Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in. We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.
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Surely everyone has car stories, right?
I’m not even a car person, and I have stories. My first car was a Dodge Dart, and I remember taking my Dodge Dart Swinger (that was the model name) in for repair, and it needed a new diaphragm, which is apparently the name of a real part, but there was a lot of yucking it up at the repair shop when the 20-something girl came in with her Dodge Dart Swinger that needed a new diaphragm.
And there was my black, gorgeous, sporty Subaru that saved my life when I got hit by the semi. That’s a story. I loved that car so much, even before it saved my life.
Anyway, tell us some stories where your car played a part, whether it was the star of the show or a minor character. A car that saved you? A car that betrayed you? A car that made your image in high school? Anyone old enough here that you conceived your first child in the back seat? Or maybe you being conceived in the back seat of your parent’s car.
I have a great car story about my date with a Chicago cop – I was only 17, what the hell was my mom thinking letting me go on a date with a Chicago cop, even if my sister’s best friend knew him? But I’m out of time because it’s 7 pm so I’ll just have to end here.
Anyway, tell us your stories!
*topic suggested by rekoob
bbleh
TOTALLY not a car person here — didn’t own a car ’til I was 27. BUT my first one was a (used but VERY well-kept) Alfa Spider Veloce (Pininfarina body!) convertible in San Francisco, and I still remember picking up a BIG (like 9-foot) Christmas tree for our (group) flat on the Peninsula and driving it up 101, with the top down and the tree leaning back in the passenger seat (pretty cold, but no rain), and actually getting cheers from folks on a bus I passed.
pacem appellant
I was just re-telling this story to my MIL. On a road trip when I was in middle school, we were on a long stretch of highway with few gas stations. My dad was driving, and when my mom prompted whether we should stop at this gas station, my dad overruled her, thinking that we had enough gas and the price at that station was too high anyway.
Time passes. There are no more gas stations. The gauge is ticking down. Even though it’s the middle of summer and this is one of those desolate highways in the west, we turn off the A/C. Everyone is getting cranky. My mom is yelling at my dad. Me and my sisters are scared of the anger coming from the front seat. And we’re hot, practically hanging our heads out the windows. My dad is sweating while he grips the steering wheel as he tries to drown us all out. The “low fuel” sound starts pinging.
Suddenly, there’s a gas station sign and my dad signals to get off the highway. The engine turns off. We’re out of gas. But we’ve got momentum. He blows past the stop sign and pulls up to a pump. My mom is beyond furious. Me and my siblings really have to pee so we pile out while they do their angry adult thing.
My dad has never run out of gas ever again.
Derelict
1981 Toyota Corolla. Only car I ever broke even on. Bought it new for $7500. Put 155,000 miles on it, then traded it in. The odometer only went to 99,000, then reset to zeroes, so the dealer thought it only had 55,000 on it.
I loved that car!
danielx
I once had the bad judgment to buy a 1975 Fiat 124 sport coupe, which was without doubt the worst car that I have ever owned. EVERYTHING broke on that car, including the steering wheel. Transmission, engine, you name it. I eventually paid forty bucks to have it towed away. Found out later the entire model run for that year was recalled because of…rust. Evidently if you didn’t park it in a garage it would rust after a heavy dew.
Of course, I made up for it by buying a 1981 BMW 320i, which was probably the best car I ever owned. Not fast (whopping 110 horsepower I believe), but reliable as the day is long in July, still simple enough to work on myself and felt like it was carved out of the solid instead of built. Haven’t had a car since that sounded the same when you closed the door, like a bank vault.
MoCaAce
We were 15 years old when me and my best friend borrowed his mom’s 1975 Buick Skylark convertible for a quick spin while they were at a wedding. He came in kinda hot in the corner where he lived and took out his own mailbox then proceeded to lay 4” deep ruts across his own front yard. Made it up on the driveway and parked it in the garage. After a brief discussion about non-extradition countries I did what all 15 year old friends would do… wished him luck and got the hell out of there!
Chris
Not mine, but my aunt’s/cousin’s/whatsever-the-hell-people-are-when-you-get-into-that-First-Cousin-Second-Cousin-Once-Removed-Twice-Removed-Bullshit;
In the dark days before Al Gore invented the Internet, she was looking for her first car, and found an agreeable match in the classified ads of some paper for a car in another town. She calls, sets everything up, gets on a Greyhound and crosses the state to go buy the car.
… And then, the fly in the ointment: the car’s a stick shift! Cousin had never been taught to drive on one. But she still really wanted the car, so… in a real baptism by fire, she got the basics from the owner, paid for the car, and then learned to by bringing it home across the entire state.
It was stressful as fuck, by at the end of the day, by God she knew how to drive stick.
Almost Retired
My first car was a used 1972 Ford Pinto, a gift for my 16th birthday. I don’t think my parents were aware that this make and model tended to explode into a fiery apocalypse if slightly rear-ended. But maybe they were.
But never mind that. I was an undertaker’s kid, and had access to a beautiful gold-colored Cadillac hearse (if my parents were out of town). Perfect for a pony keg and a few friends, if parked discreetly. I guess it was sort of a chick magnet, although the chicks tended toward goth and emo.
Terrible gas mileage, by the way, but it was usually just driven from the church to the cemetery so that kept the costs of ownership in check.
I chose not to continue in the family business and left for Los Angeles immediately after graduation. I could hear the townspeople breathing a sigh of relief before I cleared the city limits.
Professor Bigfoot
I was 13 when “Le Mans” came out; long before I could drive; but it made such an impression on me that I wanted a Porsche my whole life; and had come to accept that I wasn’t going to get one.
During my birthday month in 2017 a 1997 Boxster kept popping into my FB feed. A couple of times I swiped it away, thinking “I can’t do that!”
It kept showing up for 4 days straight so I took it as a message from the Universe that I should go check it out.
It’s paint was terrible, its tires dry rotted, but it fired right up and I took it for a test drive with the top down, and I was in love.
“There’s nothing more expensive than a cheap Porsche,” and it is the absolute truth. Call it the P-car tax; owners of other cars will send it to the recyclers, Porsche owners will grumble, look to the stars, and hand over the credit card.
Because also, “There is no substitute.” I’ve certainly never driven anything that can hold speed through a corner like this raggedy-ass jalopy (don’t ask me about the convertible roof, for example).
bjacques
Nothing wild, just cars I’ve had and miss: 1977 BMW 320i, 1985 Mustang 5.0L, 1988 Volvo 240DL wagon. The last fell victim to my dad who is and was an inveterate tinkerer. Now I’ve sort of inherited a 2006 Alfa Romeo 147, a sweet ride.
Ages ago I went bombing through central Texas in a friend’s Porsche 1924 Turbo. Fun times.
All have been stick and I hope to keep driving such until they finally go extinct or I can’t drive anymore in 20 or so years.
frosty
I’ve got nothing but car stories but I think I traded them all with Prof Bigfoot awhile back. Maybe I can cast my mind back for some new ones.
Another Scott
Good topic!
When I was in college in Chicago a friend of my mom’s needed to have the starter replaced in her Dodge Dart. I said I’d do it, figuring it would be pretty easy – a few minutes under the car, 2 bolts, maybe a couple of screws, and some wires, and no problem. I’d had experience doing it on several GM cars over the years. I think she got the starter at JC Whitney, just up the road. Slant 6 Dodge. Ok.
The day came and I arrived at the place with my tools and was all ready to go.
Opened the hood, and OMG! It’s so EMPTY in there! And the starter is RIGHT THERE!!
I think it took about 5 minutes. So very easy, didn’t have to get under the car at all. It was RIGHT THERE!! It was so easy, I didn’t let her pay me anything for it.
That’s one of my few car repair memories that was pleasant. You don’t want to hear about my adventures with rusty drum brake bleeder screws…! Grr…
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Melancholy Jaques
@Professor Bigfoot:
Loved that movie. My fascination with racing began with Grand Prix and continues to this very day. I had various kinds of if I won the lottery dream cars over the years, but never came close to owning any of them. Congratulations on your Porsche.
eclare
@Chris:
I learned to drive on a stick shift, so I’m familiar with it. However, when I visited some friends in San Francisco, they let me borrow their car for a day, a stick shift. I drove out to see Muir Woods, and coming back into the city I kept looking at various streets to take to get back to their apt. I’d look, think to myself “no”, rinse repeat. I was starting to panic. Then I finally saw a sign indicating “Truck Route.” Huge sigh of relief, and I made it back shortly thereafter.
Suzanne
A few car stories, but the one that springs to mind is the time that I was making a right, in my previous Honda CR-V, and I got hit by a cyclist who was riding the wrong way on the sidewalk, and who was not visible due to a large overgrown bush in the sight visibility triangle. Cyclist bounced backward, messed up his bike, but he was okay. I tried to get him medical attention, but he refused. I also tried to exchange insurance info, but he didn’t have any.
A side note: sight visibility triangles are one of the best things about newer development.
