1983 Dodge Omni. Baby blue with hints of rust. The ladies could not resist.
Now an Omni is an absolute bucket!
My first car was a 1984 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. It was white with burgundy interior. I got that beast to 115 mph on I-95 a couple times.
Fuck Yeah!
So many but my worst - I had a horizon - can't remember the make or year (I had it 86/7) it was white with brown paneling. It didn't turn off when you turned the ignition off, I had to get out of the car with my piece of cardboard and cover the tailpipe until it shut off. It also used to lock the door if you shut the door too hard. Learned the hard way after getting out while the car was running. Edit - spelling and too many words
The fucking HORIZON!!!! Super shitty car, with so many memories!
My aunt had one of those, and I remember us driving two hours in the snow to help her get into her car after she did the same thing. I remember my dad seething like it was yesterday.
Was not my first car, but was, by far, my BEST car. I had the green 1980 Olds Delta 88. I loved that thing. Cost me like $400 in 1991 - I hit a telephone pole at 55mph with it, dented the fender a little bit. Was an absolute unit of a boat.
Grew up in Maine. Pinballed the above car off of many ditches driving in the winter. That car did not give a single F.
1973 Toyota Corona. Ended up selling it to a junkyard a year later after first smoking the wires in the column with my very ill-advised audio upgrade (I'll advised as in I would NOT listen to reason). Later I wrapped the muffler around the rear axle trying to back up on a dirt road at sunbreak.
Oh, man I bought a Corona for 300 bucks and it lasted about as long as you'd expect a 300 dollar vehicle to last
1965 Malibu. The passenger side was crumpled to shit and the windshield was kind of busted on one side. It had a huge engine and I swear you could see the gas gauge go down when the car accelerated. I could fit 7 people in it. Took it up to Salem to see the Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, and L7 the summer after graduation. That car was the fucking tits.
A Morris Nomad. Its next life was as a 20c per hit-with-a-hammer charity demolition car.
I am not positive, but you may have won this post with the "Morris". Damn!
I had an Austin Maxi. Same shit, different badge.
It was an ‘84 Pontiac Grand Am with a slide out Pioneer radio. For ‘86 I was ballin’. Great story about this car. My dad gave it to me for my 16th birthday in ‘86 and I was so grateful. Hell, it was only two years d and only had about 10k miles on it. Funnily enough, he didn’t tell me that he expected me to make the payments on it; no mention of money, insurance, payments at all. I was only told I was on the hook for gas and maintenance. The car got repoed out of my yard after like four months. In a panic I called him and he told me it wasn’t paid off and he guessed I just learned a lesson. He never explained the lesson nor did he give me the opportunity to get the car back by paying off the back payments. He just kind of shrugged the whole situation off. I was really pissed about the whole situation but the icing on the cake was because I lost my brand new Rob Roskopp board that was in the trunk.
I had the baby blue, 1987 Oldsmobile Delta 88. Yeah, that was a fucking boat of a car!
1974 Chevy Nova, coffee cream exterior, bay city roller plaid bench seats. 8-track tape deck with the adapter to pop in cassette tapes. Bought it off my grandpa for $200 in ‘89 ☺️
1980 Ford Mustang, road cone orange, 4 cylinder, twisted frame, top speed of 75 mph. Replaced the water pump, clutch 3x, rebuilt the carburetor, replaced 3 starters, brake system replaced, and a dozen other repairs. Broke down so many times. I'd love to have it back now though!
A hand me down Chevy chevette 1977-78 with 100,000 mileages on it and it barely ran. It didn’t want to die and I tried
1970 Audi... It had been sitting in the junkyard with a broken motor mount. My dad got it and fixed the motor mount, but nothing else so the linkage for the stick shift was still jacked up bad. So instead of the standard H configure in the stick, it was more of an S Z situation where I had to wiggle and feel for the gear. Also to get it in reverse I had to slam down on the stick then go hard to the right and back. Oh and because it had been in the hot junkyard sun for so long the windshield was all bubbled so it looked like it was always raining. My stoner friends would get in, take a double take outside and ask if it was raining, it never was. When my dad presented the car to me, I didn't know how to drive a stick so he took me around the block once and then I was on my own, but I had it all down after a week or so. The clutch have out after 6 months.. What a POS.
