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Spinoff of Nonacooks post - your first car

14 years ago

Nonacook is so excited to have a new car ! I don't blame her. Boy - when you look at our cars now and the cars we started out with - it's laughable !!! Just to stroll down memory lane ..... what was your first car ?

I paid $100 for an old beat up "Corvair"... I was 17 and thought it was just awesome ! However -- everytime I'd go over 30 - the fan belt would pop off. Thank goodness for my brother - he rescued me MANY Times !

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Comments (8)

tennesseetrash
14 years ago
So excited for Nonacook! She'll love her new wheels!

My parents bought a used VW bug for me to drive when I was in High School in 1968. My buddies would cruise town with me after school to Pasquales, then other end of town was the A&W Root Beer Shop. If I skipped lunch, I could buy a gallon of gas, since it was only about 29 cents a gallon back then, and school lunch was 35 cents. We could bug around a lot for so little. Sounds like it was a hundred years ago, but actually it was about 40 lol.

But the first car I actually paid for myself was a baby blue used Ford Falcon, circa 1964 model, cost me $200 exactly. I loved that little car, but thought I needed to move on up to a new car .....

So I bought a brand new Chevy Vega in 1972, and that turned out to be a big mistake. What a piece of junk the Vega was! The battery got hot if I drove it over 10 miles at one time. I'll never forget the smell of that hot battery .... sounds kinda like your Corvair TooMuch lol ....

Then it was back to VW bugs for the next few years. Had a 1973 Orange Super Beetle, that's what we drove to Californy in '75. 2500 miles, never could I do that again in a Bug! :-)

~tenderlee
goldenpond
14 years ago
Mine was an OLD station wagon with sheet metal riveted on it.Someone had painted it yellow with HOUSEPAINT! Dad paid fifty bucks.
How embarressed I felt after learning to drive in my folks BRAND new 350 Lemans!
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toomuchglass
Original Author
14 years ago
OH -- this is great ! I love hearing about this !!
sunnyca_gw
14 years ago
DH & I went to car dealership & they are probably still laughing!! We paid sticker price, yah, exactly what it said on the window & payments were taken out of DH's paycheck which we both resented so paid "cash" for any car we bought after that! Guess what it was? A lovely light blue Corvair & it was great little car except for fan belt broke once on freeway(not too far from where DH worked) so got that fixed by him & valves gave out during warranty period. Really missed that little car! My uncle thought that was so funny that we paid full price & told everybody!!!! He could have clued us in as he was 1 that told us it was a good place to buy a new car!! Jan
mzclassic
14 years ago
My first car was a 62 Dodge Lancer and it was (scuse this) icky-sh*t brown! But I had chrome wheels on it so it was cool! Then I bought a Sunbeam Alpine convertible for $25 but it only had 3 of 4 gears. So I'd have to wind the heck out of 1st and then shift to 3rd. But it was ever so cute.

Donna in Florida
nonacook
14 years ago
I never had a car before I was married. But 'our car'
was a '55 shrimp and white chevy convertible.
#2 was a gray Karman Ghia convertible. Ghia
financers would not ok it going overseas.
#3 A '55 ford that we took to Spain(paid cash),
drove over 3 years there, and brought back to US, on a cruise ship (along with the 3 of us).Drove it for several months after that, before having problems.
#4 A brand new 1965 Mustang convertible Which got totaled
in Seattle, in 1967. Auriette was only 18 months at the time and she and I were in Fl for a funeral.She, however, wishes that we still had that car---LOL
#5 A station wagon new but we got orders to Scotland and
didn't have it long.
#6 ( 1970-71) a British car with the steering wheel on the 'wrong' side, which I never drove.
Just before coming back to the US we bought a British 'made
for the US' Austin America. Bought a Motor home about that time, and towed the Austin a lot.
#7 A yellow Dodge colt that we kept for 20 years, until we could no longer find parts-sold it for $40 to the junk dealer-after I took off the steering wheel, and all the emblems, and anything else I could 'junk'! This one got towed too. Also Bill had a small for truck and when we were doing craft shows that got towed with out 'setup' in the truck and our back up stock in the Motorhome. Bill later bought a copper colored Ford truck in the mid 90's when we stopped doing shows.
Drove my Mothers car for a year or so,while she was bedbound
and had alzhiemers.
Sold Bill's white Chevy Silverado long bed truck (too much truck for me!) to his brother. I still get him and the truck when I need a truck-LOL
#8 the Ford station wagon (that I still have) for 11 years
AND NOW the new Toyota Rav-4 my first vehicle to buy, by myself with Auriette's support.
More info than you asked for.........LOL
susiewantsroses
14 years ago
My Dad gave me an old car that was so generic that I have no idea what make, model, or year it was. OK, I was 16 and it was a 'pale' blue car. I was tickled to have "wheels" finally because we had moved far out into the country. I took it and drove it home, washed it and applied wax in a circular motion all over the car. It was that day that I learned what "DEAD PAINT" means. The wax would not buff off!!!!!! I cried and I scubbed and even wire brushed it but I still had a pale blue car with ghosty white circles all over it. UHGGGGGGGG!!!!!! I was so humiliated having to drive it to my high school. My other choice was a 2 hour school bus ride. That same car got distroyed when the dash caught on fire. I was driving it down a rural mountain road and smoke started coming out of the Dash board area. All of the wiring burned that day and I have zero recollection of what ever happened to that 'blue nightmare'. I can say that I did not shead any tears over loosing it.
concretenprimroses
14 years ago
After I moved out of my parents house when I was 20 (after 2 yr of college) I saved $40 of my $84/week pay (if I worked some overtime - rent was $30 and food cost $10) each week until I saved enough for a trip to Europe with my boyfriend and a little car. it was a Saab 96 (the ones that looked like a combination of a vw bug and an army helmet) for $400. My liability insurance was $80/year about one weeks pay. I feel bad for young people today paying insurance rates. I loved that car tho it did catch fire once and had some other mishaps. The rear windows didn't roll down in that model which was a bummer for passengers.
kathy

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