Another note: it would be nice to have a thread about the arson (maybe attempted murder?) of the PA Gov and his family. Someone set the Governor’s residence on fire with the whole Shapiro family inside, though they got out safely. The pictures of the damage are terrible. And while they are celebrating Passover.
Professor Bigfoot
I was living in an apartment complex in a small Indiana city; and driving my 1981 Audi 5000 Turbo.
I loved that car, but the turbo lag was monstrous and torque steer was a beast– anyway, I was at the exit of my complex, needing to turn right.
About 50 meters or so to my left there was a traffic light and I saw it turn green.
I took the opportunity to make the turn and put my foot in it. Which was fine until the turbo boost kicked in to drive me right past a sitting cop at about 65.
I just pulled over. There was no need for him to turn on his lights; and as he walked towards me (SOP is to roll down all the windows) he could hear me guffawing. I said to him as he got to my door, “Ya got me!” By the time he took my license and reg he was laughing too.
He was kind, he only wrote me up for doing 45 in a 35, but… I still laugh about it. SUCH IS MY LUCK!
zhena gogolia
Two simultaneous Medium Cool threads?
Professor Bigfoot
@Melancholy Jaques: Thank you, but trust me, it’s a jalopy.
I love it, but I can’t lie to myself. 😂
Scout211
My first car was a hand-me-down from my older sister. A spiffy teal colored 1963 Chevrolet Bicayne. That car was roomy! And it a piece of junk, but it did get me through grad school.
My first brand new car was a 1976 Chevrolet Vega (standard transmission) station wagon in a sweet blue color. And it was a piece of junk. But it got me to California and lasted several years after that even though I had to replace the clutch twice.
The next car was Toyota pickup long bed that my husband and I bought. We added a carpet kit (remember those?) and used it for camping and hauling kids. I have purchased many Toyotas or Hondas ever since and none have been a piece of junk.
But that Toyota long bed pickup (circa 1979) was the vehicle that has the most meaning for me. We gave that truck to our middle daughter when she went to college. On her way back from visiting her boyfriend (now husband) and his family she had a horrible crash. She missed a stop sign on a highway and ran right into a big rig. Her truck was caught under the trailer and dragged until the truck driver could stop his rig. She was alive but had head injuries and staples in her head. She eventually fully recovered, thank goodness.
But the cab of the trunk was completely sheared off and no one could believe that she hadn’t been decapitated. It turns out that the bench seat of that truck was right up against the back wall of the cab and really not all that comfortable. But when she first hit the truck, her head bounced off that back wall and she immediately folded forward and landed on a pile of stuffed animals that she always took with her. So the poor design of that tiny truck cab (and her stuffies) saved her life.
Another Scott
@Chris: Relatedly,
The Cousin Explainer – a useful chart!
Best wishes,
Scott.
Deputinize America
Dad hit a brilliant stratagem when I was 13 to buy some guy’s piece of shit short dragster – a 1963 Falcon that was kitted out for short races – it had a Holly 650 mounted on a 359, a full race cam, a Hurst shifter, positraction and racing slicks so large that the rear fender had rusty cutouts. Keystone wheels and the handpainted name “Foul Play” completed the ensemble.
Dunno what he was thinking. It had no heat, no gas gauge and no speedometer, but a good tach.
rekoob
Since I was one of the people who suggested this topic when it popped up in an earlier Medium Cool thread a couple of weeks ago, I’ll weigh in.
I’m a car nut. I could tell the difference between a 1968 Buick Skylark and a 1969 Buick Skylark in the dark at 100 paces when I was 10. In the mid-70s, I did an inventory of the cars my parents had owned since they got married in 1956, and my father kept the list and updated it until he died 10 years ago.
My first car was a 1966 Oldsmobile Cutlass convertible in dark red/maroon, that I bought (with my Dad’s help — we called it a “profit participation program” [I profited, he participated]). As a Liberal Arts student, I chose the Roman numeral “LXVI” for the license plate. I sold it to a college contemporary when I moved to Europe.
Over the years, I’ve owned some wonderful cars, but the one I’ve had the longest is my current daily driver, a 2008 Honda S2000 CR (a rare variant built for 2 years). I got it in Scottsdale, Arizona in 2009, after it had been sitting on the showroom floor for the better part of a year. It’s been great.
Gloria DryGarden
My first car was a Dodge Dart, w a slant 6. You could look under the hood and know what things were. My friend Don helped me replace the clutch, helped me adjust the tappets, and of course, change the spark plugs and coil, etc. It was a good car.
i have many happy memories of my friendship w he and his wife, my first full time job out of college, working on my car, long conversations, great life advice. We’ve remained friends off and on, 40 some years.
two years back I was on the verge of setting up a chat w him about how I might move to Mexico, when he suddenly died. I wish I could still talk to him, yet I’m glad to be connecting with his wife. When he died she …. Was unavailable for quite awhile, understandably.
Connecting got started over my need for home diy car mechanic help.
Scout211
I didn’t see the other one. I think that’s the one from last week.
I sent her an email in case it’s a mistake.
pika
I had a car at the time, but that’s not the interesting car story.
Friends tell this story of driving along a rural road, seeing a giant snapping turtle crossing.
They get out the car and try to usher the turtle to the other side of the road.
Truck pulls up.
Dude jumps out, grabs turtle by the tail, cries “GOOD EATING!,” slings turtle into truck bed, and squeals off into the sunset.
NeenerNeener
@Almost Retired: I think the used Pinto I had was a ’73. The door handles on the inside used to break off and rip my hands open. It also didn’t like to start when it rained. I put an 8-track deck with speakers mounted in the back and the acoustics in the back were pretty good.
And thinking of that Pinto reminds me of one evening in high school when one of my friends wanted to go see this guy she used to flirt with at the local roller rink. She talked one of our other friends into driving us over there. Said friend had been drinking and here we were stuck in the back of this two door Pinto when K (the driver) stops on the railroad tracks for some reason I don’t even remember now, and asks “Is there anything coming?”. I looked down the tracks and saw a train headed for us so I said, “Yes, a train”. She either thought I was kidding, or none of her synapses were firing particularly quickly because she sat that on the tracks with us stuck in the back for what seemed to me like forever before she hit the gas and finished crossing the tracks. I never rode with her again.
Chris
@Another Scott:
Ah, thank you! So she’s my first cousin, once removed.
frosty
Car adjacent. Summer after sophomore year in college my brother and I got jobs in a bookbindery, loading paper on to folding machines. There were four older set-up men who kept the machines running and every day they went out to lunch, came back with a case of Rolling Rock ponies, a bottle of Boone’s Farm, and a fifth of Seagrams. They drank it all and went back to work.
So after a couple of weeks I get up the nerve to ask my set-up man if he wouldn’t mind contributing to the delinquency of a minor and buy us a 6-pack of ponies. Which he did and continued to do for the rest of the summer.
So my brother and I are sitting in our Bugeye Sprite, eating sandwiches and drinking a beer when a bumblebee flies into the window.
Sez brother: “Fuckin’ bee!”
Sez me: “Fuckin’ A!”
Both of our wives are sure that a jury will consider it justifiable homicide if they ever hear this story again.
Bugeye Sprite
Professor Bigfoot
Swooooonnnnn… sweet and unique.
TheOtherHank
We live near San Francisco (a few miles down the coast on the ocean side of the peninsula). And we have more than one manual transmission car. When my sons got their licenses, they weren’t allowed to drive the manual cars away from the house until they could do a hill start.
Edit: this was meant as a reply to eclare
Almost Retired
@NeenerNeener: Ford Pintos encouraged a certain fatalism amongst its owners.
Josie
When I was in high school, my older brother and I shared a 1939 Studebaker. It was a small car with stick shift, constantly ran out of water and heated up, but it got us where we wanted to go. You had to go somewhere that had running water or carry a large container of water with you to fill it up before starting for home. Back then you could get a driver’s license at fourteen. I would pile friends in the car and drive to the next little town so we could circle The Robin (the local drive-in hamburger joint) and see who was there. Being a teenager in a small town in the 50’s was great fun.
JG in MA
My aunt made the mistake of taking me car shopping when I was a kid. I’m sure we looked at some sensible choices but the one I flipped for was the Fiat X-19 – a sporty two-seater with T-tops that anyone my age would have fallen in love with. It was also incredibly unreliable even by Seventies standards and never spent more than a week or two out of the shop, and she didn’t have it for long. Years later she asked, “Remember that terrible car you made me buy?” Me: “I was nine! Why were you listening to me?”
Nukular Biskits
I’ve had so many cars, trucks and motorcycles over the years that I don’t think I could pick just one story.
Not counting my parents’ vehicles and in rough order of ownership:
eclare
@Scout211:
That is a miracle.
