First car stories

[Diamond_Dog]

Tonight at dinner Mr. D was telling our sons he bought his first car at age 16 - a 1956 Chevy - it was two tone blue - he bought it in 1964 and paid $65 for it! Cash! Lol. He had 7 flat tires the first summer he drove it! He said he kept buying used tires at the junk yard for $5 apiece! My boys thought this was hilarious. Buying a car for $65!

Do you have a funny first car story?

[liberal N proud]

1. First car was a 1964 Plymouth Belveder

It had a push but to gear selection
I drove it 8 months until a drunk driver totaled it.
I was on the way to the farm to get eggs for my mother so she could bake. Had I been going the other direction, I would have had 6 dozen eggs in the car.

Dad paid $200 for the car.
The insurance company gave us $400 for the car.
We towed it home where it sat through the winter.
Mom sent the insurance company a bill for storage, which they paid another $200 and the title.
Dad was mad because now he had to dispose of the car.
Someone came buy and offer $400 for the wreck.

[Diamond_Dog]

2. I'm glad you weren't hurt in that collision, liberal N proud

Thank you for quite a story!

[gibraltar72]

3. First car was a 1953 Mercury

had a 56 Thunderbird engine in it. I was 14 at the time thought I knew way more than I actually did but I was learning. that car wasn't done until I was 17. But bought a 1948 Ford Convertible nice flatty and glass packs on it. That was my main car through high school. Not bragging but I had the two best cars in my high school.

[Diamond_Dog]

4. Sweet! Thank you gibraltar72

[Grumpy Old Guy]

5. '58 Rambler Ambassador, purchased in 1968.

Paid $150. Painted it poppy red at Earl Scheib for $29. Seats folded down into a perfect bed, which almost got me arrested. LOL! The damn thing burned six quarts of oil a week, so I bought "rerefined" used oil for ten cents a quart.

I loaned it to my cousin, who forgot to put oil in and froze the engine. Then I bought a '62 Olds 98.

[Diamond_Dog]

7. Earl Scheib!

Are they still around? Mr.Diamond had a used Mercedes that burned oil like a champ. He would pull into a gas station and tell the attendant “Check the gas and fill the oil.”

[Grumpy Old Guy]

8. LOL! I used to tell the gas station attendants the same thing!

Some of them knew me and would automatically do it. I carried a can with two gallons of oil in the trunk.

The car also had a straight six with a push button shifter.

Since I lived in Wisconsin we had to repair all the rust before we had it painted.

Remember when gas stations actually had attemdants?

[Diamond_Dog]

10. Oh yeah!

My dad showed me how to pump my own gas once I got my drivers license, and since he only showed me at the one station, I went to the same one every time for gas!

Mr.D had a used Mercedes that burned oil like a champ. This was before I knew him. Said he and a buddy drove it up Pikes Peak in the 60s and it left a cloud of blue smoke behind…. the next closest car stayed about 1/2 mile back of him. Lol

I know about rust, living in Ohio. How did you like the push button shifter?

[Grumpy Old Guy]

31. The push button shifter was hilarious,,

Especially combined with the straight six. The car did 0-60mph in about twenty seconds! 🤣🤣🤣

[Diamond_Dog]

33. Speedy!

[ProfessorGAC]

6. Kind Of

I was going to college after my junior year of high school. A commuter, but 20 something miles each way, so I needed my own car.
I saved every penny from my job as a janitor (ages 15 & 16) and had a line on a 2 or 3 year old Super Beetle.
My dad still had the memories of the 2 Chicago Bears that died in a car crash driving a VW bug, so he was convinced they were unsafe.
He asked me for my money ("Do you trust me or not?&quot , added what the 4th year HS tuition would be and a few hundred bucks.
Bought me a brand new car. A PINTO.
The VW wasn't safe, so he bought me a car that exploded in rear end collisions! OH, and it had Firestone 500 tires. The tires that had the belts cut through the sidewalls on curves at speed!
I kidded him about that for years. Took my money & tried to get me killed. LOL!

