Your first car? / Car history?

914, You come out of that corner a little hotter and you can get that front wheel off the ground. But since it is a FWD car without a LSD (I think) that might not be a good idea, but it would make for a cooler photo.

First car: 1980 Datsun 510 hatchback. Photo shows same color I had.
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Simon: For the record:

Koni sport shocks
Focus SVT (or ST in Europe) springs
Magnaflow cat-back
Ford Racing intake
Ford Racing short shift kit

No LSD:( I never pushed it hard enough on the track. The best I did was 2/3 down the list of people. Then again, I didn’t race as much as I wanted because crap keeps breaking;)

My first ride was a 1982 Buick LeSabre Custom Coupe (not the one pictured - mine was a pale green metallic mist color) with a 307 and 3 speed column shifter. I got it in 1995 for $1200 and drove it for seven years and 100k miles (of a total 300k) - the last year or so of which it became extremely unreliable and expensive to maintain. It was a great car prior to that - very plush, comfortable, and spacious interior, almost inaudible engine noise at any speed, and about the softest ride imaginable. Granted it only got 18mpg…

I replaced it in 2002 with an impeccably reliable 2003 Toyota Corolla, which at 125k is still about as solid as the day I got it.
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First car (which I still own) is a 1974 Karmann Ghia droptop, pictured here… You do NOT want to see the right front fender…


My current ride is Isis, the obligatory red, 1990 BMW 325IS with a 1989 motor. Sat for a couple years before I picked her up, so some of the decaying rubber has/is being replaced including the drive shaft. Man is it fun to hop into after a long day at a bottom-of-the-barrel design job.

How can anyone not read your post and not think that getting rid of that daytona was the worst move ever!! :open_mouth: you should have found a crappier pic of that car, thats the sweetest pic of a daytona i have ever seen!

do you have any pics of the impala with the tiny tires? that still comes up in conversation every now and then…

i need to work on my own version of this thread.

Okay so I am the same as Lew…For some reason I cannot find pictures of my car history. So every pic here is from the internet accept for the last one which is my current car.

It all started with a 89 Jeep Cherokee. Took a few times to get it to pass inspection for emissions, but I was a great high school ride.

The first car I contributed money (I paid half) was a 92 Honda prelude. The jeep started to die when it came time to go off the college and given the I was going to school in Savannah and lived in NJ, my parents started to get nervous that I would end up on the side of 95 on the way down. Looked exactly like the one in this picture. Even the wheels were the same. I loved this car and it was my baby. I did a few mods and started to think that I was the man. :wink: I decide one day my sophomore year that it would be a good idea to drag race a few civics in downtown and got caught by the cops. :frowning: That was a hard phone call back to mom and dad and when I got home that summer Mom made me sell it. I was crushed.

I then used that money to buy a 98 toyota tacoma off my father. The truck had been in the family for a couple years and I drove it for almost ten years. Another great car and still to this day I miss it. I got rid of it because it was dying, and on its last leg, but also Toyota recalled them because of improper rust protection on the frames. They bought the truck back from me for 150% of KBB excellent value!! Could not pas that up.

From there I needed to get back in a quick car. I have always wanted a WRX and thought this is my time. I have had two, bot 08’s. One tangled with a Jeep in an intersection and the Jeep won, the other (the blue one) is my current ride. Its fast, handles like a dream, but I have grown up a bit now and try to stay out of trouble.
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Well, I’ve only had one car so my list is going to be fairly short.

Parents got me this for me when I turned 16. Has been with me all through high school, college, and internships. While it is a horrible gas guzzler (12-14mpg) it does help when your moving across the country every 3 months. Torn about getting rid of it since it is paid off. Probably will have it until it dies.

2004 Dodge Durango

I’ve never bought my own car. I had several primary cars when I lived in Palo Alto during high school.

Used the E320 (Dad’s mid-life crisis purchase) for my driving test in Santa Clara. Very heavy car. Always felt weird driving it.

The family car. My go-to car whenever I go home to the bay (having In-n-out withdrawals now). Old car that’s been through a bajillion family trips to Tahoe.

My darling in junior and senior year. Her name is Hermione (the 7th book came out the time we bought her). Awesome, awesome, awesome car. Great mileage, light, compact. Very spacey inside.

… but I have grown up a bit now and try to stay out of trouble.

Trouble, like my old Meyers Manx or a Mercedes 300SL (I should be so inconvenienced); harder to get out of, than into …

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'77 Dodge Aspen. First Car. My dad bought it for $500 from a guy that used it for towing. V8, RWD. Engine ran like butta, AC was the best I’ve ever experienced in a car. A few minor faults: the turn signal lever got lose and eventually would spontaneously trigger the horn. One night I was coming home from work around midnight and it had a nice long 30 second honk before I could get it to stop. Also, the driver side window wouldn’t roll down all the way. Good car to promote humility.
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'88 Nova. My college car. $500 also. Rebadged corolla, but the body has much nicer proportions IMO. I especially like the shape of the rear trunk. Simple, minimal interior. I miss minimal, open interiors. I guess having 15 airbags protect me is nice, but I like to see out the windows as well. Finally died when the auto transmission did. Engine would have run forever.


Current Car. Again, simple minimal aesthetics. A friendly box with a soft wrapping shoulder. I particularly like the composition of the back. Nimble 4WD great for college road trips between Oregon, Utah, and Arizona. The current and next gen CR-V are dead to me, lost to the plague of bulbous crossovers and more of a volvo knockoff than a CR-V.

Mini Cooper (with Carburator!)

Smart Roadster Brabus

For more info on the Smart Roadster Brabus :wink:

I really miss those cars!!!

Nice Designez!

bitter chocolate nissan cube, baby :sunglasses:

1986 Volvo Wagon. This thing was a tank. It lasted over 250,000 miles.

That’s what I hear. The only one my family ever had was a disaster, mainly electrical system problems. An 84 I think. We gave it to some missionaries. After that it reportedly ran great! Guess it just wasn’t our car.

This thing was a tank.

I viewed the earlier Volvos, in general, more as hazards to navigation.

Perhaps better suited to more stationary domestic duties…

Tell me about it… I had to parallel park that bad boy during my driver’s license test.

Another fun fact: the previous owner of the car was so obese that the driver’s seat was half collapsed.

The 240 is a great car Lew! It won the European Touring Car Championship twice:

RWD and a surprisingly light chassis. The only let down is the solid rear axle, but honestly, it didn’t take that much away. The engine cases have a very high nickel content, so they are very reliable. The surprising thing is how light the car is considering how massive the suspension components are (2850 lbs and my 2002 Focus is about 3000 lbs). The turbos were way ahead of their time too.

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.