A Ghost to Most
1976, Datsun 240z with extensive engine work, rollin’ through Nebraska whining, flying low at 3 AM and 150 mph, working on a Get Out of Denver. Volvo P1800 rolls by, waving bye-bye. That wouldn’t do, so off we go. Left it behind doing 165, then cherries. Cop asks how fast we were going. 90, I said. He laughed. Only our military IDs saved our asses. We rolled on to several big adventures, including driving from Vail to Steamboat in 90 minutes.
Central Planning
@Gloria DryGarden and @WaterGirl: My first car was also a Dodge Dart – 1970 with a slant six, tan with a black hard top.
I put a fake cell phone antenna on the rear window, and I drove around with a cardboard cutout of Crocadile Dundee in the passenger seat.
frosty
Here’s my favorite amazing movie car story. It’s about the Highland Green 1968 Mustang fastback that Steve McQueen drove in Bullitt. Here’s the story:
Steve McQueen’s Bullitt-Movie Mustang Suddenly Reappeared
The owner’s father bought it from a classified ad in 1974 and they used it as a daily driver until the clutch went out and it sat in a barn for a lot of years. The owner’s boss was working on a movie that featured the Mustang in his spare time.
On the long drive back to the office, the boss asked the owner what cars he had inherited from his father.
rekoob
My parents embraced the energy efficiency drive of the mid-70s — one of my father’s law clients was the local Buick dealer, which meant we could check out all the Opels (Dad wanted an Opel GT, but there was a dock strike and he couldn’t get one). We had a succession of Mantas, Asconas (Opel Sportwagon in the US), and the like. Once the dealership was sold, they switched to the Ford dealer, which was closest to their house. I had a 1984 Ford Escort station wagon with a Mazda-sourced Diesel engine — 55 mpg!
Technically, the car I’ve owned the longest is the 1986 Jaguar XJ6 (Series III) that my father bought in 1988 and gave me in the mid-90s, but it’s been in repose at a mechanic’s in the Great Southwest for some time.
eclare
@TheOtherHank:
I could do a hill start, I learned to drive when I lived in Knoxville TN, which is hilly, and of course I took off for the Smoky Mountains every chance I got. San Francisco has the freaking Alps.
Gloria DryGarden
@Nukular Biskits: that’s a lot of cars. I find it an expensive hassle to change cars, all the repairs to bring them up to speed.
In 45 years I’ve had 6 cars, all used, driven until they couldn’t go, got totalled, or stolen. Dodge Dart, 2 Subaru station wagons, a Toyota and then Honda station wagon. And now a Toyota Corolla sedan.
I miss having a station wagon, for camping and garden hauling, but I no longer haul a massage table to clients, so it’s not necessary.
Gloria DryGarden
@eclare: When I learned to drive we only had manual transmissions at our house, and we lived up a rather steep hill, in golden. Certainly one learned how to do a hill start.
one of my small world stories involved my neighbor up there on lookout view court, under the G, on south table mountain.
I think a fun future topic for medium cool would be stories about coincidental meetings and unlikely mutual acquaintances in farther away places: small world stories.
Chris
@Central Planning:
Oh, that’s not a cardboard cutout… THAT’S a cardboard cutout!
Suzanne
@Gloria DryGarden: I’m not a big car person, either. I’ve only had four of them in my driving life. A Corolla that was totaled when I got rear-ended by a large pickup, a Civic that I lost in my divorce, a CR-V that got to 210,000 miles and so I traded it in for another CR-V.
I just don’t enjoy driving, and so if I runs well and it’s clean…. it’s fine. I’m not fancy,
I really like Hondas.
Gloria DryGarden
@Central Planning: I think Other Scott also had a slant 6.
God what a great car. Empty under the hood, no mystery, accessible.
Gloria DryGarden
@rekoob: You have a jaguar, such pretty hood ornaments, but made in UK, and residing at the repair shop. My friend Don, who did his own motorcycle maintenance, and worked on my Dodge Dart with me, told a joke about English cars. Perhaps you’ve heard it.
He prefaced this joke by explaining that Englishmen enjoyed tinkering with their cars on the weekends, and that long drives there are much shorter than in the USA.
” Why don’t the English make TVs?
They can’t get them to leak oil”
pajaro
@Central Planning:
1st car–1969 Dodge Dart, yellow body, black roof. (I thought everyone had a VW Beetle, but I am clearly with the BJ kool kids on this one).
Nukular Biskits
@Gloria DryGarden:
Keep in mind that’s over the course of nearly 45 years. And reflected changing circumstances. For example, that 1987 T-type was the car I absolutely loved … but when my first child came along, I couldn’t afford both car payments AND diapers/formula and had to sell it.
Central Planning
@Gloria DryGarden: I had to replace the thermostat one winter. I over-torqued the bolts for the elbow when I put it back together and cracked it. You’re right – a ton of space in the engine compartment made it easy to work on.
frosty
I learned to drive in a Nash Metropolitan, 3 on the
treedash. Our garage was at the bottom of a fairly steep driveway. Dad parked it in the garage facing out, handed me the keys and said “Call me when you get to the street.”After three weeks of “screech, buck, buck, stall, drift backwards” I made it.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
There was a “ride board” at CU Boulder for people looking for a ride and drive sharing when school was over.
Spring 1980, end of freshman year, I got a ride from another student driving back to the DC area. Her car was a 1970 Dodge Dart Sedan. We were barely to Limon when she got sick so I started driving.
The car started overheating going into STL. We stalled alongside the interstate and a STL bus driver pushed us up the off ramp.
Two 18-year old white kids in a very black neighborhood not knowing wtf to do. Managed to get the car started, made it to a station where they replaced the thermostat.
That got us to East St Louis where the car started overheating again. Turns out the radiator had never been flushed. Once again, two white kids in a very black neighborhood and everybody helped and were so nice–I think they pitied these two clueless white kids who didn’t give a shit about the reputation East STL had (among white suburbanites). We got to another place with the help of some folks where we snoozed in the front and back while they flushed the radiator and did something else, I don’t remember.
I then continued to drive the rest of the way back to DC, the Dart always on the verge of overheating.
p.a.
1975 learned to drive on my dad’s ’64 Impala 409, 4bbl , a hand-me-down from his brother. He saw me spinning & smoking the tires, car was gone the next week for a ’67 (IIRC) LeMans with a 6 that couldn’t get out of its own way.
’84 Skyhawk, w others in the car, Friday evening Tappan Zee heading west, outside lane. 18 Wheeler in next lane decides it wanted my spot. Had to absolutely jack up, brake pedal to the floor, it would have squished us into the rail or over into the Hudson. Friday evening and there was no one behind me to rear end me. Also IIRC the rail at the time was a horizontal pipe with vertical pipe supports. I had an image of my car- and us- going through like an egg in one of those wire egg slicers. If I win powerball that will be the 2nd luckiest thing to happen to me.
Citizen Dave
Tom Waits on various cars: https://youtu.be/rradm1JqBfk?si=zOQODH4nTVcvcnji
Ramalama
@Derelict: Ah! My Corolla had 408,000 miles on it when I decided not to get all new brakes and start driving something with AWD. Weekly trips through mountains of NH, VT made my little Corolla shake from the wind. It was the peppiest car, easy to maintain. But not great in snowstorms.
persistentillusion
1972 Camaro, which I drove between Chicago and Massachusetts straight during the 70s. Never got above 120mph on the NY Turnpike, which had lovely straight sections. Miss that car.
Also spent time at Limerock watching the F-1. Graduated to tix to the Indy 500 when I (mistakenly) married a guy whose dad had a tangential relationship to Indy and got us great seats. Fourth turn looking down the straight to S/F line, four rows off the track. On hot days, you’d be gray from the tire bits blown up from the track onto your face.
ETA – Worked at a Porsche/Audi dealership from the time I was 16 until I graduated high school. Didn’t know how to drive a stick. Tragic.
frosty
Okay, let’s see if I can remember them all …
These were ones I drove that my parents owned
’57 Nash Metropolitan. The car I learned how to do a four-wheel drift in. At about 20 mph LOL.
’61 Bugeye Sprite. A much cooler car for a high school kid than the Metro! This was the one my dad, me, and my brother learned to do an engine rebuild on (and a lot of other stuff).
’66 Mustang (Mom’s car, 6-cyl, 3 speed). First car I got a speeding ticket in.
These were ones I owned:
’65 Triumph Tiger Cub motorcycle. 200cc single cylinder. Learned how to do wheelies the day I bought it.
’67 Alfa Romeo Duetto. Worst car I ever owned. Two head gaskets in less than a year.
’61 Triumph TR-3. The mechanic who worked on my Alfa liked it and traded his Triumph to me. One of my favorites – when it ran. I took it across the country from California to Maryland twice. Two engine rebuilds, a tranny, and four generators in four years. I sold it when I left California and headed east in the Datsun pickup (see below) towing a U-Haul with everything I owned. The pickup had a 1600cc four-banger and didn’t have great acceleration with the trailer!
’69 Datsun 510. I had to have something that ran when the TR was out of commission.
