What was your first car?

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cyure

Scout Community Veteran
Oct 29, 2024
4,089
7,570
Bloomington, IL
Thought it might be fun to hear about everyone’s first cars. Some Scout, some not.

My first car was a 1974 Camaro Z28 350 4-speed with a high rise intake manifold, dual glass packs, headers and a racing air filter housing.

When I was at a gas station once a guy asked me how did you get this car this way? Bought it for $2500 from someone. He said they don’t make a 350 4-speed. They don’t. Come to find out the people who had it prior had put the manual transmission in but not changed the ratio in the rear end so I burned a clutch every 6 months. There were a bunch of mechanics that lived down the street from me who were into racing so they put in a racing clutch and 468 gear radio in the rear end. This was in California and they were the only way I could get a smog certificate. I gave them $50 and didn’t ask any questions.

Every guy wanted to race my little 17 year old self. I got 8 miles to the gallon and it’s the reason I always have a fire extinguisher in my car because once it caught on fire and I was able to put it out and saved my car.

That car started my love of cars and the reason I know as much as I do. My dad wouldn’t let me drive until I knows how to change a tire, change the oil, do a tuneup and I flushed radiators, etc, etc. I am glad I don’t have to do any of that today. 😹

So let’s hear your stories. Scout or not!
 
My first car after I passed my test was a 2003 Renault Clio. My parents helped with that one and got it in 2005 for £3,500. It was small but pretty economical (about 45 mpg) and got my everywhere I needed to. It left me stranded one time with some sort of electrical failure.

The first car I bought for myself after I started work was a 2006 Mazda MX-5 which I got in 2009 for £9,500. It was a 2.0 manual, I put a lowering kit on and it handled amazingly. Did some awesome countryside blasts in that thing. Still one of the best cars I've owned and would love to get another one day. Never had any issues with reliability on that. I got it with 20,000 miles on the clock and kept it until about 80,000 miles. Only thing I had to fix was a piece of fabric that broke so that convertible top would retract properly without me having to manually push it in a little.

Actually found a couple of photos I still have saved of them both too.
 

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I worked all summer at 15 years old for a local house builder to buy my first car.

Picked up trash and scraps on the build sites all summer long and helped with unloading materials. Pretty grueling stuff but I managed to save up $1,800 in cash.

My grandpa had 2 trucks at the time. A newer red Chevrolet 1500 and his old 1985 F150.

Had lots of childhood memories cruising back roads with grandpa as he drank beer and enjoyed a break from grandma in the old Ford. It was usually just sitting under an oak tree on their farm until they needed to drag the tractor into town to get some work done on it.

Had a 302 V8 with the notrious 4 speed AOD transmission and 4X2. Also had factory dual tanks so it could go a few weeks between fill ups.

I asked him if I could buy his old truck and he turned me down, but later called me and asked me to meet him at the bank.

My mom drove me to the bank and he had a bill of sale and title waiting for me.

"What is going on? Why are we at the bank?"

"We are going to get a loan from the bank for the truck, and I am going to cosign for you."

I was pretty confused but he wanted to help me get my credit established, and was cousins with the man that owned the local chain of banks. So I got my first car loan at 15 that day and drove out of there with my own vehicle. I was over the moon! Got my hardship license right away.

It of course sucked gas, acted grumpy on colder mornings, and had several "love taps" on the side of the bed, but it was a farm truck. And it was all mine.

Drove it to school and took my high school sweetheart on a dates to the movies. I felt like I was hot caca.

The front bench seat was uh.... I will just say I am just glad I dont have a child thats drinking age right now. Also took it to many pasture parties and got it stuck a few times doing donuts in the grandparents lawn.

Also used to load it up with friends and go to the closest skate park when they scrounged up some gas money.

After a year or so I was being a goober and was doing some burnouts in the local church parking lot and slammed it from reverse to drive with the throttle mashed.

The AOD left the chat immediately. It cost more to fix it than it was worth so I got a Mitsubishi Mirage and sold it to a local hispanic guy that tinkered with cars for $800.

Still miss that truck sometimes.

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I will add in hindsight I wish I had kept it, but I grew up bussing tables and washing dishes at my parents restaurant. There was no way I could have fixed it. Everything I learned about vehicles is in thanks to the Air Force, but that came later on.
 
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First car that was mine was given to me by my sister after her husband was killed. I was 10.

It was a faded green 1968 Mercury Cougar XR7 with a small block V8 302 motor and a C4 3-speed automatic transmission. It didn't run at all when I got it. And I was too young to be employed, so I did odd jobs to scrape together enough money to rebuild it. My much older brother rebuilt the transmission for me. It took me 8 years to get it running. And I only ever got to drive it a few times before I had to sell it because I was moving away for college and couldn't take it with me. I sold it for far too little. Only vehicle regret I have is selling that.
 