[Diamond_Dog]

9. That's hilarious, Professor GAC!

I remember hearing stories about those Pintos and the Firestone tires! My sister had the Mercury version, a Bobcat! And it was STOLEN!

Mr. D had a Super Beetle in the 70s and was in the driveway about to drive to school one morning when the seat fell down through the floorboards! He found himself sitting on the ground!

[Silent Type]

11. Used 57 Ford Fairlane 4 door with an 8-ball gearshift knob, baby moons, etc.

That thing was a huge tank. I used it like a Jeep, crossing creeks, driving on narrow trails, etc.

The one thing I miss nowadays are vent windows. I’ve driven small cars for last 40 years.

[Diamond_Dog]

12. I miss those vent windows, too, Silent Type

[Grumpy Old Guy]

32. My brother had a black '57 Ford with 3-on-the-tree.

It was the same car Lee Marvin drove in "M Squad."

[Silent Type]

38. Yes. Mine was much like that, and remember M Squad well.

[House of Roberts]

13. My first car, technically,

was a 1964 Chevy Impala convertible. My dad bought it from a neighbor for $75 in 1972. It had an in-line six engine and three speed column shift. It was also stuck in second gear when he bought it. One of his employees took the trans out, fixed it, and put it back in for $50 parts and labor. I drove it around on the farm learning to drive with a clutch, but took my driver test in the family 1965 Buick LeSabre, which had an automatic. My dad's insurance wouldn't write a policy on any convertibles or sports cars, so we couldn't insure it. I drove it a couple of times on the road, but my folks got a 1969 Pontiac Catalina and gave me the Buick. Then we sold the Impala for $175 and I almost went broke feeding the 355 cu.in. V8 in the Buick. It had a four barrel carb that literally poured gas into that engine.

[Diamond_Dog]

16. Was the LeSabre a big car?

How’d you do on the parallel parking on the license test?

Gas was so cheap back then nobody really worried about their car being fuel efficient.

[House of Roberts]

22. The LeSabre was one step down from the Electra 225,

which was also known as a 'four hole Buick'. The LeSabre was a 'three hole Buick'.

I think I did fine on the parallel parking. It's only been fifty years.

1973 was the first Arab oil embargo. After that started, gas was disproportionately expensive. The 1973 summer, I had to take either the Buick, or the Catalina, to get the ten gallons of gas you were limited to purchase. Even numbered tags went on even numbered days, and odd numbered tags went on the odd numbered days. I'd have to keep alternating until both were full, then I could wait until they needed more gas, and I'd do it all over again.

[Diamond_Dog]

27. I understand 'four hole' and 'three hole'

My aunt had an Electra in the ‘70s. My cousins called it ‘The Tank’.

[Grumpy Old Guy]

34. I moved to California with my '67 Catalina station wagon.

.i loved that car. I drove that car for years, gave it to my dad, he gave it to my brother. It just kept going year after year, surviving the Wisconsin winters.

[markie]

14. 1st car

Pinto... soon after buying, drove it to Houston (from Michigan)... it was totaled in a 5 car pile-up near the Astrodome...

can't remember my second car

[Diamond_Dog]

17. The famous exploding Pinto!

Too bad yours was totaled! ☹️

My sister had a Mercury Bobcat - same thing - unfortunately it was stolen!

[House of Roberts]

24. The best thing you could do with a Pinto,

at least the 1.6 liter ones, was pull the engine, scrap the car, massage it to the limit of SCCA rules, and put in a Formula Ford chassis, and go racing.

[debm55]

29. I had one--it was a piece of shit.

[Diamond_Dog]

35. My sister's was stolen.

[debm55]

36. Sorry for your sister. Does insurance cover getting a new/replacement car?

[Diamond_Dog]

37. I don't know, deb

I had to lend her my car at the time because she had a job and I was only in college. Beyond that, I don’t remember.

[grumpyduck]

15. Oh, man, memories.

First car, right after high school, was a '71 Super Beetle in anticipation of going away to college. I drove that car all over Southern CA, into Death Valley and Nevada ghost towns for years, then across the country from CA to MA for grad school (packed to the rafters), and then had it for for the first two years at my first job. Hated to part with it.

