One shitty thing the Florida DMV does is link license plate renewals to vehicle owners’ birthdays. The mister and I are both late February babies, and adding boat, trailer, cars, truck, motorcycles, etc., it’s a big bill. Happy fucking birthday!
Hubby and I were talking about the shitty vehicles we’re responsible for now, including the kiddo’s heap. That got us talking about all the old bombers we’ve owned over our lifetimes.
Here’s a partial list — we’re sure we’re forgetting some!
AMC Gremlin
Buick Estate wagon
Caddy (El Dorado)
Ford Maverick
Chevy 10 pickup truck (column shift!)
Chevy Vega
Mercury Gran Marquis
Dodge Colt
Ford Escort
Toyota Corolla
VW Rabbit
Honda Accord
Volvo 240
Toyota Camry
Honda CRV
Ford wagon
Mercury wagon
Ford Explorer
VW Beetle
Ford F-150 pickup
Ford F-250 pickup
Caddy de Ville
Jesus, no wonder the planet is choking to death. We’re sorry!
There are some shitty cars called out here. The thing I remember most about the Vega was buying oil in 5-gallon jugs. Don’t get me started on the fucking Gremlin, which was a cheesy, much-mocked 70s relic when I drove it in the 80s.
Care to name and shame your old hoopties (as my friend from Wisconsin calls them)? Or talk about whatever — open thread!
? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?
What I want to know is this: what kind of name is “Gremlin” for a car anyway?
tom
Pinto wagon
NotMax
Time was (in southern Florida at any rate) that used Cadillacs were a dime a dozen.
David Anderson
1981 Toyota Tercel that I bought for $50 in 1997. Honestly once you got passed the non-functional reverse gear and a non-working passenger side door, it was a great car. I was a bad driver but this car could not do more than 65 downhill with a helpful wind so I was limited to how my bad judgement could be expressed.
Walker
I just bought my third car in 26 years. I buy cars with cash and drive them into the ground. Which, given rust damage in the northeast, is about 12-13 years.
The Jeep Liberty I just junked really lasted a year longer than it should have. This summer, the wishbone snapped while I was turning into my driveway. And the rust damage meant that I failed inspection in January spectacularly (2k just to get to code, and a lot more to keep it running long term). But I was holding out for the new Wranglers. Fortunately, they finally started to hit the dealers’ lots a week after my failed inspection.
lgerard
Sir Mix-A-Lot had the last word on this subject
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?: A good one!
Betty Cracker
@NotMax: They still are. My current conveyance is a cream puff de Ville. I work at home so don’t put many miles on it, but my Olds love it. They bitched non-stop about the Beetle.
Walker
@David Anderson:
How were you able to find an 80s Tercel in 1997 that you couldn’t sweep into a dustpan? Even in good climates, the rust damage on those is legendary.
John Cole
How could two people go through that many vehicles? I’m on my fourth car and I’m roughly the same age and I have never bought new.
chris
My Gremlin was green and awful but not as bad as my friend’s Pacer. Got the Gremlin in trade for replacing a deck railing so I had that going for me. My buddy actually paid cash money for the Pacer.
David Fud
AMC Spirit was my first and unforgettable clunker. One added feature was how it died if you didn’t put it in neutral and rev the gas around any turns. This was a four limb operation, with one on the brake, one on the gas, one on the wheel and one on the gear shift. What a hunk o’junk.
bystander
’66 Oldsmobile Cutlass, aka The Bomb.
oldgold
@Walker:
You are well named!
Major Major Major Major
OT: Just another sunbathing Samwise pic, but it really shows off the coloration in his fur.
raven
54 Jimmy Panel Truck
62 GMC 305D with a V6.
66 Chevy Longbed Fleetside. Bought in 1985, not dead.
SFAW
AC Cobra (real, not a kit)
Berlinetta Boxer
1949 Nash Ambassador
Charger Hellcat
Ford GT40
Trabant (any year)
I’d have to win Powerball to be able to get ANY of those, never mind just one.
Wait — this a wish list, right?
[Goes backs and checks OP.]
Never mind.
Omnes Omnibus
VW GTI, VW Golf, Nissan Altima, Ford Contour (utter shit of a car), Ford Focus, Saab 9-3, Saab 9-3.
Gin & Tonic
We had an ancient Toyota Corolla, multiple shades of blue-green, that my wife drove to work. One day leaving work she couldn’t find her keys. Heart in throat, she went out to where she’d parked the car, on the street. There it was, just as she’d left it, unlocked, and with the keys in the ignition. This was early 1980’s Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Car was parked there for 8+ hours and nobody touched it. That was one ugly vehicle.
Curt in the South Bay
My parents bought me a 1972 Ford Pinto for my sixteenth birthday. The always claimed they loved me, but after that I was never sure.
Betty Cracker
@John Cole: I don’t have a good explanation. About 80% of the cars listed were mine — the mister didn’t get a license until he was 20-something. Because Florida?
Skepticat
This past summer, my insignificant other and I went to a auto and air show at a transportation museum, and it was quite a walk down memory lane. We’d both had the same model (very used) Porsche when we were young, and we also had MGs, Volvos, and Audis. (I still have and love my 2001 Audi wagon. And he still has the beat-up Range Rover he had when I met him in 1977.) It did strike us as we were saying, “Oh, I used to have one of those” that all the cars we were looking at were classified as antiques. Well, so are we.
Gin & Tonic
@Walker: Here in RI, an expired inspection sticker is a $35 non-moving violation. Leads to some cost-benefit analyses.
raven
Here’s what I drove in the Green Machine, M35A1 multi fuel. Our local vets outfit bought this one.
Manyakitty
@David Fud: My boyfriend had a 1981 Freedom Spirit. White with a stripe down the middle. Good times.
Major Major Major Major
@SFAW:
Looking that one up led me to the 1935 Stout Scarab, and wow, cars used to be so much more interesting.
Manyakitty
@Major Major Major Major: Such a handsome guy!
SgrAstar
@David Fud: I bought my first car at Berkeley Toyota, in 1984. Paid cash- $5000, for a brand new Toyota pickup. That car is still on the road, although not in my possession. I’m also of the “buy new and drive em into the ground” school. I’ve had four cars, all Toyotas, and they’re all still running except for the one a friend totalled. Awesome vehicles.
NotMax
Just did a fast count. Including the current vehicle (which don’t own but have carte blanche to use), for a grand total of 7. Two totaled – one by someone plowing head-on into me while I was stopped, waiting to make a left-hand turn into a station that still had fuel during the gas crisis and one when I lent it to a friend while I was off on vacation.
Only clunker among them was a 1970 Audi 100. Sheer pleasure to drive – that is, when it deigned to run. Use to refer to the model as the Audi Limona.
Automatic transmission, designed so the engine would not start when in Park, only in Neutral. Weirdly shaped proprietary battery (had to buy from a dealer), which was nestled underneath the rear seat. On the passenger side, so getting a jump start was an extra exercise in annoyance.
Walker
@Gin & Tonic:
In NYS, it isn’t too bad. It is just that my bearings were shot from the rust damage, so I was rolling the dice every time I drove it.
I ended up driving 3 hours (in my wife’s car) to buy the new Wrangler as that was the nearest dealer that had the one I wanted right then. Of course, this meant they had leverage in the negotiation. I paid a little more than if I had bought locally (my local dealer never charges over dealer invoice), but not so much I felt ripped off.
raven
I owned this early 70’s VW Bus for about a year. My buddy had the front and rear bumpers made to push cows off the road in Mexico!
Bort
53 years old and just bought the 3rd one I’ve ever owned. An 81 Subaru, an 98 wagon, and now a 2015 Impreza. Neither of the previous ones actually died either.
Suzanne
I have had but four cars in my life.
1) Mom got me a 1990 Toyota Corolla when I was 16. It was fine. It got totaled when I was 22 and a numbnut in a F-Douche50 rear-ended me and smashed in the whole back half.
2) Mom then gave me her old 1995 Honda Civic. It didn’t have power anything, including power steering, so it was a bit rough to drive. That was when I was married to ex-Mr. Suzanne. He got that car when we split up in 2004.
3) Bought a 2000 Honda CR-V EX in 2004, shortly before dumping ex-Mr. Suzanne. I adored this car and had it until it crossed the Rainbow Bridge in 2015 with almost 210K miles on it.
4) Traded in #3 above for a 2015 CR-V EX. Loved the last car so much that I bought the current model, even the same trim package, but a different color. Probably would have bought used, but I used the Costco car buying program and it worked out really well, such that I essentially paid the same price as a late-model used car. I plan to keep this one just as long. I’ll probably buy the same car next time, too. This one has the backup camera and the lane-changing camera and the hands-free phone stuff, and I am happy as a pig in shit.