’71 Datsun pickup. Because every boy should own a sports car, a motorcycle, and a pickup.
Then I got married
’80-something Chevy Cavalier wagon. First new car I ever owned.
’80-something Chevy Cavalier wagon
‘XX Dodge Caravan. Ms F drove this and I inherited her …
’77 Honda Civic
— A variety of minivans and SUVs that Ms F drove
’90 Mazda Miata. We bought one from the dealer’s third shipment, VIN showed it was one of the first 5,000 built. A fun, reliable, Japanese version of the British sports cars that drove me crazy. It was my daily driver for 23 years and over 2,000 miles when it ended up totaled on the Baltimore Beltway.
2000 Mercury Sable that I got from my mom when she couldn’t drive any more.
2014 Mazda 3 hatchback. Current and probably last car. When I bought it I figured I’d need it for 20 years and 200,000 miles when the kids take my keys away. Halfway there! Fun car and it gets an honest 40mpg on the interstate, mid-30s in mixed driving.
Jay
2nd car, was a 1972 4dr Mercury Montego, basically a Ford LTD with some cosmetic Mercury touches. $500 used, 3 speed auto, 460 motor. Ran it stock for about a year, saved up some money and got to work on it. First, was the suspension. The RCMP had run souped up Ford Ltd’s as Highway Interceptors, so there were a lot of cheap parts in the wrecking yards.
Next was the engine. Bored out to 520cu inches, new cam, new valves, titanium push rods, new intake, 2 500cfm Holly carbs, headers, dual oversized exhaust with Thrush mufflers. 270 Schaffer ring gear with a limited slip. 60 series T/A’s on cloned Shelby mags.
Car could fly down the highway, cornered okay after all, it was still a boat. 3 in front on the bench seat, 3 in the back on the bench seat, and you could fit 4 bodies in the trunk. Speedo pegged out at 120mph, a pinhole leak in the front windshield would cause the headliner to collapse at 150mph and it topped out at about 170mph.
Driving across Wyoming, we got pulled over by a State trooper. Back then, they didn’t have speed limits on the highways, but we were headed out on a fishing trip, towing a 16′ drift boat, and the Trooper thought it was a bit of a safety concern, because when we passed by him, both the boat and the trailer were airborne.
Ben Cisco
There were three vehicles at home when I was ready to learn to drive:
Papa Cisco insisted I learn on the C10. Shifting was more like shoving the stick in the general vicinity of where it was supposed to go and praying it landed. Calling that thing loose was like calling the Grand Canyon a small indentation in the ground. Good times.
(And by good times I really mean…)
Just look at that parking lot
When I was 16 I got my first car. I was force to buy my mom’s 1970 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon. This was a major letdown since I considered myself as a Triumph Spitfire sporting type. When the 1973 oil shock arrived , that rise in gasoline prices really crimped my budget. So I came up with a plan to steal gas from the maintenance compound of a nearby golf course. There wasn’t any gates or security, so it was going to be a cinch. Around 11 my brother and I drove over and filled up. Soon after leaving , the car started billowing thick white smoke out the tailpipe. We thought it was hilarious and pretended we were James Bond in his Aston Martin letting out the smoke screen, just like he did in Goldfinger.
After a while we finally went home and siphoned out whatever it was we had put in.
We still come to tears laughing about that night.
Scout211
I’m surprised that so many jackals learned to drive on a car with standard transmission. I learned to drive on both my mother’s Rambler with standard transmission and my dad’s big Ford sedan with automatic transmission.
Back in the 60s in my high school, they still taught driver’s education and driver’s training. Local car dealers loaned cars to the school for driver’s training in exchange for advertising. You had to drive both a standard and an automatic cars for the behind the wheel training. I drove a Pontiac Firebird with standard transmission for driver’s training and that was fun. The only cool car I ever drove.
Hungry Joe
After we graduated from college in 1972 a friend and I drove around the U.S. and Canada. We got into a fender-bender in Toronto and the car (a VW squareback) had to be towed to a repair/body shop. The tow truck driver somehow thought I was a local, and laughed about how this repair shop really screwed out-of-towners who’d been in an accident.
After he dropped me off with the car I realized that in the confusion my friend and I hadn’t agreed where to meet up — he’d gone to some ER to get a few stitches in his arm. We camped every night, and of course had our camping stuff in the car. But I remembered we’d planned to see a movie that night: “Marjoe.” Just as it was starting, my friend walked in and sat down two rows in front of me.
The next day I went into to the repair shop. They’d done some basic work, enough to make it drivable. The charge was, as expected, outrageous — at least triple what it should have been. I made a pre-arranged signal to my friend, who had a spare key and was watching from across the street. He sauntered into their lot as I was explaining that I had to go get the money. He eased the car out of the lot, picked me up around the corner, and we drove hell-for-leather to the border.
I’ve been back to Canada. No problems getting in or out. Apparently I’m either not on any wanted posters or there’s a statute of limitations on stiffing pirates.
persistentillusion
@p.a.: Driving that Camaro back east, in an ice storm, through Canada from Chicago. Doing ok, although Camaros are not known for their abilities on snow or ice. Crested a hill coming down into New Hampshire to nothing but brake lights, the highway closed from a crash. Pointed the car into a snowbank (it was New Hampshire in the 70s) and waited for the cops to come check on me while I had hysterics.
Scout211
I hope Hungry Joe is not your real name. There could be problems getting through the border these days. ;-)
Jay
@Hungry Joe:
The Shop would have had to take out a title lien on the vehicle in the place where it was registered. Being “out of Province”, that costs some, so the “Pirates” prefer to keep your keys and the car behind chain link.
While skipping out on a repair bill is a civil matter, the Police won’t arrest you for stealing your own car.
cope
I’ve too many tales of driving cars that involved potential for death and destruction as a result of poor decisions but the one that I am still hearing about, some 44 years later, is the trip we took from Ouray, CO to Telluride via a rented Jeep.
I drove (I always drive), my few months pregnant wife sat next to me and two of my buddies held on in the back seat. We had a map. I majored in geology and know how to read maps. At one point, we found ourselves at the foot of a talus slope of shattered rocks. I could see the tracks of the route shown on the map. We took off up the talus but eventually, it thinned out and I finally admitted we (?!) were on the wrong track.
To go back down, I would have to do what was essentially a three point turn while backing down a steeply piled slope of loose rock. Everybody else got out while I perfectly executed the maneuver. Apparently, they thought I would die in the process. HA HA, fooled them. They got back in, we made it safely to Telluride and, via the highway, back to Ouray.
Back at the Jeep rental place, I was looking at a USGS map of the route when I figured out that I had actually followed a route up and over to Telluride. It was labelled “goat trail”.
ETA: I am constantly reminded of this trip by my wife who always refers to it as “The Day You Tried to Kill Us!”.
NotMax
Nostalgic favorite among cars owned: brand new ’71 Mercury Capri (5-speed stick V-6, British racing green with tan leather upholstery).
Most missed among cars owned: used ’68 Chrysler Town & Country station wagon (extra roomy and comfy interior, a blast to drive – that 440 V-8 engine could practically climb it up a vertical wall).
Most fickle: ’70 Audi 100LS (when running was such a nice ride one could almost forgive the multiple times something under the hood threw a hissy fit, the latter with such regularity I dubbed it the Audi Limona).
Most versatile: ’84 Dodge Colt Vista (4-speed stick; looked petite on the outside, TARDIS-like on the inside).
.
persistentillusion
@NotMax: My current ride, a 2015 Subaru Legacy, in TARDIS blue has a sticker saying “TARDIS chameleon circuit” in very small print. Bought the car because of the color.
ETA: Also larger on the inside. Great trait in a car.
Jay
@Scout211:
After the Merc, my next car was a Datsun 510, 4dr, lowered, close ratio transmission, 60 series tires on the Cortina rims.
My brother took the on ramp onto the Queensborough bridge way to fast, in the rain, in my Dad’s Chevy window van. Hit the railing, bounced 180 and hit the railing with the rear, bounced off again and got Tboned by a semi, that had managed to slow down enough.
So everybody needed a ride at different times of day, so my brother and my Dad at times had to drive my 510.
I went through 2 clutches in 3 months and had to rebuild the tranny.
Craig
@Deputinize America: fun!
Hungry Joe
@Scout211: As it happens, Hungry Joe is NOT my real name.
Soon after we started our trip the starter broke — wouldn’t work when the engine was cold. We tried several times to get it fixed, but nobody could figure out what was wrong, and we couldn’t afford a new starter. So we had to pop the clutch. Every. Single. Morning. We became experts at it, sensing and parking on the slightest downgrade, and learning exactly how to push (keep going when the car bucks: Push THROUGH it) and the perfect way — for that car, anyway — to pop the clutch: have it in second, not first gear. It was annoying as hell, but at the same time oddly gratifying.
Quaker in a Basement
When I was a teen living on the Florida gulf coast, I hung around with the surfing crowd. The car we all sought out was the Volvo 544. If you haven’t seen one, it looks like an overgrown VW Beetle with a big hump back and big round front fenders.