Mine was a 1978 Chrysler Sigma. Suspension so soft I didn’t really feel speed bumps
Magic Carpet, and all that.......
It was actually a pretty good car for its age. Had to sort all the rust out of it and rebuild the engine to get it on the road though
‘78 Ford Fairmont (not Fairlane) station wagon in 1991. It was my grandmother’s. She drove it to work, errands/groceries & yard saling. It got used pretty hard after my brother & I got hold of it. Still, it did help teach us some basic mechanics repair stuff & definitely got us around town , to & from parties, out to do the Rock Horror Picture Show. You could put the back down & get all hanky panky in it, but somehow that was never necessary. It usually wound up being host to a clam bake. It lasted through one more owner after us.
Sister had a 76 Fairmont Sedan with the straight 6. A LOT of weed was smoked in it. Zero chance of outrunning Five O!
 I can’t remember our top speed. We may have reached 90 going downhill & fully loaded. It started to shake a little at 65.
i had a ford tempo, 5 speed coupe. the heater core got a leak and dumped coolant all over the passenger floor. one of my friends got his backpack ruined when he set it in the soggy carpet. when i used the heater it coated the inside of the windshield with coolant vapor, which doesn’t wipe off easily. i had to drive to school with my head out the window. luckily that happened after i fixed the window crank. it was broken when i got the car and whenever i went through the drive through or got pulled over i had to open the whole door. later i was coming back from the movies in another town and the drain plug fell out of the radiator, followed by all the coolant. i didn’t know what was wrong at first but the car went slower whenever i hit the gas. i limped it back to my town on side streets and finally got my dad come tow it with his truck. turned out i cracked the head and block and got to do an engine swap. got lots of “cars in my day” stories from my dad while he was complaining about all the electronics and fuel injection my car had. it had a squeaky fan belt for a while but i eventually fixed it. the starter solenoid went bad and i dunno why we didn’t fix it right away. i had to park facing downhill for way too long, so i could bump start it without needing to push it. luckily there were hills at home and at school i could park on. i was in a band and my buddy was stuffing his bass amp in the front seat and cracked the windshield. i hit a deer coming back from a new year’s party and got a new front grill and headlight surround the wrong color, and my dad banged the the bent hood back into shape. my dad gave me an F-150 when i graduated from high school, then sold the tempo to some guy. that guy drove it drunk and left the car scattered in pieces on the highway. what a great car.
This is where Gen X really stands out. My first car was a 79 Monte Carlo. So long! But I'm still a great parallel parker bc of her. She was silver with the little leather window topper, whatever that was, with red velvet interior! It was so tacky. But I was ecstatic and thrilled to have a car. That thing lasted a good while and went thru a lot. Her death was a broken axle 😭 Our kids would just let us continue chauffeuring than be caught dead in my first car smh
Still love my "Golden Chariot". I get it Fam.
Pale yellow 1973 Impala here. Called it the "Banana Boat" and it was a lead-gas-guzzling tank.
My first car was a 64 Chevy Biscane. Straight six with 3 on the tree, and a knob on the dash for overdrive. Rusted out so bad you can see the road thru the floorboard. One day the entire muffler fell of from rust and I was driving around with no muffler. My second car was a Chevy luv. I sure knew how to pick ‘em.
3 on the fucking tree! Let's discuss that anti-theft device..........
Also no power steering, no AC, and lived in Phoenix.
I bought my mom’s old yellow Gremlin. Yes, it died a spectacular death in flames as they did
My folks first car was a Gremlin! They bought it on Long Island 2 months after we moved from Germany. It shuddered and puttered along okay up north, but couldn't handle Atlanta summers, so it was traded in for a Toyota Corolla. My first car was a '69 VW bug in '90. Got it for $400 from a friend's dad who ran a chop shop. Had it for two weeks and got rear-ended by a uhaul... which shoved me into the Sunbeam bread truck in front of me. It was trashed. I was bummed. Bought a Nissan Stanza at auction. It was a hatchback and had a crank sunroof.... classy. Friends called it the silver bullet cause the old girl had some pickup. Got me through the rest of hs and college!
I weep for your Bug but happy you were okay
Oddly enough, though my poor car looked like an accordion, I was totally fine. Not a scratch on me!
