I have yet to buy my first car, but here’s what I’ve driven so far.
1994 Toyota Tercel - Mostly my High School car, but I drove it occasionally for the first year and a half of college - You know how you always hear about how these cars last forever and such… well I ruined the engine on it at about 125,000 miles. Then my mom decided to put a replacement engine in it, while I hated the car (and it got sold this summer), and it wasn’t driven more than 10,000 miles after.
Second and current car is a pearl white 2002 Dodge Stratus R/T coupe. I really love the car and am an avid forum-member. It’s mechanically the same as the 2001-2005 Mitsubishi Eclipse and Galant. I’ve done a few things to it such as lower it, interior lighting (gauges and dials, no F&F stuff), and some other minor aesthetics.
One of my favorite photos of my Stratus during a meet, was near the Tail of the Dragon (US 129) on the Tennessee, North Carolina border.
I’m about to drag this thread down with my car history. Having only recently learnt to drive I have had a Peugeot 206:
and a '97 Ford Fiesta (with far more dents than the one pictured):
However, I thought my Dad’s car history might interest you. All pictures from Google unfortunately.
1968 Triumph GT6 Mk1. This still remains in his garage and is being fixed up as we speak:
Then at the ripe old age of 24 he started a family and the GT6 wasn’t suitable anymore, so on to a Triumph Herald (with a heavily modified engine):
Then an incredibly long list of boring sensible family cars, then a 1929 BSA “Beeza” which became a project when my siblings and I grew up and moved out:
and cars currently owned by him (not including the aforementioned GT6)
2004 Honda Civic Type R
Peugeot 106 Rallye (which I have my eye on for when my current car dies):
Well, the first car that I learnt to drive on was a 1996 Mazda Protege. I wanted to make sure I learnt how to drive standard and this did the trick…
From that point I decided to “upgrade” and get this old school 1989 Mercedes 190E. I was under the false impression that German cars were built like tanks and were made to last forever… I poured my heart and soul into that car and it did little to return the favour and punished me with repair after repair. Aside from the times it was in for some astronomically expensive repairs it was good fun. Got to basically take apart the entire dash and interior to work my sound system into it and learnt the ins and outs of how that thing was put together. Also tried to give it a more Euro look by ordering the clear corners and installing those and some other details here and there. While it was a really fun car to tinker with and work on because everything was just so exposed it definitely didn’t live up to my now obviously false expectations.
A pretty hilarious shot with my buddy’s hideous 89 Corolla wagon… To this day probably the ugliest car I’ve seen on the road with any sort of regularity.
These days I traded in the automotive lifestyle for an urban life with a bike. Some of the new electrics coming down the pipeline are definitely appealing though…
Thanks for sharing your stories guys. Good for some laughs