Gvg
Don’t seem to be as many terrible cars out there anymore. I haven’t really owned any I considered to be terrible.
My first car was a Toyota Corolla and old, not attractive, and no air conditioning in Florida, but I was poor and expected what it was. Still lasted quite awhile with my dads expert help. He had a car cable snap, that controlled engine revs or something. Forget what it was called but he got the car home using multiple shoestrings out the window and under the hood, pulling to rev the engine. My teen self was impressed. Also Orlando traffic.
I hated mom’s Audi I drove for awhile. Fix it again money pit and some of the expensive parts were actually made out of cardboard which made the cost infuriating.
She also had a Mercury Cougar with a back window with huge blind spots. I have never bought a car again without checking views. Also back seat was so high it kind of gave us kids claustrophobia. Lasted a long time though. Always check the views in all seats before buying.
Mary G
When I worked at the CA state park in the 1970s, we had a WWII surplus Jeep. It was awful.
Alain the site fixer
1984 Pontiac Fiero (first year, a lemon I was hand-me-downed), 1979 Olds Cruiser (station wagon), 1986 Nissan hardbody pickup (actually made by Datsun, the following year was first model of Nissan Pathfinder). The last one is still going strong in Colorado, with 275,000 miles or so on it, having made the round trip to Alaska last summer!
Forgot Lincoln Cougar, Mitsubishi Galant.
On the future front, we’re now considering the Prius Prime for my wife. All the local and daily joy of an EV with the distance potential of a hybrid. Pretty cool stuff.
K488
A friend of mine had a Pacer; ugliest car I ever saw. As I recall, they were designed wide to accommodate some kind of turbine engine that never got implemented. My wife was driving a Mercury Lynx when I met her. As she liked to point out, it was the least stolen vehicle model at the time (late ’80’s), and I could see why! I had an old Saab 96 that I loved, but it didn’t have a single panel on it in the original shape (it had been rolled when I bought it). I used to fix it with string, paperclips, springs bought at the hardware store. The clutch got so bad that going up any kind of hill was a gamble. Ah, graduate school!
schrodingers_cat
Subaru wagon
Nissan-sentra
Toyota-Camry
Toyota-Prius
smedley the uncertain
@lgerard: Linky no workee for me. Is it me or the ‘Net?
SFAW
@Major Major Major Major:
Have to confess, don’t recall ever hearing of a Scarab. Thanks!
The ’49 Ambassador was (in)famous for (if I have my facts right) turning into a nine-foot bed when the seats were folded down. Which had its advantages on dates, sometimes. Or so I’m told.
Bill
The Vega was legendary- the engine especially, with it’s lifespan measured in minutes. The best part of owning a Vega was that you never had to remember where you had parked it, you just keep walking toward the sound of parts falling on the ground.
1000 flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@John Cole: SMDH. I’ll be sixty this summer, and I’m on car #3, which I bought in 1998 (a small GMC pickup). The first was a 1974 Pontiac Catalina, which I bought in 1984, and the second was a 1980s Buick Skylark, which I bought in 1990.
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
Signed the Audi mentioned above over to someone who drove it from PA to his home in NY. Sure enough, it conked out about ½ mile off the George Washington Bridge, on the Cross Bronx Expressway. This was mid-70s, not exactly the South Bronx’ finest hour.
More than 24 hours later, was still parked on the shoulder, totally untouched.
Mary G
Axios: (this is most of the article, which I usually don’t do, but it is encouraging:
Dmbeaster
LOL. You can never live down owning and driving the Gremlin.
hilts
h/t https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/florida-public-school-teacher-white-nationalist-podcast_us_5a99ae32e4b089ec353a1fba
Matt McIrvin
I avoided driving much for as long as I possibly could, but the first car I actually owned was a used 1997 Nissan Altima that I bought around 1999 and drove until the head gasket blew. At that point Sam bought a Subaru Outback and I inherited her ’99 Nissan Sentra, a car with a terrifying propensity for brake lock unless you were really careful with the pedal.
I got rid of it while it was still running OK mostly because I wanted a car with anti-lock brakes. That was my first and only new car, a 2010 Honda Fit, an excellent little car which I am still driving and will not give up until it disintegrates.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
When I was in college in the early 80s, my parents bought us kids a 1963 Chevy Nova for school commuting. It had no park or neutral gears – you had to start it in reverse, with a foot hard on the brake, and heaven help the poor schmo parked behind you. It was in the family for another few years, but I don’t know how long.
The only motor vehicles I’ve owned since then:
1989 Nissan Sentra – bought new in ’89, drove it until I had a kid in 2004 and needed a 4-door car. Somebody in Modesto still drives it. Unkillable.
2005 Prius, bought new in ’04, still drive it.
2002 Toyota Tacoma pickup, bought from the repo man in ’05, still drive it.
Major Major Major Major
@Mary G: Oh, boy, tick tock, motherfuckers.
Bill
I had Dodges, mostly, with 318s that were all but bulletproof. I had one 318 that had egg-shaped rod journals (13 thousandths out of round) and had spun 5 of the 8 rod bearings. It ran fine, just a little noisy. It had no oil pressure- zero psi, except very cold mornings, when it could manage 10 psi until the oil got warm. I drove that engine for over a year, and it was running when I pulled it out. I had a Plymouth Scamp (Dart) with a slant-six; again, bombproof. Fabulous engines in ugly cars that could drive reasonably well in a straight line but were utterly baffled by corners.
eemom
My first car was my parents’ old 1974 Chevy Monte Carlo. I could barely see over the dashboard.
Then, a few years into my first law firm job, I got a brand new 1993 turquoise Ford Probe. Looked cool but was a piece of shit mechanically.
VW Jetta, then Suzuki XL7 for many of the years the kids were growing up. True to tradition, my daughter inherited that one and drove it all through college, and now that she’s graduated and has a job she leased a Mazda 3.
For the last 10 years or so my personal car has been a red PT Cruiser, followed by a silver-blue PT Cruiser when the red one died. I love PT Cruisers — such a pity that they stopped making them.
Rand Careaga
In my youth I did not drive: indeed, I was proud to possess neither a car nor even a license to drive one, although I finally, reluctantly acquired one of these when I was twenty-one. Circumstances of employment compelled me to purchase an automobile when I was twenty-nine, in 1981. To my astonishment, all of the advertising I had absorbed since the fifties suddenly erupted, and all at once I knew that the only thing that stood between me and ultimate happiness was the acquisition of a new car—a Volkswagen Rabbit “Diesel LS.”
This was not, actually, a good idea. VW had recently begun producing these cars in Pennsylvania, and the German manager/American laborer synergy had not been a happy one: the car had clearly been bolted together by employees indifferent to and/or contemptuous of the final product. Over the years that I owned it, almost everything that could go wrong with the car, did—except the German-assembled engine, which labored faithfully for a quarter of a century.
Owing to an early paperwork fumble, it was a chore finally getting rid of the thing: somehow the original dealer, who went out of business decades ago, was carried on the pink slip as the lienholder—he never was—and the California DMV made me jump through multiple and costly hoops to establish that I was entitled to junk the car. At the end, over a decade ago, I understood again that the car once again was the only obstacle between me an ultimate happiness—this time, getting rid of it.
The Midnight Lurker
1955 Chevy sedan
1966 Chevy Belvedere sedan. Slant six. 225. Looked like you lost a motor mount.
1967 Norton bike. LOVE.
1968 VW Dune Buggy.
1972 Dodge station wagon. Threw a rod.
1976 Ford LTD. Can we still use the term “Pimpmobile?”
1978 Ford Fiesta. Total POS. This was my main car during the LA P.I. days. Wore the driver’s seat out with my fat ass so I replaced it with the passenger seat and put a file cabinet in it’s place. A regular Magnum PI.
1980 AMF Hardly-Ableson Electra Glide. An old CHP bike I bought at auction. The bitch leaked oil all over half of Southern California but I LOVED that bike.
1988 Mitsubitshi Montero. Great jeep.
1994 Toyota Corolla. Still in the drive. 160K.
1996 Dodge Viper. Bought it for a song off a buddy who had gone though a middle age crazy-type thing. Freakin’ thing tried to kill me every time I turned the key. Sold it and was happy to see it go.
1998 Toyota Avalon. Best car I ever owned until some dipstick rear-ended me.
raven
@Bill: TorqueFlite ?
raven
My first ride was a Honda 150 Dream just like this one. Summer of 66 and my old man said “you’ll only kill yourself and one other person on this”.
Jay
1971 Fiat 128
1967 Mercury Montego
1971 Datsun 510
Then, a bunch of Pinto’s, that I could buy or barter for for less than $50, some of which I rodded, some I raced.