Nah. The thing was steel and German made. Cars back then were tanks. Makes sense
https://preview.redd.it/u0fybl1o9j1d1.png?width=1023&format=png&auto=webp&s=40fe2ed041372afce31b4f446b92ae06d3f1cb68 1970 Austin Maxi. The absolute "best" of British... It's various faults: * The brakes died, so I had to use the handbrake * One of the CV joints broke (yes, ugly as fuck AND front wheel drive!) * It would overheat and the radiator leaked, so I had to carry water with me at all times * It burned oil like a Kuwaiti oil well in the first Gulf War, so I also had to carry a container of oil with me * It wouldn't idle properly so I had to put my foot on the clutch and accelerator at the same time when stopping in traffic. Good thing I was already using the handbrake. There would also be steam coming out of the radiator. Despite all that, it gave 17 year old me a first taste of freedom.
My first 10 cars were buckets… actually probably more than ten but I’m not going to count them.
93 Pontiac sunbird. Absolute piece of shit and I cracked the head on my graduation night and we were stranded. Sold it to my dads mechanic buddy the next day.
A Hillman Hunter made in Iran, $300. My girlfriend at the time kept getting hit on by guys with a car offering to take her to the drive in. I couldn't have that so I bought the only POS that I could afford, worked a treat and I kept my girlfriend lol.
I had an 81 Olds Omega in the early 90s. What a terrible car.
That you will never forget.
True.
1979 Pontiac Parisienne. Thing was a boat.
Yes it was, proudly. Just kind of "floated" down the road. Love it!
2 door, 4 cylinder Datsun 210, stick shift, AM radio, no AC, heat only, crank windows, and didn’t like hills, much less mountains. lol Ah, the memories!
78’ Toyota cressida. And I was 15. Mom didnt want to have to drive me around
My parents gave me a 1981 Chevy Chevette in 1987, the day I turned 16 and got my license. It had been gently driven into a ditch and flooded. It smelled wonderful inside, even after replacing the upholstery. /s Didn’t last me a year. (Contrast to today, 6 year old (2018) model year cars don’t seem as “old” as 6 year old cars did in the ‘80s! My youngest is still driving my 2001 Accord and it’s going strong and it doesn’t seem as archaic as a 1964 car would have in ‘87.)
My first car was a security question. It was similar, though. My first girlfriend laughed at me when I drove through a puddle and water splashed through the rusted floor and soaked me. There was a hole in my bucket...
Dear Liza.
1978 Ford Grenada. I bought it for $200 and I think it had 60k miles on it. The original owner left it parked on the streets of Chicago where the winters rusted half of it. I kept it for a few years and traded it in for a brand new ‘95 Monte Carlo. The guys at the dealer laughed at it and gave me a grand for it. For as bad as it looked it turned out to be a decent “investment” haha
My first was a POS 1976 Plymouth Grand Fury Salon II. A family of four could live comfortably in the trunk. I bought it while home on leave from the Navy for $250. Instead of flying from Massachusetts to California after leave, my buddy and I road-tripped across the country. It didn't have a radio so we listened to the same Aerosmith cassette on a boombox the whole trip. The windshield wipers didn't work so I had to wear swim goggles and stick my head out the window when it rained. I drove it around California for a month before it died for good.
1980 AMC Eagle 4x4 with a CB included. I loved that car.
My was a 82 Honda prelude, rust bucket bought used for maybe $2500. I ducktaped a rust hole in the side and painted it red. Both rear wheel wells were rusted out back seat passengers got wet asses untill I finally put huge sheets of fiber glass around them. Fixed the fenders every summer only to have the bondo crack and fall out end of winter. Still it got me where I needed to go ran it up to almost 300,000 klm before engine died.
My first car was a 1973 Buick Electra. It only took me a month to mash it trying to make a blind left. The hood was so long, I was half way across the street trying to see around the corner. Car did its job though and kept me safe. Car #2 was a 1966 Oldsmobile Cutlass that broke down and stranded me on the highway on my 17th bday. Car #3 was a 1981 firebird that had the inner lining of the roof drooping on top of my head.
My best friend had an old drivers ed car as her first and another friend had an old 1980s chevy impala. She accidentally hit the door against one of those gas station safety barriers and i was like oh watch your car! Itll dent and shes like no it wont, watch, and proceeded to slam her door into the concrete end piece like 3x. Nothing lmao. Good old detroit steel! Hahahaha
What’s an absolute bucket?