I found one. A 1959 model with a 6 volt electrical system. The odometer had given out long before I bought it so the mileage on it was anyone’s guess. The floorboard in the back seat was rusted through. Passengers could see the pavement rush by beneath their shoes.
There were no fewer than five or six other young men among my acquaintances who had similar cars in varying colors. One kid, named Tom, had one that was pretty close to the same shade of yellow as my car. Tom also had the same bushy, sunbleached surfer hair that I had.
I’d be driving along and a car behind me would start honking its horn and flashing its headlights and soon would pull up alongside and driver would yell, “Tom!” Then they’d look at me perplexedly and say, “You’re not Tom.”
This went on for a year or two. I turned from the surfing crowd to the hippie crowd and grew my hair to shoulder length. Tom, who was a year or two ahead of me in school headed off to college. For a short while, no one mistakenly chased me down.
Until his sister Patty got her license. Patty had straight, shoulder-length, blonde hair. After that, cars would pull up and the driver would shout “Patty!’
Derelict
@Ramalama: Amen!
CaseyL
Oh, these are fabulous car stories! I’m enjoying how many of you went adventuring in cars that were clearly not made for such things.
…and they bring back memories of how unreliable so many cars used to be. And unsafe.
But I do have a deep love for what are now considered “classic” cars.
My Mom got one of the first Barracudas ever bought in the US, a ’64, possibly the first US car to have the “fastback” streamlined design. She likes to tell a story about bring pulled over by a cop during one of her first drives around town, and being in a pure panic because she didn’t know why, until the cop said, “Lady, you didn’t do anything wrong. I just want to know what car that is, I’ve never seen anything like it!”
The first car I ever owned was a ’78 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme – a fabulous car for a complete novice like me. A V-8 and, as one mechanic put it (after finding out I had never put oil in the car and didn’t even know you had to do that): “You can’t kill these cars.” I loved that car with all my heart, and was incredibly sad to leave her behind when I went back to Seattle. (I sold her super cheap to a young lady for whom it was also going to be a My First Car. )
rekoob
@Gloria DryGarden: The version I heard was, “Why don’t the English make watches?” with the same punch line.
Insert all the Car Talk observations about Lucas Electronics where, when one of the family was knighted or raised to the Peerage, Tom and Ray called him “The Prince of Darkness”.
NotMax
Friend had inherited his mother’s ’55 Thunderbird (complete with original leopard skin upholstery).
He was driving it back to college, from Philly to St. Cloud, MN. Crapped out about halfway there, out in the boonies. He ended up swapping it with the mechanic at the garage for a ’70 Plymouth Duster.
Picture the wide grin on that mechanic’s face as friend drove off.
danielx
@frosty:
Fucking Italian cars.
Almost as bad as the Fiat, a 67 Oldsmobile 442. Ram air, Hurst shifter, rated at 350 horsepower (a lot for those days) but unofficially rated a lot higher. Took three blocks to go around a corner but would go from 0 to 120 before you could spit. Don’t know what my parents were thinking when they let me buy it.
Craig
@TheOtherHank: that was my dad. I appreciate it, it’s great to be able to roll the car on the clutch pedal. I couldn’t take the test till we drove a bunch. My dad was a time trial driver in the UK when he was young, so I had to drive well.
Gin & Tonic
Back in the early 80’s, we had an ancient and really crappy Toyota Corolla, with probably three different shades of paint. My dear wife would drive it to her job at a hospital in Brooklyn, where she parked it in the street. One day her shift ended and she panicked because she couldn’t find her keys, and she was supposed to pick me up. In desperation she went out to the car – and found that not only had she left the keys in the ignition but the window open. Early 1980’s, Crown Heights, Brooklyn, if that means anything to anyone, and the car was so shitty it sat on the street for 8 hours with the keys in the ignition and nobody stole it.
Quaker in a Basement
Before I found by beloved Volvo, I drove my parents’ 1959 English Ford Anglia. It had to be the worst designed car ever made. It was a tiny, 2-door. Passengers got into the back seat by tilting the front seats forward on their hinges attached to the floor of the car. There were no seat belts. In the event of a crash, the seats woult act like a catapult launching the driver and front seat passenger into the windshield.
I accidentally shattered the dashboard when I loaded it up with my friends and went “trail-riding” in the woods. We hit a large mound of dirt and got stuck balanced on top of it. The sudden stop drove my knees into the dash and split it into three pieces.
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: It’s the exceedingly rare self-bigfoot.
Jay
@rekoob:
Brit bikes were infamous for “marking” their spot.
The issue was the case machining wasn’t great, (all done by hand) and the gaskets were ancient tech. New, at the factory, they would swirl hot paraffin through the cases before filling them with oil.
Of course, as soon as the cases are cracked for repairs or maintenance, they leak oil.
NotMax
Just for fun, a slice of automotive oddness.
p.a.
Fave car was a ’94 Accord 5-speed, not V-Tech, regular 4. Fun. Bought it in 2003 with 164k miles when Dewey invaded Iraq, as a backup to my 2001 Grand Cherokee. (Showing my usual economic genius thinking 2 cars, one gas-efficient, would be cheaper than either alone🤪)
Anyhow it died 2010 at 280k miles, not including the nine months I drove it without working speed- & od-ometers. Tach, gas, & temp worked so I let it be until I got a speeding ticket. Figured about 295k at the end. It died at the same time as the Jeep, with only 88k mi. Elec problems.
Both were replaced by my 2nd fave: 2010 Suzuki SX4 Cross. Probably really my fave, just the Accord was more fun. The Zuke never let me down, awd, even locking awd up to 35mph (front/back, but not side/side): not bad for an entry level sub-compact crossover vehicle. Had to let it go last month, 208k miles, but parts became an issue. Suzuki auto pulled out of North America in 2012.
Now 2023 Corolla Cross awd gas. Nice car. No personality. Slow, but so was the Zuke. I had trouble finding the Suzuki in parking lots because it was so small. I have trouble finding my new car because it looks like every other fucking thing on the road.
eldorado
Police auctioned ’76 Plymouth Grand Prix. My college car. Peeling roof, faded paint, cut seats
A/C and radio came pre-stolen
Would start on the first try even on the coldest day of winter
frosty
@danielx:
Honestly, the Brits may be a tad less reliable than the Italians. But the parts for the Alfa cost 4x as much as the Triumph!
NotMax
At one point during the 1970s, came this close to purchasing an Excalibur. Fortunately, reason and common sense prevailed.
frosty
@Jay: My Triumph crankcase split vertically so yeah, you had to depend on the gaskets to keep oil off the pavement. My brother’s Kawasaki split horizontally. No seam at the bottom to let the oil out.
Duh.
Gin & Tonic
@cope: Not a car story but a driving story. We were in Mendoza, Argentina, staying at a very small hacienda run by an ex-pat Belgian, who grew grapes and olives, and told us about a scenic road (I later learned it was called El Camino de las 365 Curvas.) It’s a narrow dirt road that goes up from Mendoza to Uspallata with the (possibly apocryphal) 365 turns. If you go on YouTube, you can find videos of people driving it. But note they always go uphill, from Mendoza. Since I didn’t know the details, and had only a vague map drawn on a napkin, we went downhill, from Uspallata. This was a very bad choice – by halfway down my hands were cramping because I was holding the wheel so tightly – all I could see in my head were images of the car, with us in it, rolling end-over-end down 2000 feet of loose rock. I was never so glad to get out onto the pavement at the end.
rekoob
@eldorado: Hmmm…either a Pontiac Grand Prix (a “personal luxury” car unlikely from a police auction), or perhaps a Plymouth Gran Fury, which was the large-ish sedan used by government agencies.
rekoob
@NotMax: The Excalibur was on display at the local department store around that time!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excalibur_(automobile)
The design was based on the late-20s Mercedes SSK.
kindness
@danielx: My first California car was a ’69 Fiat 124 Coupe. It was a great car. I was young, poor and dumb enough not to maintain it so in 5 years I was driving a VW bug. My high school car was a ’63 T-bird. Huge 390 8 cylinder with a body held together by the rust. This was 74-75 so after the ’73 oil embargo when gas doubled in price and never went back. The thing got 9 miles to the gallon. My current truck gets 16.
SamInWa
My first car as an adult was a 1990 Toyota pickup. Extra cab, 2 wheel (rear) drive. I bought it from Mom and Dad when it was only two years old on an installment plan of pay as much as you can. It was to get me to/from my first job after graduating from school. Manual transmission, which I drove in stop and go traffic for a 50 mile each way commute for 2 years. I had that truck for over 30 years. The first clutch needed replacing at 80k miles instead of the usual 100k.
That commute was what decided me that one day I would be able to talk to work… and over 35 year later, I can and do walk to work every day. It’s one of the few things in life that loved up to what I imagined it would be in my head. It is wonderful!