1974 Chevy Vega, bought for $1
1981 Volkswagon Rabbit Convertible
1987 Toyota Pick Pickup
1995 Toyota 4 Runner,
1995 Toyota Pickup,
Skyweaver
Chrysler k-car in the 80’s. My dad, a mechanical engineer, had bought strictly Japanese for years. But moved by Lee Iaccoca’s pleas to give Detroit a chance, he bought a k-car. He returned it after about two months. Nothing worked on that car, including the engine after the first few weeks.
Quinerly
1975 Fiat X19 and later a 1977 Fiat Spider. The latter I drove until it literally fell apart from rust in 1988. Oddly, I saw a running Fiat X19 in Albuquerque a few weeks back. It looked to be in good shape. They had two seats and mid engine with the engine directly behind the seats. Mine would run hot and overheat going down the road 70 mph.
opiejeanne
Our cars tend to be kept for an average of 13 years. Our shortest kept vehicle was the Ford Granada wagon. It was pretty but I hated that we got a bad deal on it and that it was a station wagon.
One of my friends affectionately referred to her Explorer as The Exploder. She never had any problems with it but it was purchased just before the horror stories about the bad tires came out.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Midnight Lurker: @raven: We are doing bikes as well? Honda CB350. It could touch 90 mph if you tucked down behind the handle bars.
Mnemosyne
I’m another in the “buy new and drive till it quits” crowd. The only used car I ever drove I got from my older brother:
1987 Toyota Celica — I loved it, but it got stolen and stripped for parts in 1994. ?
1992-ish Toyota Camry — This is the car I bought used from my brother after the Celica was stolen.
1998 Toyota RAV-4 — Also beloved, but I finally traded it it after 15 years for my current ride because I was concerned about safety.
2013 Subaru Impreza — Current ride.
dexwood
Bought a new 73 MGB, drove it off the lot after paying cash. Took it from Baltimore to its new home in New Mexico where the high altitude fucked with it constantly. Pretty good car other than that, but lost it to an El Paso lawyer as part of what I owed him. The 64 VW bus never did get above 50 mph, but it was a fun ride for a stoned hippie. My mother called it Humma Humma. I might have given her the impression it was used for that there Free Love. A girlfriend knew a guy who could rebuild its engine. Weeks later I had it towed to a good mechanic, its storage area filled with parts in cardboard boxes. Then there was Godzilla, a 71 Ford F-100 pick up a neighbor dying of cancer gave me as some form of gratitude for helping him. Big as hell, no power steering, it gave your arms and patience a work out. But, man, it drank and smoked as much as that old guy at the end of the bar.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Topic, we don need no stinkin topic. . .
Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)
In order:
1978 Chevy Monza 4 cylinder.
1975 Chevy Caprice 454 V8.
1974 Chevy Nova 350 V8.
1980 Caddy Coupe DeVille.
1978 Chevy Wagon with woodgrain panels.
1988 Pontiac Bonneville.
1992 Olds Cutlass Ciera S 3.3 V6.
2008 Kia Spectra EX.
All used.
The Caddy kept getting oil in the radiator.
The Monza was the slowest thing I’ve ever driven.
The Olds seemed to have a self-destruct function @ 100k miles.
I got busted in the Caprice for doing “115 and accelerating” when the cop pulled me over.
The Kia still had factory warranty and only 20k miles on it when I got it.
The Bonneville was fun to drive when it wasn’t in the shop.
Fun times.
Ascap-scab
My first car was hand-me-down 70 AMC Gremlin with 75k that I got free. I put another 500k on it.
2 transmissions
3 differentials
5 or 6 front fenders
countless starters, alternators, carbs.
I never had to pull the motor apart for anything. It was a total p.o.s., but I got everything it had to give.
lgerard
@smedley the uncertain:
Sorry, try this one My Hooptie
No Drought No More
A Gremlin? If you’re going for a laugh, well done, because I find that hilarious..
?BillinGlendaleCA
I’ve only had 4 cars, the first two were hand-me-downs from my parental units:
1959 Chevy Parkwood(wagon),
1962 VW Bug,
1986 VW Jetta,
2010 Toyota Prius(purchased a year ago last Friday).
ETA: Got my camera bag packed and ready for my shoot tonight.
Quinerly
@eemom: I had a white 1993 Ford Probe. The one with the big engine. It was a rocket ship! Drove it over 200,000 miles and never a problem. Sold it to a friend’s son who promptly totaled it 2 weeks after I got my money. Great car. I got it up to 120mph. Whatever you do, don’t you dare tell anyone.?
efgoldman
@Gin & Tonic:
Which reminds me: I drive a 2016 Camry which I leased new, ergo no sticker required in RI for two years. It’s five months overdue. i better go get one
I once rented a lavender Gremlin while my piece of shit Ford Maverick was in the shop, sometime around ’72. The woman i was seeing at the time still hasn’t stopped laughing.
Bought a ’74 Plymouth Satellite new, for the 318 V8. I swear the damned thing started rusting on the truck before they dropped it at the dealer.
I rented a Dodge Colt and Chevy Vega at one time or another.
Bought an ’88 Dodge Aries new, because it was the only car of any decent size under $10K at the time.Awful metallic bronze they called rose something or other. Had to put in a (Mitsubishi?) rebuilt engine just 7k out of warranty. They paid for the parts, but the labor was a couple of K
One Washington’s Birthday, we bought a Crown Vic, (’81, I think) very low mileage. Good car? Dependable? Ummm, no. Windsor (Canada) 302 V8, police package meaning that batteries and belts were extra duty and extra expensive, first year (I think) for variable Vanturi carburation, which meant untunable, the firing order embossed on the top of the bloc was wrong and almost seized the engine, the points were all special order….
The car from hell
And if cornered like a hippopotamus.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Wanna talk streamlined? Phantom Corsair.
Jay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Suzuki GS550 John Player Special, Yosh pipe, cams, 650cc overbore, dry cell, stainless steel brake lines, air forks, electric starter tossed and everything that could be lightened, lightened, drop bars.
opiejeanne
@David Anderson: We bought a 1960 pickup in 1970 for $600. It ran great for the four years we owned it but there was a tiny oil leak that would have cost about $100 at the time to replace a 25 cent gasket and we were broke* so we just put oil into it on a regular basis. I think it had a wooden bed. That thing just ran and ran. I think we bought one battery and two tires and it always started right up.
In 1984 we traded it in on a new pickup and got $600 in trade for it.
The Toyota was bought new in 1970 and had a number of odd but minor issues, but eventually it settled down and behaved. I only sold it in 1982 for that Granada wagon, and that’s a typical car-buying horror story from the Bad Old Days, from when we were young and still kind of dumb about buying a car..
*Fresh out of college, new baby, etc.
Bill
@raven: Almost all the Chryslers were automatic, as it was a no-cost option. Very very few 318 manual cars were built. All of mine were auto, but I did once drive my buddy’s 440 six-pack SuperBee with a four-speed manual. Which was not the fastest car I had driven, but it was in the top five.
JohnO
’71 Chevy Nova with 3 on the tree and no frills. Required at least 1 qt. oil per gas tank. A real POS.
David Anderson
@Walker: there was a reason it cost $50.
The Midnight Lurker
@NotMax: LOVE the Phantom Corsair! I had my picture taken with it at Harrah’s! The REAL Batmobile!
opiejeanne
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?: My best friend in college drove an elderly Barracuda. She thought it was hilarious but also loved it. Another friend had a Gremlin in a hideous bright lime green.
Mike J
@lgerard: Love Seattle rappers:
Calouste
@hilts: Funny that, people named “Volitich” or “Dalichov” or such weren’t actually considered ‘white’ by the Nazis.
Sab
Haven’t read thread yet. My spouse has June birthday, so split the cost, but I have February birthday also. Sucks.
Boo hoo to you. I am usually putting the new stickers on in a howling blizzard. You are only fending off the tiny alligators who don’t have sense enough to bury themselves in the mud for winter.
germy
@NotMax: The Phantom Cosair is a thing of beauty, but I wonder if it would be frightening to drive. How much visibility does the driver have with that tiny rear window? Looks like lots of blind spots.
Aleta
67 Scout International (didn’t own, but learned to drive on and had use of, it was 20 yrs old then and it was a blast).
azlib
1966 Mustang Coupe – it was given to the spouse by her father
1968 Fiat 850 sports coupe – rebuilt the engine and transmission on this one
1981 Citation – tranmission leaked fluid from day one
1985 – Honda Civic
1996 Geo Prism – a clone of the Toyota Corolla with a different body – good little car
1993 Ford Pickup – was a work truck for a concrete testing company for $3K in 1998 – still driving it
2012 – Prius C
BeezusQ
’71 Buick Centurian…hated that car!