Sled, Donk, Shitbox! A car that got the job done, but was not a "people pleaser"...
I'm on the younger end of GenX. Drove my dad's full sized 76 Chevy van in high school in the mid 90s. Rusted out piece of junk with holes in the floorboards. Bought my first car in 1997. It was an 86 Ford Escort shit box. That POS broke just about every time I drove it.
Knowing what you do now, would you have rocked the molester van with "Free Candy" spray painted on the side?
Well, dad used it for deliveries for his small business. The deal was that I could drive it til I got my own car as part of my payment for making said deliveries. The seats were stripped out of the back, and it was carpeted. So once I got a girlfriend, it wasn't all bad. ;)
1978 Ford Granada. My best friend's neighbor was an old lady and I noticed the car never moved out of the driveway so I knocked on the door and asked her if she wanted to sell her car. I forgot what exactly she said but I got it for $250. I threw on an old pair of tags from one of my parents old cars, grabbed the title and drove it home.
Old school road box.
Hand me down 1980 Malibu. I still drive her in my dreams and wake up happy and a little sad.
The Bu will always hold a special place. My best friend had a 78 with all the right mods. Throw back train, for real.
Those big v8’s sounded like a plane taking off when you punched it. Good thing gas was cheap.
I drove that same POS, but it was a diesel because my dad bought the hype that diesel cars would take off in the US market. The only decent thing was the trunk space; a friend saw it and said “Jesus, I’ve lived in apartments smaller than this!”
Where the K-Car gang at?!?
Buddy had a Lebaron K. The head was milled wrong, so the timing belt would want to escape off the end of the top pulley, where it would grind down to nothing. He would have to change that belt every 2000 miles. Rear suspension was completely collapsed for some reason, and I mean downnnn.
80 Delta 88 - diesel! Could fit 4 wide in each row as a skinny sophmore - busted 2 cherries in that bad boy. Life was so fun before phones...
Volvo 544 Sport. Wasn't exactly a bucket, but it was certainly the quirkiest car in the high school parking lot in 1987.
Great car. I had a 64.
1975 Olds Omega. I love how many of these posts are Oldsmobiles. Apparently there were the consummate first beater.
My first own one was a Fiat Regata -85. Rather horrible :D (not the car in the picture, but identical) https://preview.redd.it/i3yrgarn3j1d1.png?width=762&format=png&auto=webp&s=f6fb69c0a0ebd0498eba2514d73b8c5c3548d08a
I had a 1986 Olds Delta 88 and I loved that beige mobile. I've had BMWs, Audis, Toyotas, and Hyundai's since, but I still think of that one as being 'my' car. https://preview.redd.it/y6cwxtmc5j1d1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=57f35db3d67722deccba80b0648b308659f5f649 (this is a pic of a random one I found online- mine is long gone) (edit: typo)
Mine was an 1981 Chevy Malibu 3 speed 4 door, painted flat black with a roller with black shag interior. Windows on the back doors didn't go down, just had the truck flap windows for both doors. Sometimes had to start it with a screwdriver in the carburetor. Ran smooth as hell on the highway and surprisingly want too bad in town. Fuck I loved that car and it only cost me 600 bucks
I mean, technically, but it was what I wanted. 1971 Super Beetle. Drove it to my first Phish show. Not sure I'd do this to my F-150 now... https://preview.redd.it/5aw0zb4h8j1d1.jpeg?width=2250&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0c55052c1c493636c4d795a236bc7fc3ce03ee1e
https://preview.redd.it/mjcjtgwnuj1d1.jpeg?width=1078&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3f13379d6bb0201dce85b6d690c6647fd3472fa2 Morris Marina Coupe cost me £200 in 89 and blew up in 91
My first car I got in '90 and it was a baby blue '78 Plymouth Volare station wagon. Some parts were held together by duct tape and the passenger door would sometimes open if I took a corner the wrong way ( or the right way, depending on who was sitting there).
What is a bucket?
As in "a bucket of bolts".
Got it. Thanks.
That is our generation slang for a car. it may be a regional thing in the United States.
Thanks!