Along the way, I also bought a used 2001 Mercedes Benz SLK 320 (hard top convertible). That was a nice and fun car. I had that for over 12 years before I upgraded to a newer SLK55 AMG (certified pre-owned). I liked that car, too… but in looking back I wish I had skipped that one. I traded it in for a new 2018 Chevy Volt (plug-in hybrid).
I had more people come up to talk to me about my Truck that I ever did about either SLK.
I just have the Volt now and it’s been a great car for me. 92% of my driving has been on the electric engine. I finally this year had to put a little of my own money for what amounts to a tune-up on the internal combustion engine (plugs, fuel system cleaning, oil change). Other than oil changes, that’s been it since I got it. All other things have been covered under warranty. The Voltec (electric system) engine will run for 10 years or until 2028.
I’m pretty sure my next will be an all electric vehicle. I’ve been eyeing the RIVIAN R2. They seem to have their act together the best (after Tesla) on the, get in, plug your address, the car tells you where to drive and where to charge (if needed) end to end user experience right now. And well… not buying a Tesla these days…
Rusty
I was in high school in the early ’80’s, but drove a 1942 Ford pickup. I paid $450 for it, so it was not restored or a hot rod, (it had 6 coats of paint, at least one put on with a brush) but the old flathead 6 started every morning. When cold the grease in the transmission would freeze up, so you learned to leave it second and drive it in that gear until it warmed up enough to shift. It topped out at 50, so slow enough I didn’t kill myself. A year later I bought a 1972 Pontiac Granville convertible for $125. Appliance avocado green with a green top and green interior. Two gallons of bondo to fill the rust holes, and the 455 delivered single digit mileage. A 1976 Chevrolet Cosworth Vega in college, it had 4 valve per cylinder head, computer controlled fuel injection and a 5 speed manual. It was a blast to drive, it cornered beautifully, but keeping it running was a nightmare. A 74 Chevy Caprice convertible after college, added a 4 barrel and open exhaust to the 400. Then a series of practical cars, a two door 72 Ford LTD that was like new, and some more commonsense vehicles. On an ex-pat assignment in the UK from 2005-2009, I somehow convinced my company to give me a Land Rover Defender 110 (a safari vehicle) as my company car, and I bought a three wheeled Reliant Robin on a whim. 4 kids has meant more practical motivation most of my life, but I have managed to put over 200k miles on a 2013 Fiat 500c convertible. When it dies I hoping for used Miata.
The Cosworth Vega is in my garage awaiting resurrection from a three decade sleep, and the 42 pickup is in about 800 pieces and stashed in a shed, awaiting time and money, two rare things in my life.
Rusty
@rekoob: Honda S2000, those are fantastic. It has an 8,000 rpm red line right? My Cosworth Vega was like that, you had to get high in the revs for power, but so much fun.
Duhkaman
Like Cole, I learned to drive in Morgantown. At first on a borrowed ’64 Valiant that my friend inherited from his grandmother (along with a Citroen which he would not let me drive), and I promptly ran into another fellow before I got my learner’s permit (at the age of 20).
The first car I owned was a ’72 Volvo 240 station wagon. I had to have someone drive it off the lot because I still did not have a license. It was a horse and was the first car I drove anywhere and that anywhere was the post-BA grand tour of the western National Parks. Glorious and acid etched, in many ways, into my youthful consciousness. At the end of the summer, and 13000 miles later I sold the sweet blue horse to go to grad school. No car needed in the urban wilderness. So, three years without driving until I met me current wife and she lived far, far away from the T.
The car I needed was waiting on a city street where it had not moved for some time as was the custom in Greater Boston. A corrosive blue 95 hp, ’65 VW Beetle with rusted out heater boxes and a driver’s view of the road passing beneath your frozen winter feet. I loved that Beetle. I could fix it in my FIL’s barn or at the original Car Talk guy’s rentable space garage. It did not like the Massachusetts Turnpike very much, however, because it strained to make it to 60 MPH and was humiliated by the toxic male muscle cars of the era.
My next car was not my car, but me wife’s—a ’71 Ford Maverick. Tragic-Comic, Comic-Tragic piece of death-trap shit. It should have died when my most helpful but very damaged neighbor in WV tried to fix the alternator with a very large ball peen hammer. But it did not die and was enough transportation to get my RN wife the 11 miles she drove to work and forays to BC when needed.
I needed something really practical when I dropped out of grad school and became a painter, wall-paperer, tile repair dolt— ’64 Ford Fairlane 500 Station Wagon was just what the job called for and it could hold my ladders, bits of scafolding, paint cans, drop cloths, wallpaper tables, tile cutters and all the windows worked manually which was needed when I was chain smoking Marlboro Reds in a car full of paint thinner fumes. I drove it daily even when I started Law School as a commuter until one morning after I gassed up, the gas tank separated from the rest of the vehicle in the middle of rush hour traffic. Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy.
There was a confusing time when I lost my common sense and leased cars until I came to understand that I was an idiot. I will not describe the history of those vehicles and the harm done to my fiscal status and mental health. Somehow I was able to eventually obtain a 1989 (?)four-wheel drive Honda Wagon that was a real innovation. I could drive that thing up ski slopes and mountain logging trails and I did exactly that. It lacked only a few things to make it a sucess—no airbags and lousy non ABS breaks. Parenthood argued against a car that was not the height of the wheels on the big rigs I had to drive through each day and which promised death at the first accident.
Since then automotive life has been sadly borrrring. Subarus, Toyota trucks, Prius, etc. The last named became a non-operating yard decoration when the air conditioner started sending error codes to the computer to coax into spending $4000 on a 18 year old two door sedan with 217K miles that would not allow itself to be driven.
Today I drive a 2013 V-8 Chevy Silverado with a power lift tail gate for reasons that make sense if you are a farmer, but which is hard to explain to the earth conscious half of my brain.
eclare
@Gin & Tonic:
That reminds me of driving to the top of Haleakala in HI. The road isn’t gravel, but it doesn’t have guardrails. My friend and I decided that I should drive because otherwise I would just look out the window and panic. That did not work and there is a photo of me at the top looking very tense and gripping the car keys so tightly that my hand was white.
A popular tourist thing to do is to take a van to the top and then ride down on a bicycle. I can’t imagine.
eclare
@eclare:
Oh, the road to the top of Haleakala goes from sea level to around 10,000 feet.
exbarrowboy
Too many stories. First car back in the UK was a minivan – a ’63 Morris Minivan with all of 850cc. I was into cars at the time and reading all the magazines about tuning minis, without the cash to think of the full on 1275cc Cooper S. I stopped at a roundabout after going through a modest bit of flooded road, and was rear ended by someone who didn’t account for having wet brakes. There was maybe a two inch dent on the rear doors, but in addition the filler neck for the fuel tank was pushed forward enough to make a tiny opening between tank and filler pipe. The insurance company offered something like £50 pounds as the write off value, which I kept and tried to patch the gap with chewing gum. I could never patch it up enough to not leak, so fast left hand turns would result in a small trail of gasoline. I ended up only ever filling the tank to the halfway mark and carrying a can for the inevitable times I’d misjudge things and it would run out. It ran out when I was halfway across the Clifton Suspension Bridge….
The next car was a ’66 MGB. Driving back from my parents place in the country, there was increasing vibration as we drove along the M4 motorway towards home. After coming off the motorway and trying to pull away from the first traffic light there was a loud clunk, clunk, clunk and no forward progress. One of the drive shaft UJs had fallen apart and the drive shaft was hanging forlornly from the remaining one
On MGBs, later on my brother loaned me he one for a few weeks on condition I got various things fixed. Going along the motorway there was a sudden thumping and then it was as if a giant hand had set the thing spinning. It’s odd to be traveling backwards at 50mph watching the traffic coming towards you. That was a tire separation where I _think_ the steel cords briefly caught the bodywork so as to lock just one rear wheel.
There were lots more cars and stories. Back in the day, being a programmer was not a high paying job and in the UK there was the annual MOT safety check to get through. For a while our strategy was to buy the cheapest plausible car at auction that had a reasonably long MOT, drive it until it broke or failed the test (or we didn’t want to waste the money putting it in for test) and then repeat. That’s one of the unexpected UK/US differences, in the UK there’s no need to be in the trade in order to attend a car auction, the only qualification is having ready cash.
Chris T.
The prettiest and (in at least one sense) least-reliable car I had was a Fisker Karma (the original, from 2012). I actually never had any problems with it other than the software crashing while driving (“do you know how fast you were going?” “no sir, my speedometer was rebooting”) but most people had pretty bad experiences with theirs. Mine got squashed on a freeway when I stopped behind other stopped cars, but cars behind me didn’t.