The Dangerman
Mid-50’s, have only had 3 cars (not counting the one my Folks got me for college). The third car is less than a year old (in my possession, I mean). So, really only 2 cars. Cars just aren’t my thing. Drove them WAY into the ground.
raven
@Bill: I guess I was thinking about the push buttons on the Dart.
Zinsky
I owned a Chevy Vega as well. It self-destructed at 50,000 miles. The distributor fell out of the engine block 20 miles outside of Marengo, Iowa, which isn’t quite nowhere, but you can see it from there. Those aluminum block engines had all of the resiliency of, well, a pop can. I also owned a 1976 AMC Hornet, which I bought for $100 and a case of Coors. It sucked bad and had gaping holes in the floorboard, which enabled me to jettison joints, roach clips and other paraphernalia when I got stopped by the local constable. The Hornet blew up on I-35 near Hampton, Iowa (JINXED!) in a snowstorm while I was driving to an old buddy’s house to buy a bag of weed. I sold it to the towing company for the price of hauling it to the junkyard.
NotMax
@Bill
Had a ’68 Chrysler Town & Country wagon with a 440 V-8. Swear that thing could have scooted up a vertical wall without breaking a sweat. It wanted to cruise at a comfortable 80 on the interstate. One had to periodically check the speedometer to make sure it wasn’t.
Backstory was the original owner sued and ended up getting Chrysler to completely replace the original engine at the 50k mark. Whatever it was they put in to settle the suit, it was a beauty.
raven
@opiejeanne: My 66 Chevy truck has a wood bed, the original were oak with metal strips holding them together. You can still buy a kit but they are really expensive. I have 3/4″ marine plywood in mine and have replaced it twice in 32 years.
Olivia
We had an AMC Hornet in the late 70s. Horrible, horrible car, in every way possible. The distributor cap popped loudly and blew off weekly. After that I became a faithful user of Consumer Reports car buying guide.
FlyingToaster
I’m a decade older than y’all, and I’m on my second car (that I’ve owned), third overall.
1970 VW semi-automatic bug — my HS car, handed down to my next-youngest sister, and thence to my brother who threw a rod and junked it.
1970 VW Transporter — My parents bought this when I was 9; when they were getting ready to retire to Florida, I bought a one-way ticket and drove it back to Bwashtin (well, Somerville). I drove it until I was 5 months pregnant, sold to a restorer, and when I bought the:
2007 Toyota Sienna AWD Limited.
If someone besides Chrysler or Nissan comes out with a hybrid minivan, I will trade my current ride in. This gets about 10 miles a gallon (my ’70 bus got 15 city, 20 hwy). The majority of my trips are (schoolyear) 6 miles or (summer) 18 miles, all city, often rush hour traffic. My commute is ideal for a hybrid, but a Prius will not hold WarriorGirl, 4 friends, 5 musical instruments, stands, scores, yadda yadda yadda — at least, not all at once. Which is why I drive a minivan where I can push-button all of the doors and not have to sweat when music kid 5 leaves the slider and the tailgate open while I’m in the pick-up lane.
quakerinabasement
English Ford Anglia
Volvo 544
Toyota Hi-Lux
Mercury Bobcat (a Ford Maverick in disguise)
Volvo 242
Ford Ranger
Mazda Protege
Olivia
@chris: We used to laugh that we saw more Pacers being towed than we ever saw driving down the road.
JMG
The list, as complete as I could make it: ’56 Cadillac sedan, robin’s egg blue. My first car, a hand-me-down from friends of my parents. My folks approved because a Stalin tank would’ve lost a collision with it. Even in the ’60s, I couldn’t afford the 10 miles a gallon ratio.
2. 1951 Harley Davidson with the suicide shift on the gas tank. A group purchase with my high school friends. We spent a month rehabbing it (purchase price $150) and then came the test drive. The only helmet we had was one purchaser’s little sister’s riding helmet, complete with pink ribbon. It blew up on the second test run. I was third tester.
3. ’67 Camaro 350 SS, Pretty awesome muscle car. My Mom didn’t speak to my Dad for a month after it was my Christmas present. Lotta good times. Both my younger brothers inherited it, and believe it or not, it’s still running as my youngest brother found a classic car nut to sell it to. If I’d had brain one, I’d have garaged it forever like a mint comic book.
4. ’76 Volkswagen. Good car. Sideswiped by a Cambridge plow in the Blizzard of ’78.
5. 1983 Chevy Nova. Good car.
6. 1989 Chevy Nova. Better car
7. A succession of Subarus. Easy to parallel park.
8. 1996 Crown Vic ex-cop car I bought at an auction.
9. 2003 Toyota Corolla. Still going strong despite a dozen New England winters. Give it to one of my nieces as a high school graduation present in November (early grad).
10. ? Gang, could use some advice here. Can now afford a nice car, but live in a place where one needs a practical car, not a nice one. PS: My muscle car days are long gone.
Steeplejack
@lgerard:
Other link was better. I fix: “My Hooptie.“
raven
@NotMax: A buddy in high school had a 64 Pontiac wagon that stone hauled ass. I think the weight transfer on the wagons did something.
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
We had a guy who couldn’t find his keys at the end of a 9 hr work day. His car had been sitting, keys in it, running, out in the parking lot for the entire day. Used about 1/4 tank of gas. Late 60s.
NotMax
@Zinsky
Friend inherited his mother’s ’55 T-bird (with factory original leopard print seats!). Driving it from PA to college in MN (1970s) it crapped out about halfway and on the spot he traded it at the garage it had been towed to for a used late model Buick Skylark.
Caught no end of grief from us for doing that.
japa21
The first car I ever drove was my parents “59 Nash Rambler station wagon. The thing was built like a tank. For reasons I will not disclose here, I arranged for the front end and a telephone pole to meet each other at around 20 MPH. The only noticeable damage was the B and L being knocked out.
First car I owned was a beat up Dodge that had been my brothers. Lasted me 2 years until I traded it in for a Dodge Dart. That lasted until my wife to be, being pissed off at me, cursed it and it had a fire. (No, she didn’t start the fire, long story).
We did have a Pacer and took a vacation to Williamsburg and DC with my wife’s MIL and our two boys. Driving themselves as well was my BIL, his wife and their 4 kids. We decided to all pile into the Pacer to drive into DC, see the WH and Jefferson Memorial at night. It was quite packed.
raven
@NotMax: Fun Fun Fun. . .
Sab
Many cars before. Hondas since 2000. Nothing to report. Great, functional, reliable cars. Perhaps boring, but dependable, fun. Love them. We have had five. We would only have had two, but my stepson plowed one into a tree, one into another car and one into a telephone pole. Cars totalled but everyone walked away every time ( the pole didn’t). My 84 year old mother plowed her Honda into a slow moving train. She survived, the car was repaired, and the train had minimal damage.
We love Hondas.
Steeplejack
@John Cole:
Going through lots of unreliable or downright crappy cars is an aspect of Saltine-American culture.
Amir Khalid
@SFAW:
Original or kit? Either way, it must have been a fun car to drive and a real attention-getter.
Patricia Kayden
@John Cole: I’m on my second car. My first one was new but it as a Mitsubishi Mirage which I don’t even believe are being made anymore. My current one is a used VW Jetta which I’m going to ride until it falls apart since my car note is paid off. Betty must drive a lot to have gone through that many cars.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Sab: Could be worse, January b-day; “b-day present, didn’t I give you something last month?”.
NotMax
@JMG
Hardly an expert, but on good value for the money, check out some Mazdas. Also the KIA Soul (gobs of them zipping around here). Was mightily impressed with the relatively new to the market Honda HR-V when recently took someone dealer hopping.
raven
@Patricia Kayden: I’ll never forget when my dad popped the hood of his Dodge Colt and saw it was a Mitsubishi . More than one tried to kill him!
Corner Stone
@JMG:
I…we…you…WHAT THA?
raven
@NotMax: Get you a Wankel!
Gravenstone
@Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman):
When I was shopping for my second car to replace my 1970 Chevy Impala, I looked at a Monza. Sat down in it and closed the door, or tried to anyway. Damn door wouldn’t close because the opening wouldn’t clear my shoulder as I’m tall and a bit broad across the beam.
Actually had similar issues with a couple of Subaru I’ve looked at through the years. Test drove a WRX, but ended up passing on it because my shoulder rubbed on the B pillar constantly. Sat down in a BRX, and my head was brushing the headliner regardless of how I adjusted the seat.