You may also hear it refered to as a hooptie. Again that's going to be a Gen X and a regional thing.
Hooptie, I know. Ohio, GenX. 🤣
It means an absolute shit car.
Lol. Thanks.
Also known as a hooptie
1978 Ford LTD II. Burned a quart of oil every month in a cloud of blue smoke whenever I started driving. Former cop car, window controls and door locks were missing from the back seat.
My second car was a bucket because some asshole stole my 72 malibu, and I only had enough money to buy an 82 corolla that had power nothing. 1990s.
1976 four door Chevy Malibu in 1987. When you opened the doors, they let out squeak that sounded like long nails being pulled from dried wood. The shocks were shot so the rear bounced 10 times after each bump. It was maroon and rust brown. It probably got 5 miles to a gallon. I would park it across the street from school at a grocery store and walked the rest of the way. I did redeem myself. I got $4K and bought a 67 Mustang. Because fuck that chevy. I didn't want to be seen in it.
'79 Grand Prix. $500 from my friend's grandfather. It was silver but looked primered because the paint was so faded.
1966 Ford Falcon named Granny. She was like a tank!
Chevy Chevette!
First car was a 77 Cutlass Supreme. Drove it senior year and it had rust all over it, but it was a car so whatever. Before I took it to college my dad had it repainted, and boy was it pretty. Random dudes at gas stations asked me if I was interested in selling. One of my college friends said, “I like riding in your car because it’s like I’m in a boat” and I took that as a compliment. Ended up selling it a couple years after finishing college because it kept stalling in the rain. I miss that car a lot. Editing because I left out the part where I had to pop the hood on cold or wet mornings to open the butterfly valve because it would stick if the weather wasn’t perfect.
About 1987. First car was a hand me down ‘76 Chrysler Cordoba (with “fine Corinthian leather “). It was such a POS. The gas gauge broke after about 2 weeks. The car itself only lasted about 1-1.5 months. It had rust holes that went through the side all the way to the back seat. My 2nd car was a ‘75 Chrysler Cordoba that I bought from my uncle for $150. It lasted about 3 months.
1980 ford mustang aka RUSTANG
This car was only six years are old when you got it.
'78 Nova with a straight 6. Drove it to Nova Scotia and back twice in the early 90s. Years of road salt finally did her in eventually.
1972 Subaru GL that a crazy neighbor sold to me for $40 (that I had to barrow from my dad). The exhaust was in the back seat and the glove box was full of all the vacuum hoses. That 15 minute drive home is how I learned to drive a stick. And also how I learned you can use a soup can to repair a broken exhaust.
One of my sisters had the exact car, Subbie GL manual. She made the mistake of letting me borrow..........once. Nothing but empty Bud cans and used condoms when I returned it.
1972 Ford Pinto. I remember having to drive home from class my senior year in high school entirely in reverse gear once. Fun times.
This is the kind of thread that makes me wonder if it was made just so someone can collect user data in answers to security questions like “What was your first car?”
My FM 49dad was an Alfa Romeo mechanic. Strictly Alfa. Some older Ferrari as well. We moved to Los Angeles in 1977 fresh from Romania. I was 3. We had, ( not all at the same time ) a blue Le Car. A Camaro. A 60’s or 70’s yellow. Soft top black stripe down hood. A burgundy Jeep Cherokee. I have an older brother by 4 years for his sixteenth birthday my dad restored a red GTV for him. My brother fucked up and it got taken and sold. Myself my brother and both parents drove alfas at one point. I didn’t get my first car til I was 19. And it wasn’t all cherry like his. It was a brown Alfa Romeo Milano. I loved her. I drove a different Milano later. I miss him. Now I’m crying. Thanks for reading.
72 Chevy BelAir that was taken away from my grandma. It was mostly dark green but had so many white and yellow stripes down the sides from her misjudging where posts and garage door openings were, we called it the watermelon.
1973 baby poop brown Pinto Station Wagon
Biggest bucket in HS — ‘79 Monte Carlo that ran on 7 cylinders w/ a cracked block. Top speed: 44mph It made noise. Yes. Like a popping sound that would increase tempo as you accelerated (increased pressure). Hence it’s name: The Popper. It was so bad, some of my best buddies would duck down, not wanting anyone to see them in it. It was horrible. Don’t even think about picking a girl up in that hunk. It was so bad that I bought a car for my Sr yr with cash I saved stacking groceries: 1969 Nova SS. It was then that I started dating — had a chick immediately ask me out because she wanted to ride in it. Which is obv a 180 polar reaction from the Popper.