Mine was a used 2001 Jeep Cherokee (technically it wasn't mine, it was my parents' that was designated for my use). My friends always said they felt like they were heading off to war riding in it with the typical Jeep ride and roaring motor as I tried to accelerate up to speed. I paid to upgrade the radio and it had an aftermarket 6 disc changer in the back behind the bench seat. I did the typical teenage girl thing and bought cute seat covers for the front seats, I think it was sea turtles on them? I once locked my keys in the car with it running after ski practice (I ski raced in high school) because I would always start the car to get it warming up, and then get all my gear packed away and do the tailgate ski clothes de-shed. I had to wait for my dad to drive the extra set of keys from home to me, which was about 30 min away. Sitting outside in the freezing cold ski hill parking lot as my gas dwindled lower and lower 🤣

The sad end came for it when I was in college. I was driving it and my boyfriend was in my 2000 Mustang behind me (this was my first actual car that I bought myself) because we were dropping the Jeep at the bus station for my parents who were coming back from a trip. I unfortunately hit a deer and insurance totaled it. It actually wasn't in that bad of shape, but it was so old and had so many miles that it wasn't worth a payout to fix the damage. I'm just glad I hit it with the Jeep and not my Mustang, because I don't think the 'Stang would have held up to the deer as much as that champ of a Jeep did.

The Mustang was a fun story...I wanted to buy a car of my own once I had a place to park it being out of the dorms in college. I found this used 2000 Mustang with 90k+ miles on it on Craigslist for like $4k. It had a cracked bumper and a bit of a leaky fuel gasket. It was a stick, which I didn't know how to drive yet. But I wanted it and the price was right so I bought it and learned how to drive stick! I'm glad I did, because so few people can these days it's a skill I'm pretty self-righteous about, lol.
 
My first ever car was my grandmothers 2006 Chevy Aveo. My mom bought it for her but She had it for years and put lots of miles on it. Every day she would travel from Hialeah all the way to our place to pick my brother and I up from school. She was always the best at taking care of both of us and made some yummy food as a kid. As time went on and I got older she didn’t travel as much to come pick us up but when the time came that she couldn’t drive anymore, she had told my mom that I could use it to learn how to drive. It was a small tin can Korean car but it showed me so many things. The benefit of the car was that everything was analog compared to my mom’s 2015 Hyundai Genesis Sedan. No power steering, roll down windows, no safety stuff other than airbags in the front row and a tiny 1.6L 4 cylinder making 103 HP. It was the perfect car to learn how to drive. Having that analog feeling showed me the importance of driving, having no assistance other than your hands and arms to navigate around. While my mom was teaching me in a parking lot how to drive, I turned a little too much and curved the wheel (don’t worry they were hubcaps). My mom panicked and told me to stop. I laughed and told her to drive it. Man when she turned she said “oh shit this is old style”. We laughed, lots of great memories in that tiny car. When time came and I had learned a lot, my brother had a friend that needed a new car and we sold it to her. I later did the test in my brothers then 2016 Hyundai Elantra GT (this later became my second car) and passed with flying colors. Sadly, my Abuela didn’t get to see me drive and later on passed away. Still think about her and till this day remember that tin can car that helped not only me but my Abuela to come pick us up at home. I don’t have a photo of it but here’s one that was similar.
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My uncle owned a foreign vehicles junkyard; parts store and used vehicle lot. When I got my license, my father told me that we were going to go see my uncle for a surprise. The following day we went to see my uncle. When we arrived, he was busy with a customer so we walked around the yard looking at all the cool cars he had collected over the years. After quite a while uncle finally came out to talk with us about this car he had just acquired from and older couple. He said the car had been in a garage with a tarp over it almost from new and asked if I would like to take a look. I must say I was quite intrigued by the way my father and uncle were acting, like there was some inside joke I knew nothing about. I didn’t know what to think. Uncle lead us into one of his garage bays where a vehicle was under a tarp and he told me to uncover it. When I pulled off the tarp, I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. A pristine British racing green 1964 TR4A with a white convertible top and black leather interior. We spent the next hour or so going over how the top went up and down, what kind of gas to use how to change the oil and went over the tools he thought I would need that he had put in the trunk. At this point I am getting nervous because I had been saving for a car but didn’t have a lot saved at this point. So, I asked what he was asking for the car. Uncle says your father said you have been working hard and saving money for a car, how much you got! I told him I only had saved $800. He threw me the keys and said Sold. As I drove it home with borrowed dealer plates, as I was driving home I looked down at the odometer to see it had only, you guessed it 800 miles on it. Man, I miss that car.
 