Not mine, but the worst vehicle I’ve ever driven was my old roommate’s 1984 Ford Escort (the “World Car”). His folks had bought it for him as a college graduation gift. Several of us were wedged into it and making a road trip from north central IN to Cincinnati to visit a buddy. Accordingly, we took turns driving. When it finally came my turn, my knees were literally up along either side of the wheel because it was all so cramped and tiny.
raven
Mazda Officially Confirms The Return Of The Rotary Engine In 2019
Corner Stone
@Amir Khalid: He got me for a second with that, also too. That was a wish list.
BSR
@David Anderson:
’81 Tercel FTW! I talked my (then girlfriend) now wife into a used ’81 Corolla-Tercel (confusing – which is why they became distinct models a year later). It was a far better car than her Plymouth Horizon TC3, which died a lot and needed the A/C switched off to climb moderate hills in Wisconsin where we lived.
At least the Toyota was a reliable starter. Her father – a stalwart union-guy who only bought American from Chrysler was quite humbled when his driveway full of kids & wife’s cars wouldn’t start one very cold sub-zero morning….except for the Tercel! He had to use that “foreign” car to jump-start a Pontiac, a Chevy, a Buick, and his Plymouth K-Car. He shut up about foreign cars after that, and his last car was a Toyota Avalon, which he raved about!
That Tercel (although reliable) had lots of front-brake issues – we ended up replacing the discs & calipers a couple of times over 5 years as the calipers would seize-up. That was also the car that made me swear I would never again own a car without A/C, as we moved to New Orleans with it…vinyl seats and that level of heat/humidity don’t make for pleasant driving!
Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
Patricia Kayden
@raven: LOL! So your dad is like me and has a strong aversion to Mitsubishi vehicles. Never again.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Sab: When I was driving the Jetta(31 years), I got rear ended about 3 years ago. Poor girl was reaching for her coffee and didn’t notice I had stopped. Her car was a mess, I had two scratches on the bumper of the Jetta.
NYCMT
1985 Oldsmobile 98 (FWD).
The only car I’ve ever killed. Oil pump blew in the middle of the night at 186,000 miles. It had a digital calculator built into the dash.
? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?
Lookit what I found!
lamh36
Lordy….Taraji P Henson with come Cookie level shade thrown Ryan Seacrest way…to HIM!!!
Taraji wins the Oscar for red carpet interview of the night!!!
FlyingToaster
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Fuck you, I resemble that remark.
opiejeanne
@Bill: The City of Riverside bought two shiny new Vegas and they were so bad they got rid of both of them around 27k miles.
mapaghimagsik
I had a Yugo. When driving through Michigan the joke was “Yugo off the bridge”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@FlyingToaster: My b-day is in January.
ETA: My Jetta died on my b-day in 2017.
raven
@Patricia Kayden: When the Zero Kamikaze was bearing down on your ship trying to blow you into the Pacific it had a lasting impression.
? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I can top that. My father’s birthday is in December. Before Christmas.
Ruckus
@SgrAstar:
I’ve had two Toyotas. A Hilux pickup for work and a 93 Camry for the way better half. Both were lemons. The pickup I sold for $150 with 85K miles. I got the far better deal than the mechanic I sold it to and I had explained everything I knew to be wrong with it. He found a lot more. I should have paid him $150 to take it off my hands. The Camry we had to go to arbitration with Toyota to try to get them to fix it. Surprise, surprise, we lost. Ex still had the car about 10 yrs later. I’ve had several Hondas and two of them were lemons. One of those we took to 5 dealers and they couldn’t find or figure out the problem. It would just stop running. Work for days, weeks then stop. Got so bad I couldn’t let the ex drive it. I figured it out after driving it the first morning for 5 minutes. Part cost $12. The Nissan pickup I replaced the Toyota with was a lemon. Spent way, way too much time at the dealer and they never got it to run right. I’ve actually had far better luck with Fords than any other brand.
Bill
@raven: Ah, should have realized. No, my cars were early 70s, the buttons were long gone by then.
joel hanes
@raven:
drove in the Green Machine
nice.
I had to drive a built-up Gama Goat most of the time, with my supplies in a trailer and my commo shop in the hut. It was an articulated vehicle, jointed in the middle, with a Detroit Diesel beer-truck engine with no muffler, directly behind the back of the driver’s seat.
https://www.pinterest.com/jefferypage79/gama-goat-m792/?lp=true
There was very little subtlety involved in gear-jamming that beast.
Could be fun to drive in mud when in six-wheel-drive mode.
Was supposed to float. Most units that had them tried that a maximum of one times.
JMG
@NotMax: One thing. Has to be big enough to carry my golf clubs and paraphenalia in the truck or back. Leaning towards a Subaru Forester.@Corner Stone: Hey, what can I say? Came from a long line of car nuts. My dad bought a ’64 XKE and had it painted metalflake gold for his midlife crisis. Mom had a 426 Hemi dropped into her practical Chrysler station wagon. That baby would blow off anything from a stop light.
raven
@Bill: This mopar had one of those stick shift without using the clutch!
RSA
I like cars, especially German cars, and so I’ve gone through a variety of them. A couple are still in the family–I needed a different ride but rather than sell my then-current car I gave it to a sibling. In order of acquisition:
1986 VW Golf (a company car when I worked in Germany)
1989 BMW 318i (same–gotta love even the low-end E30 on curvy roads and the Autobahn)
1998 BMW Z3 (a gift from my wife, a used car from a friend who mainly drove it to the golf course)
2006 Audi A4 quattro convertible (a little bit of a boat, but nice for cruising)
1993 BMW 325i (the E36 was underpowered but light and fun to drive)
2011 BMW 328xi (comfortable for the long trips I take these days)
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?: One of my good friends was born on Boxing Day, I think he wins.
Chip Daniels
That hood scoop on the Gremlin is endearingly hilarious.
NotMax
Don’t recall the model but a friends’ parents had some kind of lumbering highway boat (Oldsmobile, maybe) which came from the factory with what looked like the scope of a sniper rifle mounted on top of the dash, about 1/3 of the way over from the driver’s end.
It’s purpose was to detect oncoming headlights and auto-change from brights to normal, then back again.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@? ?? Goku (aka Baka Amerikahito) ? ?: I can top that, my dad’s step-father b-day was Christmas Day.
ETA:
@Major Major Major Major: Nope, good try though.
raven
The Chrysler-Plymouth-Dodge-DeSoto Fluid Drive
raven
@Major Major Major Major: I made bubble and squeak for dinner!
raven
By 1963, this particular design of pushbutton transmission controls had worked its way down to lower models such as the Dodge Dart and Plymouth Valiant.
john r
vega had a station wagon version called the camback. knew someone who traded a motorcycle for one that had a 350 v8 dropped in. thing could burn a set of rear tires in a heartbeat. personally drove it up to 150mph for a couple of minutes.
Sab
@Ruckus: LOL. Except for the date could have been my stepson.Glad it and its battery survived.
OT. I am sitting at the back end of a large house failing to listen to my senile 93 YO father listen to Fox news on FULL!!! volume on his TV. He used to be a flaming liberal. Now he is a tepid RWNJ. He also no longer recognizes his grandchildren or his sons in law.
Fox listeners aren’t the brightest bulbs in the house.
Finally putting him in nursing home this summer when doc said he is pretty much guaranteed to outlive me. Sensible, but feel real deal is I can’t stand Faux no more.
FlyingToaster
@?BillinGlendaleCA: My sympathies.
My birthday is just after New Year’s. One of my nephews’ birthdays is just after Christmas. We’ve formed a mutual protection society on gift giving — anyone who skips giving us birthday presents doesn’t get any from us.
It always blows going to stand in the interminable line at the Watertown RMV in January, and I have to go in person due to a bout with identity theft in 2016, but I’ll live; it’s only snow and ice, unless it’s a fucking hurricane.
NotMax
@JMG
Can verify from Mom’s Mazda 3 sedan that one could easily fit a foursome’s golf clubs in the trunk and still have room enough for most of a pony. It’s like a TARDIS, that trunk is.
sacrablue
72 Chevy Vega, 74 MGB, Austin American, Ford Zephyr, 82 K Car station wagon, etc.
raven
@Ruckus: When we were in LA for my niece’s wedding a couple of years ago we hurried into the wrong place for the rehearsal dinner. When we went back to the car I had left it running. It had that damn pushbutton keyless thing and, if had been the right place, it would have run for 3 hours!
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’d have to count them up but I may have owned more motorcycles than cars/pickups/vans. In the early oughts I counted up the miles on motorcycles and had just over 500,000. Not counting race bikes. Cars I have no idea how many miles I’ve covered. The last car I bought I’ve had for almost 2 yrs and have 6500 miles on. I’m expecting this to be my last car.
satby
@japa21: I wondered who else drove a Rambler. I learned to drive on my grandfather’s Nash Rambler sedan in 1968 (maybe late 50s model?).