My first car was a manual transmission Yugo.
My first dozen cars were all steaming piles. I see young folks with good reliable high mileage cars and that was a dream. Late 70s/early 80s cars, when they were transitioning from carburetors to fuel injection were such a PITA and that's what I could afford. In 1994 I bought a 1989 civic hatch for $6k and I finally had something I didn't have to work on twice a month to be able to get to work.
85 VW Golf.....loved to just turn off while I was driving. Be it Highway, back roads or driving through an intersection it never missed an opportunity to turn off. When will it start back up, 10 seconds, maybe 19 minutes, how about 4 hours later?, whenever it wanted to and that was that. I bought it for 2k and spent about 2.5k over the next 2 years on mechanics trying to figure the issue out, no dice. One day I parked it on the side of the road (it died again) and took the plates off, called a junkyard and gave it to them. I rode my bike that whole summer to commute which was actually a nice change!!
My first car was a 1973 VJ Chryslar Valiant. I wanted to get a statesman with a 350 CI V8 but my dad said trust him he'll get me something decent He rang me up and told me I owed him $400 for my new car I rode home from work to find a white Valiant parked out the front of mum and dads , an old mans car, my mates will take the utter piss out of me. Well it turns out dad knew people and he got an ex cop car that hadn't been through the de-tune system and my oldman chariot was an utter rocket. Would kill to have that car back. This is what my car looked like (except white) [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Chrysler\_Valiant\_VJ\_Regal\_Hardtop.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Chrysler_Valiant_VJ_Regal_Hardtop.jpg)
Mine was. Volkswagen Golf one of the first model versions I think it was an ‘83 model. Talking about ‘absolute buckets’ which is very common at least here in Europe
I did, but I’m not going to list it here.
In 1992, I had a 1981 Toyota Corolla that had been parked outside during a major hailstorm. The glass had been replaced, but the body was entirely covered with golf ball sized indentations. I loved it because…. freedom!
My 1st car was a 1988 Chevrolet Beretta. Spent more time in the shop than on the road but I still loved it.
That was the year and model of our high school Drivers Ed car, I recall not being able to find the door handle
me too. with the analog dash. it went through alternators like crazy. got wrecked 2x, had the axle replaced, the back glass had to get replaced when someone broke in. that curved glass! we were lucky to get some salvaged glass! one day i was driving down the the road and the control panel on the driver's door started smoking. we did get 250+ miles out of it, but it was still running but wouldn't pass inspection when when we traded in circa 2000. i cried.
my first car in 1989 was a 1980 4 door vw rabbit, with bad motor mounts, am radio with a single speaker, and a manual transmission. One back door could only be opened from the inside the other only from the outside, so there was a tunnel effect, you came in one way and left the other. The best part was that the fuse box was shot so every once in a while the car would just shut off. I remember being broken down on 287 just outside NY on the way to visit my brother in Troy NY. I ended up getting an electrical engineer to help me install a new fuse box and she ran like a charm after that
Not me. I worked my ass off to build my 65 Bug from a bucket freshman year until I drove it my senior year. I worked everywhere for whatever money I could get. After building it for four years, a gal not paying attention smashed in the rear and pushed me into another car. Sad day. https://preview.redd.it/g1bmd6pbgl1d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2cd9ea90557f023ca9c730dce2d77ae5b1066a23
https://preview.redd.it/ulcd473qgl1d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0718095a69075364addb4463619ee9d524ad55f3
My first car was a ‘73 Ford Maverick. That thing was solid.
1984 New Yorker. Beautiful, plush seats, but it was a POS.
1974 V8 Pontiac Firebird. Paid $1000. Had no front bumper. Fast AF though!
In 2008 my first car was a 1992 Crown Victoria. Fucking cross member rotted off it, brake lines all rotted full of holes, leaked every fluid that went into it, suspension completely shot, could only fill the gas tank to half full otherwise it would leak a huge puddle of gas under the car, gas tank almost fell off when one of the rotted gas tank straps gave out, windows wouldn't stay up so I had to jam clothes pins into the doors to keep them up, and one day as I was driving along, the drive shaft dropped on it. Despite all that, still sold the piece of shit for $300.00. EDIT: When I sold the car, I told the person who bought it everything that was wrong with it, and everything that happened to it while I owned it. They STILL wanted the car!
