Since I’m not going to be doing any Teaser Tuesdays for a while I thought I’d try something new around here. Every Tuesdays I will post one memory question and hope people will all chime in with their answers.
This week’s memory challenge – your first car.
I turned 16 in 1974 but I didn’t get my driver’s license at 16 like so many other kids did. For one thing, I only lived a couple of blocks from the high school so walking was easy. For another thing I was a girl who dated guys who usually had cars. But the main reason I didn’t get my license right away was because there was no car for me to drive. My mom worked for a car dealership and drove a company car which I wasn’t allowed to drive. Eventually a friend of hers allowed me to borrow his car for the test and I got my license when I turned 17. Which meant, of course, I wanted a car. I was going to be a senior and I had visions of upping my coolness factor for at least my last year of high school.
I had a job at a local burger joint but would have to borrow the money for a car from my grandmother, which, according to her, gave her a vote in the car I bought.
My way cool aunt had a car for sale and boy did I want to buy it – a blue 1965 Mustang that looked something like this:
I refused to admit that I was too short for the car and that I would be looking out through the section of the steering wheel instead of over the top of it. I sat in that car and imagined pulling into the parking lot at Mt. Diablo High School (after driving around a while “to be seen” of course) and suddenly being someone who mattered at school.
Alas my grandmother and my mother consorted to keep my coolness down in the freezer section and insisted, instead, that I buy this, a 1970 Dodge Dart Swinger.
Sigh. Granted, in later years when drag racing at the Fremont raceway was a part of our life, that car might have made me a little more popular. But as a fairly invisible senior in high school, it didn’t help a bit. And when I married my first husband, the only thing insisted was that I sell that car ASAP.
So what was your first car and how did it come into your life?
As my fourteen-year-old daughter would say, that ’65 Mustang is sweet!
I’ve never had a car of my own. I met my husband at 19 and we married when I was 20, so I’ve always shared cars with him. Some day, though, I’ll have my dream Audi and it’ll be all mine…
Yeah, I loved that Mustang but I really was too short to drive it safely. Dang.
I hope you get your dream car some day.
My first car was a white ’62 Comet. My father worked at a car dealsership and picked it up uber cheap so that he wouldn’t have to drive me to school. I loved that car, but it had a rough life with me. My first accident occurred in it, and it was badly beaten up in a hail storm. Poor thing.
Wow, a hail storm that could damage a car? That had to have been some storm!
It was pretty nasty. My windshield was broken in five places, letting the rain in, which in turn drenched the interior. There were dents the size of my open hand all over the car. I cried my eyes out! The hailstones were literally grapefruit-sized. I wish I’d taken pictures.
I was 17, had one daughter, and wasn’t pregnant with the second one yet. My car was a YUGO. Yes, I had a Yugo. I don’t remember what type, save it was a three cylinder, only had two door, and a full tank of gas (about $10 back then, if that) would last me about 8-9 weeks. Even driving back and forth to work.
I miss that car.
$10 to drive a few months! Wow!
I don’t think the kids today can even fathom that. Of course they don’t understand when I tell them about sitting in line for gas rationing either.
That Yugo got Gas mileage (and, of course, it was a standard). It was great. I’m not (quite) old enough to remember gas rationing, but 69-cents a gallon? And we’d complain during the winter when it went up to $1.29-1.39? Yeah that I remember.
I had a Dodge Colt that was a cloudy sky-blue. *G* Loved that car, but it flooded out every time it rained. Mommy and Daddy bought it for me. *G*
LOL on the flooding when it rained.
I’m going to cheat and go with the first car I drove a lot. The first car I drove was only for a few weeks, and the first car I owned was boring.
So…I took my driver’s test & drove for three years in a Ford Country Sedan wagon–pretty much the biggest and widest station wagon ever made. TONS of power in the steering & accelerator & brakes, which made for some very abrupt turns, starts, and stops!
And my mother crouching in the passenger seat, yelling, “Watch out for that mailbox!”
🙂
Yeah, like my Dodge Dart wasn’t boring? 🙂
LOL on abrupt starts and stops. I can just picture it.