My first car was a 73 Plymouth Gold duster, slant six engine. I loved that car and had it until after I got married in 1983.
Then I bought a Mitsubishi Champ, which I also drive for about 8 years, when we had to trade it in for a larger car.
My next two cars were a hand me downs from my mom, who left one car behind when she moved to Florida and the second a few years later when she bought and then gave away her “summer” car after she quit coming north. A Mercury and a Ford Taurus. Both cars were passed on to my sons.
I’m still driving my last car, a Hyundai Accent.
6 cars in 46 years, not too bad.
Zinsky
@NotMax: NotMax – now that was a bad move! The ’55 T-Bird was a SWEET car!! The AMC Hornet wasn’t worth the dynamite to blow it to Hell!
Lyrebird
@John Cole: @Patricia Kayden:
It kinda depends what shape the car was in to start. I’m close to Cole’s age, and I’m up to five.
11yr old Honda, sold when I needed a car with A/C
10yr old K car, lasted through one chunk of my overeducation… conked out soon after I sold it for a couple hundred bucks
Then I spent several years living in civilized places where you don’t need a car
15yr old Toyota, lasted nigh on forever but I sold it to get more letters after my name
10yr old Chrysler land yacht, still running,
newish VW
Just One More Canuck
My mom refused to let my dad teach me to drive. The driving school I went to had Gremlins and Pacers. Pacers were the worst cars ever to drive
Patricia Kayden
@raven: I had to look up a Zero Kamikaze to see what you were referring to. Yeah, that would be scary to face off with. Didn’t know Mitsubishi made war planes. Interesting that it evolved to making cars.
Omnes Omnibus
@satby: My parents were given a Rambler wagon as a wedding present from my dad’s parents. Within 3 months, they had traded it on an Austin-Healey.
Ajabu
I can’t believe the number of cars in my lifetime. Here’s a partial:
• 1947 Ford (while in high school – first car – $50 & sold two years later for $50)
• 59 Olds 98 convertible (new – cost $2000 – Yes, I’m old…)
• 62 Peugeot 404
• 63 Ford T-Bird
*65 Volvo sedan
* 68 Volvo P1800
• 71 Volvo P1800
• 73 Volvo 1800 ES (Fabulous car – Sportcar Station wagon – made only 2 years)
• 74 Lancia Scorpion (mini version of Boxer Berlinetta w/ mid engine)
• 74 Chevy Luv (to haul equipment to LA music studios)
* 77 Ford Aerostar (to haul equipment again)
• 2 more Lancias
• 1982 Honda Civic (totaled by a hit & run driver. Thanks for that)
• 1988 Acura (sportscar)
• 1983 Ford Aerostar (Island car)
• 1984 Mitsubishi Mirage (island car)
• 1995 Ford Escape (wonderful car! Still going strong with 208K on it.)
• 2002 Volvo C70 (my personal daily driver)
• 2006 BMW 325i (Mrs. Ajabu’s daily driver)
I intentionally left out the four vehicles we bought for our son -as a teen – that he subsequently wrecked. Fortunately, he’s now in his 30’s and (as a father himself) has outgrown that habit.)
I also, I’m sure, left out a bunch of others because I’m an old and can’t remember them all. (But I was a car buying fool back in the day…)
•
MoxieM
A select list of some of my favorites:
’61 VW bug, full canvas sunroof (not convertible). No seatbelts in the back, AM radio. That was a fantastic car. It went 250K miles (my folks bought it first and passed it down to successive kids). When the floor rotted out, a friend who was into Lincolns welded the roof from a ’63 Continental parts car on as a new floor.
66 Ford F150 straight 8; it had pneumatic suspension which was cool. Also, somehow it got painted with an extra 5 gallon tub of the grey primer they used on the Mystic River bridge. No idea how that happened. Also I drove that when I was a commuting student to (S)Wellesley College; also fun.
I had a ’68 Ford Cortina to drive for a few months until it was reclaimed (engine for racing). The body was rotting out anyway, but jeezers that was fun to drive.
A zillion other cars yadda yadda.
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
That’s because it belonged to the hippopotamus class of american cars, Crown Vic/Lincoln Grand Marque, big GM line, big Chrysler line. It was a hippo in steel, lead and glass.
raven
@Patricia Kayden:
Omnes Omnibus
@Patricia Kayden: Mitsubishi is a huge conglomerate.
Steeplejack
@japa21:
Question: wouldn’t your wife’s MIL be your mother?
Ruckus
@germy:
Ever drive a semi? The entire thing is a blind spot.
NotMax
@satby
Obligatory.
Was popular with some high schoolers during the 50s/60s because the seats reclined flat.
:)
raven
@Ruckus: Or tow a 105 behind a deuce and a half!
ThresherK
Latest addition is an 04 Volvo V70. This one has only been mine for a month+. It’s my third Volvo wagon, and we still own the second; I apparently have a type.
raven
A jet ski goes to the shortest acceptance speech!
Jager
I’ve owned 59 cars since i got my license. My first was a 50 Ford Tudor sedan, flathead V8 with overdrive, I was 14, got it the summer between the 8th and 9th grade, great old “shoe box Ford. The absolute worst? A 59 Renault Dauphine, had it for 2 weeks in high school. The worst adult car? 69 Pontiac Grand Prix, the son of a bitch caught on fire on the Mass Turnpike and I let it burn. The shortest ownership period, 3 days. I bought a 51 Chevy Bel Air two door hardtop from one of my dad’s mechanics. The old man told me to drive my mom’s car until Monday, because my Bel Air wasn’t insured. My parents went off to the lake and I drove my Bel Air all weekend. Monday morning the old man asked our neighbor if I had driven the car, good old Mr. Webster told him I had. Dad came in and took the keys and the title and put it on the used car lot. I spent the next two months car-less. Top 5? 1969 Z-28 Camaro, black, no stripes. Ordered it from my Dad when I was in the Army. 1981 Toyota Land Cruiser station wagon. 1999 Mercedes Benz AMG C43, we did a European delivery, drove around Europe in it for two weeks, great time. 2007 Corvette Z51, fast as lightning and got 33-35mpg on the highway at 80 miles and hour. 1959 Porsche Convertible D (Speedster with roll up windows) wonderful car and worth north of 300k today in excellent condition. In our garage as of today, 2011 Grand Cherokee Overland and 2016 Ram 1500 Laramie 4×4 pick up. Just sold number 59, a BMW 550 Sport a few weeks ago. I’m looking at a replica 59 Porsche at a builder in North Hollywood right now.
Ajabu
Forgot to mention this one:
In the early 1970’s I had a 1959 Nash Metropolitan (that was very rare) that I had paid $300 for somehow.
A master painter paint the entire insides of my house in exchange for that car. The only time I actually made out on a car deal.
Except, here’s one more:
First year of college I bought an English Ford Anglia for $ 100, drove it all four years and sold it for $100 !! Can’t beat that depreciation.
raven
@Jager: Did you order it through the PX?
Orange is the new Red
Hmmm, fun thread.
We were given a free — what we could afford — Pinto when we were in college. Drove it for two years, until the engine died one day.
Then we were given a free — again, perfect price — Vega that used to belong to spouse’s grandmother. I knew it would be great when, shortly after we picked it up, the driver’s side door stopped working and we had to crawl in through the passenger side. We immediately started saving for another car.
Toyota station wagon for the last year of college, the first car we’d purchased and we were very proud of her. We put the two babies in the back seat while spouse taught me how to drive a stick shift; cops pulled us over to investigate the lurching, but just laughed and sent us on our way.
Drove that thing far and wide for quite awhile.
Pontiac, don’t know the name but we called it “The Traveling Auditorium”. Inherited from parents. Horrible car if you ever needed to park or turn, but terrific for carting little kids and lots of equipment. Finally got rid of it when the alternator fell out somewhere in Worcester MA.
Two Saturns — matched set, which seemed a cute idea at the time — which were wonderful cars. Cheap and reliable, we drove those suckers until they died.
Honda (Civic, maybe?) — stick shift again, had to give it up when I could no longer work a clutch.
Subarus since then. Wonderful for New England weather.
NotMax
@Ruckus
Also the Corsair was of a time when some cars still came equipped with opaque pull-down shades on the rear window.
One can see the Corsair on the road in the movie The Young in Heart which comes around with some frequency on TCM (it’s billed as “the Flying Wombat”).
Gravenstone
@Ruckus: Some years ago a friend of mine was trying to restore a late 60s Plymouth Gran Fury III convertible. Thing could seat 8 comfortably, a true land yacht.
Major Major Major Major
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I feel like Boxing Day is kind of worse. The inescapable sense that it’s post-celebration, everywhere you go, would be a bummer.