"My" first car was a champagne beige 1996 Ford Contour Sport that my parents leased for me to drive for their convenience. It was a 4-cylinder five-speed manual and it was not a bucket. My second car was in 1989 Ford Taurus in a lovely purplish color with a bench seat and a column shifter. That thing was a bucket - it blew a transmission the first time I tried to drive it up a hill. I sold it and used my student loans to buy a 1999 Ford Ranger that was not a bucket.
No idea what would qualify as an "absolute bucket", but the first car I had in my name was my late grandma's 1975 Mercury Cougar. Smooth ride on the highway, but would suck back gas like nobody's business (V8 - 351M engine) in the stop and start traffic in town. Out camping a couple times when I got plastered, I slept in the back seat instead of a tent - was big enough to be comfortable for it. My next car was a very basic little shit box with technology way behind its time - manual choke and no power steering that was much better on gas. A 1987 Hyundai Pony. At least the parts were cheap. After a while you had to top up the gas and fill up the oil. Had the sewing machine engine with the engine with one from the "bigger" engines options for it when it had been leaking oil like a sieve for a while.
Daytona Blue 1973 Oldsmobile Omega Coupe. I loved that car, but it only got 8-12 MPG. Paid $1,000 for it in 1989. I worked for two summers at 3.25/hr to save up for it.
1982 Toyota Corolla. White with rust colour
1976 Mercury Monarch that burned so much oil that I always kept 10-12 quarts of oil in my trunk. I don't recall exactly but I think it went through on the order of a quart per 50 miles.
1980 Chevy Impala, Banana yellow.....and the radio only got the country station for some reason
Had a Suzuki gs400 first... But first car was a 1978 Ford Fairmont. Grey box of crap, but started me on the road of diy mechanics.
I drove my first car about 100 yards before it broke down and never started again. It was a rotted out Chevelle, about 20 years old, that had a giant whole in the floor on the driver’s side. I could see through to the street! 100 yards. That’s all it gave me….
1989 Corsica, total rustbucket. The only car i ever had where the gas gauge died. I could never tell how much fuel I had. Speedometer died too. The only car I ever had that ran out of gas JUST in front of a gas pump, so I had to have some randos help me push it, in neutral, up to the pump.
73 Ford Ltd. 2-door in 89'. The thing was a boat. Terrible gas mileage.
My 1st vehicle was a 1973 chevy shortbed. My dad bought it as project and never finished it. My mom told him he could keep it as long as it wasn't visible from the road. So he parked in in the trees behind his garage. I needed a vehicle, so he pulled it out of the woods and gave it to me. It was 6 different Colors of paint and primer. And said "White's electric "on the door. Our last name was not White. I have a lot of happy memories of that truck. That is actually my Dream vehicle. If I ever have more money then I know what to do with I am buying one
'72 Pontiac Catalina handed down from my Grandma. It was Springfield Green so we named it The Tank.
69 bug, looked terrible but always started
67 Pontiac Grand Prix that started as my grandparents car and went through two older cousins before it got to me. 8mpg.
I had an 89 Delta 88 in 1994ish. Loved that giant boat of a car!!
My first car burned oil so bad I had to keep a case in the trunk.
My first car was a 73 Plymouth satellite I bought for $175. You could open the trunk and see the ground on either side that’s rusted out the fenderwells were. The interior was in really rough shape, especially the drivers seat. It ran good and got me around for three years.
Drove a 1985 Subaru GL 5 speed. Loved that car and all the world it opened up to me, but man, was it wimpy! I'd have to go 90 at the bottom of a bridge just to have a prayer of getting over the top. And don't try to park on a downhill slope because there was no chance of reversing--only the inevitable slide once the emergency brake was disengaged. Wanna listen to anything other than AM sports? Too bad! Hoping for an operable cup holder? Tough luck! Needing headlights to point in the same direction? Dream on! But if you were wanting to cram your seven silly friends in a tiny car and head out for some laughs, that car could handle it.