My very first car was a green 1972 Chevy Nova with a white top. We lived at the end of a 3/4 mile private dirt road and my dad got it for me when I was 14 to learn on by driving it back and forth to the end of the road to meet the bus. He bought it for $400 because it was not road safe (he never told me what was wrong with it). Once I actually got my license, he wanted me to have something safer to drive on the road - I was very sad to switch to a boring '80s Chevy Cavalier that was surplused from Duke Power.
 
First real vehicle is my 1976 F150. The BMW G80 is sold. And the Mini is the family vehicle that the household chauffeurs(parents) use.

She has a 360V8 with a 3 speed C6 transmission. Every mile with her is an experience. Definitely not like the cars and trucks on the road today, that are very stagnant. She’s a west coast girl now living on the east coast. Has no rust. Very clean for her age. And next month she will be 50. She is also the work horse in the family. She goes to the dump on the weekends to drop off cardboard and cans. And she even does the home depot runs.

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First real vehicle is my 1976 F150. The BMW G80 is sold. And the Mini is the family vehicle that the household chauffeurs(parents) use.

She has a 360V8 with a 3 speed C6 transmission. Every mile with her is an experience. Definitely not like the cars and trucks on the road today, that are very stagnant.

View attachment 9286
What a beaut! Also congratulations on selling the G80.
 
First real vehicle is my 1976 F150. The BMW G80 is sold. And the Mini is the family vehicle that the household chauffeurs(parents) use.

She has a 360V8 with a 3 speed C6 transmission. Every mile with her is an experience. Definitely not like the cars and trucks on the road today, that are very stagnant. She’s a west coast girl now leaving on the east coast. Has no rust. Very clean for her age. And next month she will be 50. She is also the work horse in the family. She goes to the dump on the weekends to drop off cardboard and cans. And she even does the home depot runs.

View attachment 9286

So fun fact! She gets roughly 8-14MPG. Pretty good for a classic truck.
 
My first car was a 1975 Mustang II (yes, the ugly body style) with a 302 V8 and automatic.

I bought it from an older gentleman who did not know much about cars. It was running so rough, he thought the engine was blown and sold it to me for $100. It had 131,000 miles on it and he had never changed the spark plugs.

After a trip to the local auto parts store, it got a tune up with new plugs, cap and rotor, wires, fuel filter, air filter, etc. It ran like it just rolled off the showroom floor. The body was another story. Rear quarters were totally rotted out, but it was fun to drive and I got my license soon after getting it running good.

A few months after getting my license, I was challenged to a race after school one day on the way home and ended up crashing it into a flashing yellow light pole.

So, what's a gearhead to do? Go and buy a faster car, of course! My first of 2 1974 AMC Javelins with 401 engine replaced the Mustang, and that was my daily driver in summer through college and beyond.

I got my first Scout (a 1976 Scout II) as a winter daily driver around that time and kept it until the rust got so far ahead of me that I couldn't close the doors because there was no metal left for them to latch to. I had a lot of fun in that truck and had it for several years. I wish I had kept it.
 
First car was a 1985 Pontiac Fiero. It was a red notchback auto with the mighty Iron Duke 2.5L 4 banger. It was slow but it looked fast and handled quite well. There was an incident on a windy backroad that involved a Corvette trying to keep up with me and ending up facing the wrong way. I'll admit to possible extenuating circumstances, but that was a special day..

Being a two seater I had to get creative with passengers, surprisingly there was a lot of leg room. You can carry 4 average size teens for short distances without any real issues. The sunroof came in real handy on those occasions.

Nothing was easy to get at in the engine bay and everything was backwards, it taught me how to improvise and contort my arms every time I had to work on it. Eventually it overheated and was never quite the same. Had to, literally, put it out to pasture. It wen to my grandparents cow pasture to be parted out over the years and eventually junked. Like the young idiot I was, I replaced it with an 86 Fiero SEV6 4 speed manual. That car was quick but not quick enough to avoid bouncing between two tractor trailers, never drive angry kids.
 
It was a 1986 Toyota Celica. Little 4-cylinder with a 5-speed stick. I loved that thing! When I inherited from my brother I had to replace the front axles and the whole rack and pinion steering. The AC was too costly to repair so it was windows down all the time. And those pop-up headlights were just so very cool.
 
It was a 1986 Toyota Celica. Little 4-cylinder with a 5-speed stick. I loved that thing! When I inherited from my brother I had to replace the front axles and the whole rack and pinion steering. The AC was too costly to repair so it was windows down all the time. And those pop-up headlights were just so very cool.
Pop up headlights FTW! Did AC work on any car in the 80's?