Linkmeister
I wrote my cars (and motorbike) up on my blog a long time ago. The Geo was replaced with a seven-year-old 2005 Mini in 2012 and in November of 2017 I replaced the Mini with a 2015 Honda Fit.
proportionwheel
1964 VW Beetle convertible. I still pine for this car.
1970? Dodge slant six, bought cheap but hardly drove because it was crap.
1976 Chevy Vega, which we drove for 8 years and sold to sister in law, who drove it several more. Unlikely story, I know.
1984 Chevy Cavalier hatchback. Just had the rusty hulk of this hauled out of my barn last fall)
1988 Chevy Corsica (sold when we moved to where AWD is essential)
1984 Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce (still have, for sale, anyone interested?)
1990 Chevy S-10 pickup with snowplow.
1991 Subaru Legacy (totalled when someone T-boned my wife at an intersection. She walked away.)
1996 Subaru Legacy GT (11 years, over 200,000 miles)
2009 Subaru Legacy sedan (still driving, going strong, 160,000 miles)
2017 Subaru Outback (love it, gets 30% better gas mileage than the Legacy though a lot bigger).
All but first 2 and the Alfa bought new and driven until dead, sold, or totaled.
raven
@Gravenstone:
I got me a car, it’s as big as a whale
And we’re headin’ on down to the Love Shack
I got me a Chrysler, it seats about twenty
So hurry up and bring your jukebox money
Origuy
My sister had a Gremlin. I think it got totaled while parked out out the street while she was in grad school. My other sister had a Pacer. I only rode in it once but I remember that those windows made it like a greenhouse.
I’ve stuck with Honda and Acura. Never had a bad car.
Ruckus
@Gravenstone:
Too bad they don’t still make them but my 03 Honda Element was actually a very good car. And it had room like nothing else it’s size. I’m 5’11” and had almost a foot of head room. What Honda did was make it a 4 seater so there was plenty of room front and back. Tried to find a good used one in 2016 when I bought my last car, a Ford Focus. No dice they all had been used up and everyone wanted too much for them. Someone broad of beam and or tall would fit right in.
Linkmeister
@raven: We had a brand-new 1962 Valiant with the pushbutton transmission. We drove it from LA to Washington DC in the winter of 1962.
raven
@Linkmeister: Cool!!
barbequebob
I love Ford Escort wagons. Basic, functional, inexpensive to own and operate, and in my experience, and others I know, pretty reliable and durable. You can do a lot of work moving stuff with these small cars.
I loved my first 1995 Escort Station Wagon with 5 speed manual transmission. purchased in 1998 and made it to 2009 with 190K miles. and replaced by another 1995 that now has 155K miles. I just hauled a full size couch to the dump on top of my Escort wagon (Beverly Hillbillies style), and can haul washing machines and all kinds of stuff with the hatch back and rear seats down.
I’m thinking of looking for another to replace this one when the time comes.
raven
@Ruckus: My friend has one and he loves it!
Ruckus
@joel hanes:
Here’s a pic of the vehicle I rode in in the navy. Never did drive it, but did maintain/repair the nav gear.
randy khan
’68 Plymouth Satellite. 396 V-8, no AC, no power steering, no power brakes, 3-speed manual transmission on the freakin’ column. The fastest car I’ve ever driven. This was my dad’s car and I started driving it at 17. Bad, bad idea, but somehow I lived.
’74 Dodge sedan I bought for $350. I had it for three years and it was fine until I was driving on Queens Boulevard and hit a pothole a bit too hard.
’88 Nissan 200SX – first new car I bought, and I only bought it because my girlfriend (later and still my wife) moved 200 miles away.
’97 Acura Integra – drove it until a woman rear-ended me at 40 mph while I was slowing for an exit and shoved me into a tree. My wife and I walked away, and all of the doors still opened. Airbags, seatbelts, unibody construction are all good things. It probably had at least two more good years in it at the time.
’07 Acura TSX (still more or less an Integra) – stupidly I leased it instead of buying.
’10 Acura TSX (notice a pattern?) – current car, probably good for another five years, although I’m lusting after the useful tech in newer cars.
HinTN
@Patricia Kayden: Officially, it’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Make lots of shit and have for a long time.
Patricia Kayden
@Omnes Omnibus: @raven: Interesting. A hand in every pot, so to speak.
Patricia Kayden
@HinTN: So I’m just learning.
NotMax
@Origuy
Always kind of wondered how many Pacers ended up being towed into the back country and repurposed as greenhouses for growing – well, you know.
ThresherK
@NotMax: Wasn’t Corsair one of the model names for the Edsel marque?
Along with Ranger, Pacer and Citation. (The last two might have been fair warning.)
Ruckus
@raven:
My Focus has a manual gearbox with no clutch pedal. It does have 2 clutches though. Works like a charm and gets great gas mileage.
HinTN
@Patricia Kayden: I see raven beat me to it.
NoelAbstract
As a 9th grader in ’83, I won the local bookie’s NCAA tournament pool (thanks, Jim Valvano), and used $200 of the winnings on a ’72 Pinto. And being a teenage boy, the other $300 on a stereo for it. Puttered around in that thing for 4 years, and somebody offered me $300 (minus stereo) for it. I really hope they didn’t get exploded, but I never heard from them again.
Jager
@raven: No my dad was a dealer, I got it for dealer cost and I hate to tell you this, I paid $2,495 for it. No console, no stripes and 4 wheel disc brakes. If I recall the disc brake option was less than a 100 bucks and fewer than 400 people ordered it. Less than 300 ordered the strip delete. I loved that high reving small block, nothing off the line, but fast as hell from around 40 to 110 or so. 69s are really valuable today. Very good car for the time.
eemom
@Quinerly:
Wow! Lucky you. Mine had a V6 engine, and it WAS fun to drive, but after awhile its parts began fucking up, nonstop, one after the other.
Ruckus
@raven:
First car, a hand me down 1960 Valiant had a push button torqueflite trans. Best part of the car. Worst part was the ugly, of which it had more than it’s share.
NotMax
Talk about obscure autos, met someone outside of Allentown who drove a Borgward.
@ThresherK
Yup. Here ya go.
NotMax
@Ruckus
Gussied down Comet.
:)
Doug R
Vega, eh? How many starters?
randy khan
@randy khan:
Forgot to say that everything other than the Dodge has been stick. Of course.
AliceBlue
When I was ten years old my father bought a 1963 Ford Galaxie 500. I can still see that champagne colored beauty. It had air conditioning! Even seat belts. The air conditioning was a hoot–the vents weren’t in the dashboard. There was something resembling a small a/c window unit sitting under the dash.
We drove from Texas that summer on our annual trip to Georgia to see family. Daddy was driving his mother and father around in it and my grandmother said “My my. I can’t believe how cool it is!” Of course we all had a good laugh.
frosty
@Doug R: My brother, driving a Maverick in NYC, pulled up next to another one and hollered “How many clutches?” “Five” “Hah, I’m on my seventh!”
This was the car that was stolen and then put back, about 3 parking spaces away. He couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t where he parked it until he saw the steering column and lock all busted up.
Ruckus
OK I’ll list them.
No I won’t. I’ve owned 18 cars, trucks or vans since 1967. Five of them were the ex’s cars.
Jager
@raven: A buddy of mine was a Marine platoon leader, went through some deep shit during the siege of Khe Sahn ordered a new Vette through the PX system, pinned a picture of the red Vette up in his hooch. Got home, Dad took him to the dealer to pick it up, the bastard had sold it. Rick tipped over the guy’s desk and spent the night in jail. Case dismissed the next day.
Ruckus
@NotMax:
What?
Valiant was a Chrysler product, Comet was the same as a Ford Falcon but with a Lincoln badge. And the Falcon/Comet was a much better looking car. Not good looking but better.
Ruckus
@Patricia Kayden:
Mits is a very large corp in Japan, they make lots of stuff. Cars, trucks, ships, machinery, on and on.
I’ve owned extremely good machine tools from them, look up Mitsubishi corp.
frosty
Drove, owned by parents —
1957 Nash Metropolitan. Four wheel drifts at ~20 mph
1961 Bugeye Sprite. Bought for $100, very used. Only 1 cylinder worked all the time. 948 ccs, 0-60 in 45 seconds. My Dad, my brother and I learned to work on cars with this one.
Owned myself —
1967 Alfa Romeo Duetto Spider. Hands down the worst of the bunch. No more reliable than the Brits and the parts cost 4x as much. Blew two head gaskets in six months.
1961 Triumph TR-3. My favorite of all. Got it in a swap with my Alfa mechanic. I took it cross country twice, Dad and I had to rebuild the engine in Maryland so I could get back to California.