You know, I can’t remember ever driving in the car with my mother. I wonder why?
Hmmmm – I worked all summer to buy my first car. I saved all of $800.
My Dad and an Uncle took me to a used car auction. I actually had my eye on a little blue sports car, much like your Mustang. But it went for something like $1300. In fact, everything was going for over 1,000. Toward the end of the auction, I finally found something I could afford . . .
A late 70’s Dodge Monaco. It was a big green bomb. But it was mine!
So we both had big green bombs! LOL
Ah, my little brick-red Ford Tempo. It was my father’s until he took pity on me and sold it to me with a zero-interest loan. $200 payments / month for two years, I think. I had just graduated college, living in Boston, but commuting north to Medford. If I missed the 1ce/morning shuttle from the orange line stop (as I often did), I had to schlep down a highway to get to work at Ziff-Davis. There was a little narrow sidewalk but nothing would stop a semi from smacking you off the high overpass either. So I suspect Dad felt the car was a safer option.
That Tempo had its share of problems, including a busted AC and every other kind of electrical problem you can imagine. I remember I had a little fan clipped to the vents (it plugged into the cigarette lighter); I’d use it on hot days. And then there was the time it stalled out on Memorial Drive… ah, memories… this is making me want to go outside and kiss my Saturn!
Isn’t it funny how much we were able to put up when we were younger?
(my friend had a black 65 Mustang.)
I had Honda SL 100 motorcycle as my vehicle and plenty of friends w/ cars for the winter.
I got to drive mom to church in her late sixties Dodge Polaris. That car eventually became my first car when I got married but I had her “buy it back” when the tire dealer threatened to “keep the car” b/c the bottom was so rusted!
Then MJ and I bought a 67 Impala her folks found for us in MI.
Here’s a story for you:
I changed to buying regular grade gas for this 12 miles to the gallon V-8 “pig” b/c premium went up to $1.75
that’s right ONE dollar and seventy-five cents a gallon back in 1977-78
LOL on the rusted bottom.
And I had a Honda SL 100 too! Not for very long though. I sorta fell over on it right in front of the police station and was too embarrassd to street ride anymore. I stuck with the Montessa for off-road after that.
And I had a Honda SL 100 too!
Too bad for your little accident — but hey! There’s something we had in common!
A 1970 Ford Maverick–white body, black roof, black seats. My parents bought it nearly new, my grandparents had it for awhile, then it came back to my parents, and then went to me when I started driving in 1987. It was a great little car, which I would’ve loved a lot more except that apparently in 1970 heaters were optional, and my parents didn’t think one would be all that important. 🙂
(I often drove home from work at night after spending a half-hour chipping ice off my windshield and wrapped the whole drive home in a blanket.)
LOL on driving home wrapped in a blanket. Brr!
Even when they (Mavericks) came w/ heaters, they weren’t very good either!
Come to think of it, it didn’t have AC either. But it was still very cute. 🙂
First car I drove was my mother’s 1968 navy Olds Cutlass. I was allowed to borrow it sometimes.
My parents bought me an almost-new 1971 sunflower yellow Camaro for my 21st birthday/graduation present. (Yes, I was a lucky girl.) It was a great car, except in the snow.
Oh I would have been in heaven with a 1968 Cutlass. My mom worked for an oldsmobile dealership and that was one of my favorites.
so you were one of those girls in the hot Cameros, eh? I dated guys with Cameros. But theirs, of course, were always painted black. :-0
Olds Cutlass….
My best friend’s mom had one. She let me drive it to get cigarettes once. It’s one of those stupid cars that drive so smooth…then you look down at the speedometer and realize you’re going 90!!!
I also turned 16 that year… and I learned to drive in my mom’s black ’67 Mustang – totally cool. I was offered a dodge dart but opted to by my own super cool sea green ’70 Chevy Nova! Do you hear me laughing? Those were the days. My daughter drives a Volvo 240 – something is definitely wrong 🙂
Oh now I would have picked the Nova over the Dart too!
Too funny on your daughter’s car.
🙂 And it had cool bench seats!