The worst car I had was my dad’s Chevy Chevette. That thing couldn’t get out of its own way up a hill. One winter (in Maryland) when it was about 10 degrees F outside, it wouldn’t warm up, nor did it thaw out on my drive to the university (not a long drive but usually plenty to get it to operating temperature), and then it stalled at a red light in the snow. Fortunately it started up again and got to the U, and was OK later when the temperature rose into the low 20s. Then the steering wheel ignition lock collapsed (on Christmas Day no less) and that was the beginning of its end.
The most fun overall was (is) my current car, although it’s a bit of a close contest between it and the Karma.
rekoob
@Rusty: My S2000 is the so-called AP2 engine, where the rev redline is a bit lower (8200 rpm, vs 8800 rpm). There’s a VTEC light on the dash that flashes when it engages, at roughly 7K+ rpm. Fun!
Jay
@eclare:
Hihume Lake Rd.. Not quite a 2 lane gravel road, up the bluffs to the plateau on top, no guardrails, 3,000 foot drop on the left when going up. 14 switchbacks.
Driving up at night, in the van to go fishing, I needed to pee, opened the passenger side door to step out and pee, and Dad said, don’t step out, pee off the van step and hang onto the door. I learned that I was 8 inches away from said drop.
There were pull outs and runway lanes on the right side of the road, every few thousand feet, because aside from fishermen, the key users of the roads were logging trucks and ore trucks from the mine.
They did not, and could not stop.
That’s why we always drove in at night. Less chance of slamming on the breaks, throwing it into reverse, trying to get it going into 40 in reverse and hitting a pull out or runaway lane in time.
jame
My first car was a used Toyota Corona, one of the first ones imported, and it was an automatic before they had really figured out how to make reliable automatic shifting. The A/C worked great though, very important in south Louisiana. My father traded a cow for it. It ran hot, so I learned to carry a container for water.
My second car was a Datsun B210. The less said about that one the better.
My third car was the only one I ever bought new, a Datsun 280Z. I loved that car.
Then I had a Toyota Celica, a Toyota Camry, a Honda Accord. I inherited a 1987 Dodge Caravan with a stick shift.
I drive a Fiat 500 Pop now; it’s a blast and you can park anywhere. My partner has a 2019 Fit, a solid, reliable car that’s served us faithfully.
I briefly had a Toyota Tacoma that I gave to my sister. Wish I had another but c’est la vie.
Oh, and I learned to peel out in my Granny’s Chevy Nova, a car with way too much power under the hood.
exbarrowboy
A driving story featuring the MGB that my brother loaned to me. We had gone to a favorite music venue with enough fuel to be there and back but not much more than that. While there we met some friends who had missed their last bus home and asked for a lift. So there we were with the MGB top down to allow three rather loud and drunk people to somehow squish in the back. They tried to direct us in turn to where they lived, this being decades before Google maps etc, and of course they wanted to go in the opposite direction to our way home. So there was I trying drive as gently, frugally and inconspicuously as possible with five people in an MGB when I realized that the directions were coming from our friend who was blind, and who was reproducing from memory how his bus had got him there. Which was all working well enough until he said to go across a junction where the other side was marked “Buses only”.
eclare
@Jay:
That lake looks gorgeous, but I don’t think I could mentally take that drive.
AnneWith
My first car was a used 1979 Dodge Omni, bought for about $2000 after I graduated college with a loan from my grandfather. I discovered on my way up to grad school that it would overheat if I drove over 45 mph, so I was an annoyance on the freeway to other drivers in three states. I had it looked at, but it remained a mystery. It was over a year until the mechanics at a Gulf station near my mom’s figured out what was wrong: the inside of the radiator had corroded, restricting the flow of coolant. They rodded it out, & it ran fine.
It had other issues (carburetor problems, mainly), but it was mine. I had dropped out of grad school after my first year, & was working at my uncle’s bookstore, when I was stung by a comment from my aunt (his wife): “What are you going to do after you finish working at the bookstore?”
I thought, finish? Was my uncle going to ease me out at the store? So I started thinking about my future, & decided to return to grad school. I made preparations to return when my car died & I had it towed to the dealership. The transmission was gone, & the replacement was quoted at $1900, much more than I could afford. I was telling my mom about it & that I’d have to get rid of it, when she told me to at least try, maybe they could salvage the transmission or something.
I sighed. Okay, mom. Called the mechanic at the dealership & asked. It’s been almost 40 years, and I remember exactly what he said to me: “Ma’am, I’m holding a piece of it in my hand right now.” All righty then!
I was extremely lucky, & found someone who would pay me $200 cash for it, & would also take possession of it exactly where it was, so I wouldn’t have to pay to have it towed. Much relieved, I returned to grad school a couple of weeks later.
(A couple of years ago, we had to sell our non-running 2000 Chevy Impala. I am still annoyed that we couldn’t get more than $135 for it, almost 40 years after I’d gotten $200 for the 1979 Dodge Omni.)
Jay
@eclare:
Kamloops trout to 8lbs, on the fly, often completely empty of other fishermen and campers. Loons and coyotes.
Here in BC, once you are on the gravel, you kinda get used to it.
Driving in the Chilcotin. Dad was asleep, I was driving, thought I was RoadRacer 2.0, hitting 60 on a two lane loose gravel road, passed on the right by some old fart doing at least 80 in a 1948 Willy’s Wagon.
Quiltingfool
My first car (I was 21) was a 1978 Datsun B210GX. Brand new! 5 speed manual transmission. I didn’t know how to drive stick, but I learned. I didn’t get to drive it right away, though. As we were leaving the dealership, the car was not doing well. A rocker arm wasn’t quite attached. They gave me a loaner, fixed the problem, and that car ran like a top.
I was a broke college student, so I became very creative at fixing car problems until I could get home and have dad fix it correctly. Let’s see, using wire clothes hanger to keep the muffler from falling off, and my favorite fix, using the smashed cap off a wine cooler to wedge into a broken alternator bracket. It worked well enough until dad could replace the bracket!
Poor people have poor ways, as they say!
rekoob
As we talked about in the earlier thread a couple of weeks ago, the Mazda Miata MX-5 was a revelation and revolution in sports cars. It evoked the spirit of the Lotus Elan (as fans of Emma Peel of “The Avengers” would note), with super reliability and capability. The Honda S2000 (close to my heart), built on that.
As I believe I mentioned, there are those who believe that Miata is an acronym — Miata Is Always The Answer. When you have your “sports car” itch, a Mazda Miata is the best way to scratch it.
rekoob
Still, I want a Westfield XI/Lotus 11 with an Electric Vehicle powertrain. Not sure that a Spridget chassis could support it.
mvr
As usual, I’m too late to the thread.
Since WaterGirl mentions being saved by a car, it brings to mind that seatbelts have saved my life several times. I rolled a 65 Ford Falcon that I loved (3 on the tree and all that) as a teen. My Dad had retrofitted seatbelts and they kept me in the car when it rolled across a farm field in Wisconsin.
Another time I was a passenger (hitch hiking) in a VW bug that took a guard rail on the interstate as a ramp and wound up at least 20 feet off the ground, probably more, before we landed. And then the gas tank ruptured all over my legs when we hit the ground and I was sure I was going to be incinerated. I am glad to be lucky and to have been wrong.
When I convinced the driver to crawl off of me and out the place where the windshield had been and got us clear of the car he was in bad shape. I got him up to the road and treated him for shock the best I knew how. An ambulance came within half an hour and he was eventually medivaced from a small hospital in Utah to Denver and survived. His face had hit the window and his chest the steering wheel. I found out later his one of his lungs had collapsed. I had on a seatbelt so I was in much better shape though most of my upper body was sprained.
mvr
@Jay: Sounds attractive. Need to get up there before I die.
JustRuss
My first car was a 1965 Mustang, I was a high school senior. A bit more than I could afford, but my girlfriend thought Mustangs were cool, so what are ya gonna do? Not really a great car…it leaked when it rained, and the drum brakes were not fantastic. We used to party in the hills above Malibu, and once I had three guys in the car and driving down off the hill the brakes over heated and failed. I calmly let my passengers know that we were likely to die and to hang on tight. Managed to make it to a straight bit of uphill and get to a stop.
I still see one of those guys every few years, and that story always comes up. His son is on the W. Michigan team that won the NCAA hockey championship yesterday.
JustRuss
When I lived on Maui my roommate drove one of those vans. I did the bike ride once, it was a blast.
Kayla Rudbek
Car story 1: Mr. Rudbek had a small Toyota hatchback (I think a Starlite) when we first started dating, and our boss (one of the professors in my department) was suspicious about the car’s reliability. Mr. Rudbek drove that car up to Minneapolis from South Bend for New Year’s Eve to meet my parents for the first time. My dad knew how long the trip would take, and started grumbling after about 9 hours that my boyfriend was running late or was lost (this was pre-cellphone era). Then Mr. Rudbek called us from the Ramsey County medical center with the news that he had been rear-ended on I-494 as he was coming in (fortunately he was stopped for a gawker slowdown already). So the first time Mr. Rudbek met my parents, it was with a neck brace on from the accident. And he had to go car shopping because that Toyota was totaled. So the drive back down to South Bend from Minneapolis was my dad and me in his V8 Pontiac and Mr. Rudbek and my crazy uncle in the used car that Mr. Rudbek had bought to replace the totaled Toyota. Dad had a radar detector and he knew every single speed trap on the route because he had driven it so often. So my dad was going over the speed limit and blew by a cop somewhere on I-94 in Wisconsin, the cop’s radar was pointed the other way from our car, and Mr Rudbek and my crazy uncle were behind us wondering how we managed to not be pulled over.