1970 Datsun 510. Because I needed something to drive when I was fixing the TR
1971 Datsun pickup. Don’t assume 1600ccs can pull a U-Haul across country just because it’s in a truck. Stopping with the trailer was exciting with drum brakes, too.
1990 Mazda Miata. Bought as soon as it came out, took it to 220,000 miles and 24 years when it was totaled. Rocker panels rusted out just like the Metro and Bugeye. You’d think they’d learn.
2000 Mercury Sable. I inherited my Mom’s car for when the Miata needed work.
2014 Mazda3 hatchback. Current (and maybe last) ride. Fun handling, great gas mileage.
Ruckus
@raven:
A deuce and a half with a 105 behind it is about the same size as a semi. Have towed a 50 foot trailer with a 27 foot truck. That’s a long rig. Figured out how to back it up in truck stop, between 2 parked semis, in the dark. Got shit on the CB for that! But didn’t hit anything.
NotMax
@Ruckus
My bad. Confused Valiant with Falcon. Technically, Comet had a Mercury badge (though that’s primarily a nitpick).
Omnes Omnibus
@frosty:
But so pretty…
Ruckus
@Jager:
Boss and a buddy of his bought a 69 Camaro rag top and have done a minimal restoration, make it run right. It’s about as original as a car 49 yrs old can be and looks good. Dad had a 69 350 SS. Fast but horrible car as it handled like a Efg’s hippo cars but with a lot more power. Also dad had to do a fare amount of screwing around with brackets and such to make stop eating water pumps and alternators and power steering pumps.
Mary Ellen Sandahl
@Major Major Major Major: Your Samwise looks awfully like our Jingle. Even the fur texture is the same. We have suspicions that Jing might be a Korat cat (old, natural breed from Thailand, much revered as luck-bringers in their homeland, not common here). We have no proof, as he adopted us one dark and stormy night and we couldn’t locate a previous owner. Have you noticed your luck improving, or at least holding steady, since you became Samwise’s hooman?
BruceFromOhio
@Matt McIrvin: I have a black 5sp 2011 Fit and I love it. Had the pleasure of driving it 8 or so laps around Watkins Glen.
frosty
@frosty: Oops, two more:
1998 VW Jetta. Because I needed something with more than 2 seats to haul the kids in. Bought it from my brother at 80,000 and took it to 255,000. Junked it because it wouldn’t pass inspection with the check engine light burned out, and it would cost $100 to fix it. They would have had to disassemble the dash to replace the bulb.
2005 VW Jetta. Very close 2nd as the worst to the Alfa. The car where I learned what EPC and “limp mode” were. Spent more time at the mechanic’s than the driveway. Since I bought it from him he took pity on me and only charged me for the first time he diagnosed and fixed it and it wasn’t fixed.
Ruckus
@NotMax:
Well yes, but it’s been Lincoln-Mercury for so many decades and Ford owned both of them and they have been combined since 1945…….
efgoldman
@satby:
My dad had a ’62 or ’63 Rambler Classic bought new via the PX in Germany. Why the hell he didn’t buy a German car and ship it back when his tour was over, I’ll never know.
In around ’74, when I met the future mrs efg, she dropped the drive shaft in HER ’62 Rambler Classic on the way to my apartment. She never drove it again.
frosty
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, pretty. Same car, same color that Dustin Hoffman drove in The Graduate. IIRC, he drifted to a stop on the side of the road at one point. I can relate.
Jay
@NoelAbstract:
Pinto’s got a bad rap, I always loved them, rodded them, raced them.
NotMax
@efgoldman
Acquainted with a lot of people around that time who had lived through WW2 and flatly refused to even consider a German car. Teacher I knew bought a Beetle (probably was in ’63 or maybe ’64) and there were colleagues of hers who refused to ride in it.
Omnes Omnibus
@frosty: It was the 1600, right? IIRC, the 1750 never came here and, by the time the 2000 came here, Alfa had sawed off the boat-tail. The car wasn’t pretty again until the last iteration in the late 80s/early 90s. Hey, it is not weird that a Saabist would be an Alfisti manqué.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mary G:
Needs moar Kushner.
Ken Pidcock
Renault Encore. Exceptional match of transmission to small engine.
David Fud
OMG, I totally forgot about the van I learned to drive in. VW bus with a diagonal gear pattern and you have to push the stick into the floor to make it go into reverse. Trickiest stick I ever drove, and only on a learning basis, it was my aunt’s car.
Bumper
Probably a dead thread but here goes. First car some kind of Subaru in 1982. Total lemon, couldn’t drive. Traded it in for 79 Datsun 210. Loved that car. Ran it till AC gave out. Bought my first brand new car – a 90 Honda Civic manual sedan. Also an awesome car. Finally gave it to oldest son last year, still on road. Various military moves meant we had some short term cars – an Accord and a van in Japan, a Chevy Astro van in Virginia. Currently have a 07 Dodge Ram Megacab (our 2nd new car) for our current house in the boonies of the PNW. And two years ago bought a 12 Toyota Venza. We have a 96 Town and Country van that doing good work as a practice vehicle for the local high school auto repair class. Finally, husband’s vanity car which never gets driven, a 79 Porsche.
Possibly in the market for a beater for 2nd son in college. Suggestions appreciated.
burnspbesq
1970 Volvo 145
1975 VW Rabbit
1984 Honda Civic
1987 VW Golf GTI
1989 Mazda Miata
1996 Mitsubishi Galant
2001 Volvo V40
2004 Porsche Boxster
2008 Audi A3 Sportback (should have kept this one)
2011 VW Jetta diesel wagon
2014 BMW X1
2017 BMW 328d wagon (unless I wreck it or diesels are outlawed, this is my last car)
burnspbesq
@Bumper:
Camry. They seem to never die.
Death Panel Truck
1947 Studebaker pickup. My dad gave it to me, but I sold it before trying to fix it up. It’s probably worth a fortune today.
1971 Dodge Demon (two of them, actually – a green 340 car and an orange 318 with a 360 crate engine)
1961 Ford Fairlane Town Sedan (the big Fairlane before they downsized them in ’63)
1959 GMC pickup
1961 Chevy Apache 10 pickup
1962 Buick Electra 225. (Probably shouldn’t be a list of hoopties because it was the Best. Car. Ever. If I could go back in time and get one of my old cars back, it’d be this one.)
1981 Chevy Citation X-11. Not as bad as you might think. Put a lot of miles on it.
1981 Subaru DL. My wife’s dad gave it to us. Another high-miler.
2006 Chevy HHR
2006 Subaru Outback
2010 Subaru Forester
Today we have a 2014 Camaro RS and a 2004 GMC Sierra 2500HD with the Duramax diesel.
SgrAstar
@Ruckus: very sorry to hear about your Toyota travails, Ruckus. My little 1985 pickup truck has >300k miles and is still going strong. My current car is a RAV 4- suitable for dog transport and for driving in snow/desert. It’s a 2006 and is in great shape, except for the dog hair part. :)
Brian
@opiejeanne: I remember that ‘Cuda
Ruckus
@SgrAstar:
I didn’t talk of my Honda motorcycle which had the motor replaced and then the frame. Hey someone has to get the few lemons. Just my lot in life I guess. Or maybe there was a real reason my dad wouldn’t talk about his time in the Pacific in the 40s and I got the karmic debt for it. He never was one to not buy something from Japan if he thought it was better than from anywhere else. He bought Japanese precision tools after the 60s, while a lot of mine are Swiss.
ETA I know a lot of people with Toyotas and I’m the only one I know that got lemons. I know I’m not the only person that did but the only one I know.
opiejeanne
@raven: I really wish we had kept that old 66 Ford pickup as well as the shiny new 1974 one. Both ran great and if we’d held onto the older truck we eventually would have coughed up the dough to replace that stupid gasket.
We’ve never really had a lemon but knew people who had terrible luck with their cars/trucks. The little Toyota Corona we bought new in 1970 was still running great at 180k in 1992… 1993? but it didn’t have AC and the third new baby complete with car seat meant that one of the other two kids would have to ride in the trunk. They objected to that plan.
David Evans
Here’s my list from the UK. Most of them will be totally unfamiliar to most of you. N is for bought new. Starting in 1966.
Ford Anglia
Austin Mini (the original!) N
Austin A35
Austin A40
Ford Cortina estate
Reliant Rebel estate N
Lada 1200 cc estate N
Lada 1500 cc estate N
VW Polo (twice) N
Nissan Micra
Skoda Favorit Estate N
Skoda Felicia N
Honda Jazz N
Nissan Note N
The car I kept the longest and liked best was the Honda. I’ve had the Nissan 3 years and it’s doing well so far.