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What was your first car?

1969 Triumph Spitfire which I tortured at age 16 due to lack of skill, tools and $$. Poor thing... It took forever to start from cold except for when I started it for a prospective buyer. Yeah, it wanted to get away from me...
69Spit 1.JPG
 
1978 Ford LTD

In 1988, paid $600 at a seedy used car joint

My father opined it stood for Long Term Debt

Always thought that was funny.

Motor blew on the drive home; accelerating to
55 mph.

The trans blew two weeks later.
I got another motor and trans out of a junkyard truck (351 Cleveland )

I became a Mopar fan.

:biggrin:

Matt
 
My first was a 1967 Plymouth Valiant sedan, four door, bench seats, automatic, AM radio, slant six engine - the 170 cubic inch version with a Ball & Ball carb and a carb heater stuck in the "cold" position. In the winter, the engine would routinely die at all stops and corners. It was still better than taking the bus, and I even drove to California in it.
 
1964 Chevrolet Impala 409/400 hp. Muncie wide-ratio (with a big gold-handled Hurst shifter), Ember Red with black SS interior. I've written about it at no short length elsewhere on AK. It left an indelible mark on my psyche.
 
69 AMC Ambassador 2 door hard top, 343 4 BBL carb, 3 speed auto. It was my Mom's but it had been dead in the parking lot for a number of months as I was approaching my 16th birthday, so my good ole Mom said if you can get it running you can have it. I had it running in a matter of a day or two and still don't remember what I did that got it going. I drove it for 3 days before the transmission took a dump, so I traded it straight across to a family friend who was a trans builder by trade for a beater 63 Biscayne with a 283/power glide that I beat the hell out of before I blew a head gasket and cracked the block.
 
1964 Rambler. That was such a cool car that when it died, I bought another one. Paid $75 for the second one. Loved those AMC cars.
 
My first car as a teenager, after I sold the motor bike. '56 Ford Zephyr. This pic is off the 'net but mine was identical, same colour even.
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I wish I had my dads first car. He bought it from a bone yard. A beautiful 1964 mgb that was mint from the drivers door forward. A semi hit it from the rear. No trunk left or rear quarters. Dad had frame straightened and strapped a 5 gal can in the trunk with a hose running to it.

don’t think that would pass safety inspection these days.
 
1978 Corolla wagon. A hand-me-down from my brother. It ran well but the underside was rusting away, and not safe. A few month before it went to the junk yard, I asked my high school art class to spend a morning doing whatever they wanted to it. This is the result. I can't remember what was on the other side, but the roof was all hand prints. I got a lot of pointing and funny looks.

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1969 Mini Cooper 998cc. After buying it, I found it was much worse underneath with the rear subframe rotted almost in half. I replaced both front and rear subframes, converting it from the "wet" hydrolastic suspension to the "dry" rubber cone type. The engine had a Weber carburetor on it that was messed up, so I replaced it with the single 1.5" SU carb, which was cheaper and more reliable than the twin 1.25" carbs it should have had. I had it dyno tuned at 55hp after this, exactly what it should have been from the factory.

Lees Mini Cooper.jpg
 
technically 1969 F100 w/390 4bbl and 3 ona tree, but it was not viable to fix for inspection so it ended up being a 72 cutlass S 350-2, 3A as my first.
 
I custom ordered a new 1972 Chevy Chevelle 350 with a FM mono radio (no stereo radio was available for that model), optional split vinyl seats, & full dash instruments; otherwise, the car was stripped (no power anything, no automatic anything, no a/c.) $2750.
 
The only new 4 wheel vehicles purchased was an .89 Ford Ranger when I retired. Gave it away before smaller pick,-em-ups became highly desirable due to the recent drift to new pickup gigantism, should have kept it and got it running in hindsight but I hadn't driven it in a while.
Bought a couple of show-room new motorcycles tho, and one nearly so.
 
My first actual car was dad's rusted out 1965 Mercury Comet he gave to me when I was about 14yo to "drive only in the fields". Had a 289 and since dad made a stainless steel muffler for it he wanted to keep that so he cut it off...DARN...so straight pipe all the way back! :D I think it was mainly so he could hear where I was all the time. Of course it didn't last long when he caught me driving it on the roads...plus the rear leaf springs were pretty much in the trunk from jumping a diversion ditch. Even the front bumper grabbed dirt on that stunt.

My first bought car was this '65 Ford Galaxie 500..352 with 3 on the floor. I bought it in PA and brought it back to MD at the time. First time I cranked it up me and my friends were cruising the 495 beltway and at about 85mph a huge blob of rats nest blew out of the heater core and blasted all of us in the face. Distracting as that was...we couldn't help take notice the headliner started blowing up like a balloon down onto our heads at the same time. We slowed down..everything went back to normal...we all just looked at each other and busted out laughing our asses off. Good times!


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My step brother and I got a 62 BelAir from a friends dad- we paid a dollar to make the title transfer legal, then found near two bucks in change under the back seat. This was in 1971 while in 11th grade. The four door, 283 w/ powerglide trans started to dollar us to death after a year or so- it ate tires because the frame was bent. We sold it as is for $100 to a couple guys, they tried to return it because it wouldn't pass the state inspection ( We were military brats & claimed Florida residence- didn't need to inspect it). We bought our own cars after that one.
 
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