I had so much fun in that car.

One time I was in LA when they were tearing down the old Fox studios, and I saw a sign with their logo on it high on the wall. I figured it was about eight feet in diameter and would fit behind my couch. So I talked a couple of the demo crew into bringing it down for me for twenty bucks. When it got down I realized it was more like twelve feet in diameter, but by then I was stuck with it. So I took it apart. It had a ginormous wood frame, and the three metal panels were nailed to it every two inches. Took all afternoon. Then I literally draped it over the Bug and tied it down. The panels barely cleared the pavement in back and came about halfway down the windshiel in front, but I managed to get it to my cousin's house until I could get it to my place. The sign is long gone, but what a memory.

Man, I miss that car.

[Diamond_Dog]

18. Your Beetle with the sign panels strapped to it

must have been a sight! The things we did when we were young….

[grumpyduck]

19. Oh yeah...

[hippywife]

20. I didn't start driving until late.

I was 18 and when I graduated HS, the neighbors wanted to give me one of their cars, but my dad insisted on paying them. They would only accept $50.

[Diamond_Dog]

21. Can you believe

$50 would buy a car that actually ran!

[hippywife]

23. It was a great car, too.

I didn't appreciate it as much back then, but sure wish I had it back. 1968 Austin America semi-automatic - turquoise with a Blaupunkt radio. I miss it a lot.

[sinkingfeeling]

25. I had a 1957 turquoise and white Metropolitan. It was so tiny that the football team

would hide it from me. They would literally pick it up and put it under the school's fire escape.

[Diamond_Dog]

26. Wow I will have to check that out!

Thank you sinkingfeeling!

[debm55]

28. I have an aqua 1965 Chevy Impala as my first car. It was a tank.

[Diamond_Dog]

30. Aqua was a popular car color back then.

I had a white 1966 Dart. Talk about an old lady car! It was my grandma’s. But it was wheels…. and it ran …

[SeattleVet]

39. '57 Studebaker Silver Hawk, bought in 1973 for $100...

and worth every penny!

Bought it when I was in the Air Force attending tech school at Lowry AFB in Denver. Burned a lot of oil, shifter had been moved from the column to the floor, and 3rd gear was cracked - you couldn't get it into 3rd if the gearbox got hot - and it did. Every so often I'd have to unbolt the top of the gearbox and pour in some heavy gear oil, which helped until ti got hot enough for the oil smoke to start filling the passenger compartment.

Got pulled over one day west of Denver - for air pollution. The cop asked, "Do you know your car is smoking?", and obviously didn't find it nearly as funny as I did when I replied, "Of course it can...it's old enough." Gave me a warning and a date to have it fixed.

Was out one night a week or so later and the engine started making (even worse than usual) noises. Pulled into a gas station and called a friend, who came out with a few guys. I started it up to let them hear what was happening. Immediate shouts of, "TURN IT OFF!". Yeah, right...I pressed harder on the accelerator, and while I was telling them that the noise got a lot worse when it ran faster it suddenly made a loud "BANG" and started running the best it had since I had owned it. Super smooth, no more 'washing machine full of tools' noises. The only drawback seemed to be the rapidly spreading pool of oil that was pouring out where the rapidly-exiting piece of the engine (possibly a pushrod) had exited through the oil pan.

At about this time the gas station owner came out, yelling something along the lines of "Get that thing out of here - this is my grand opening!" We pushed it over to the edge of the property and stripped out some of the parts that my friends wanted...a Holley 4-barrel carb and a few other bits.

A week later when I was on the bus headed to the airport when I shipped out to my duty station from tech school I saw that car for the last time...it had been pushed across the property line to an empty lot next to the gas station. I had contacted a junk hauler to come and get it, but I guess they never did.

About 2 months later I got a letter from some office in Denver, asking what I had done about that oil-burning, smoking, polluting Studebaker. I wrote back and told them the exact location where it had been pushed. Never heard back.

[Emile]

40. My first car was $20.00 for a 1946 Chevrolet.