My grandfather always associated Mr. Rudbek with car trouble from that time on. And our mutual boss was relieved that the old Toyota had been totaled, with very little injury to Mr. Rudbek.
Kayla Rudbek
@eclare: I think you might have to stop on the way down Haleakala and let your tire rims cool off from all the braking if you ride your bicycle down (we’ve had to do that on other mountain rides on the tandem).
Otherwise you run the risk of heating the rims up enough that you blow out your inner tube or otherwise damage your tire, and then you have a flat tire while going high speed downhill. Not recommended (I have an old magazine article on paper about someone riding a tandem with glued-on tires in the Davis Double Century, so 200 miles on a tandem bicycle in the California mountains, with tires glued onto the rim as the old-school racers used to do to save weight, and they melted the glue off the tire rims on one of the downhills).
BigJimSlade
@pacem appellant: I once ran out of gas, running through the left-turn light on PCH at Sunset Blvd to turn into a gas station just on momentum. It was just turning red and I laid on the horn of my trusty VW squareback and rolled into the gas station…
to find it closed because it was Thanksgiving (Easter? I don’t recall, but it was a holiday and I was on my way to Grandma’s.) I had AAA, though, and a half hour later I was on my way.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
Late to the evening party as usual, but anyway:
I owned a total of three cars, all of them from Chrysler. In high school, I worked a summer job which earned me enough to buy an old 1983 Plymouth Turismo (the coupe version of the Horizon/Omni). That got me around through college and until I got steady full-time work, though it was never all that reliable. It looked sporty but didn’t behave that way; had a spoiler that was for decoration only, a speedo that maxed out at 85 that was also optimistic.
The second car, when I had a full-time job in 1996, was a 1989 Dodge Daytona Shelby, in silver, with digital dash, T-tops, turbo, and five on the floor. I got a deal on it because I told the guy I was buying it from that he could keep the $500 massive subwoofer in the trunk because I preferred the cargo space. That was sort of my dream car, the one I wanted to keep as long as I possibly could. It shared a silhouette with the old Turismo, but that was deceptive; the first time I tried to accelerate on an uphill turn to a major street, I was introduced the hard way to turbo lag, and a local cop pulled me over. Since I was working on the local ambulance squad at the time, the cop’s first words weren’t “do you know how fast you were going?” but “hey! New car?” I also surprised people by being able to drive that thing in weather that would keep a Mustang or a Trans Am in the garage: front wheel drive was a winner. (I don’t think I’ve ever driven a car that didn’t have power to the front wheels.)
Sadly, “keep as long as I could” turned out to be only a couple of years, because in 1998 I got T-boned by a Ford Expedition doing 45 in a 25 in wet weather, sending me to the hospital and my dream car to the scrapyard.
My next and last car was also a Dodge, a used Intrepid sedan. I was thinking I wanted something practical and hopefully not too ugly; my parents figured that my subconscious was reacting to the wreck by steering me to a much larger car. Finally sold that one off on moving from New Jersey into New York City, where it wasn’t practical for me to have a car.
Oh! Then when I moved to Greece, I got an old Alfa Romeo passed on to my by my cousin, for tax reasons and the like. That one basically lived in the islands and only got driven in the summer. It was on its last legs anyway, and it went to the scrappers close to a decade ago.
JeffH
My family had a 1979 Plymouth Horizon which was as clear a demonstration as you can get of why Chrysler almost went bankrupt around then. The thing was trouble from the word go and the only reason we didn’t get rid of it was because we always drove cars until the repair costs outweighed the value and this thing always had a lot of little things going wrong that were annoying but not super expensive so my parents never said enough is enough.
Then one Saturday morning I had to go take the SAT or some other standardized test and my parents had other things they needed to do, so they said I could drive this car myself for the morning. I got over to take the test just fine and afterwards I got in the car to drive home. I put in into reverse and noticed a bit of a strange sound but it backed out of the parking space just fine. I then shifted it into first gear (stick shift car) and let the clutch in… and the car goes backwards.
At this point I panic slightly and start throwing the gear shift around all over the place. After a little bit the car starts going forward albeit very sluggishly. I check and find that it was in second gear, so that explains it. I start driving home and reach a speed where I should shift to third gear, move the gear shift, and then hear the exact same pitch of the engine. The thing was stuck in second gear. I drove the whole three miles home in second gear. I was slightly worried that my parents were going to be mad at me for breaking the car. As it was I think they were relieved to have an excuse to get rid of the damn thing which they did a few days later.
Reverse tool order
This is a truck story, but close enough I hope. So, early ‘70s, driving a ’54 Kenworth three axle dumptruck with 12-13 tons of sand on. Tare weight about the same. Napa to Concord, San Francisco north bay to east bay.
I had dumped the sand on the job site and was just turned around to leave when the clutch linkage quit working. The external links were fine, problem was inside the bell housing. Clutch itself was fine, just could not be disengaged.
There were only a couple of runnable stop signs on the route back and the westbound Cordelia truck scale was behind me where I got on I-80. The one difficulty with a nonstop return was the bridge toll booth on northbound I-680.
But, I figured the truck could handle that briefly without me. So I put the bridge toll in my shirt pocket, put the transmissions in first and first, and hit the starter. Engines like the Cummins 262 (hp) back then had narrow power bands and so needed a lot of gears to cover the range from a slow walk to highway speed. Thus a five speed main transmission with ratios like in a car or light truck and an auxiliary four speed transmission with close ratios to match the engine power band within the main box ratios. 5 x 4 = 20 gears, though there are overlaps and 1st in the main box is seldom used. There is no synchromesh needed or wanted in these transmissions.
You may have heard the term “double clutching” as a technique for nonsynchro transmissions. “Float shifting” is another, very similar technique just without working the clutch. There are mediocre Wikipedia articles on both if you want that arcana. Or I could better explain them in excruciating detail that nobody wants. I tried double clutching at first and said eff this, tiring my left leg out. So, taught myself to float shift and only used the clutch when starting or stopping.
Meanwhile, I’m approaching the toll booth and start downshifting from fifth direct (5th & 3rd) to first and first. Let the engine drop to idle speed and set the center point (non- power) steering straight ahead a couple hundred feet out. Truck is at a slow walk and I jump out leaving the door open. Jog up to the booth, pay toll, say “no clutch,” and jog back and into the truck. Ran one stop sign with right turn at 2-3 mph, got to the yard and shut down.
Also an interesting trip to the truck shop on the opposite side of town. Turned out the “fingers” the throwout bearing pressed against to retract the pressure plate were completely worn out.
Reverse tool order
Another truck story, this one’s fairly embarrassing and one of those learning experiences. I think it was in that same ’54 KW (I’ve driven a lot of trucks). Just got one last load and knew I was low on fuel. However, made it into a station with diesel, shut down, and refueled. Get back in, start, and pull ahead to the edge of the station area waiting for traffic to clear. And the engine dies and will not restart. Partially blocking the station.
I guess that I lost prime in the fuel line going back to the lower, actually emptied fuel tank. The only fuel pump is on the engine and brings fuel in from above, so there was just that little bit of fuel. The good news was the small thumb operated priming pump lower on the same side of the engine. Pumped the hell out of it until there was high back pressure. Got in cab, cranked over until it started kind of ragged at first and then smoothed out. Luckily, didn’t have to bleed air out of injector side too.
I did do that for another guy I could hear from my dorm room in Davis. Stuck in the middle of a busy intersection, he already had some fuel but his 6V53 Jimmy just would not pick it up. I was pretty sure he needed to bleed out some air from the high pressure side of the fuel pump, so I went and gathered a few wrenches from my box. Sure enough, lots of bubbles from high pressure lines. Closed it up, cranked over, and another briefly ragged start.
So, good idea to avoid running a diesel out of fuel.
Dmkingto
My first car was a ‘72 Gran Torino station wagon with a 351 Cleveland. My grandfather gave it to me in ‘79 to take to college. He had only driven it for 5 years, and it had 9k miles on it. He had finally stopped driving because his vision was getting bad – but not before he had managed to put numerous dents in it. I flew out from California to pick it up in western Kentucky and drove it to college in North Carolina. Spent the next summer bombing around back roads in Mississippi, doing a very poor job selling door-to-door. Oh, and the air-conditioning didn’t work. Ended up driving it back to CA the next year with a couple of college friends on a 3-week road trip (with at least 2 breakdowns – the car, not the friends). I had that car for over 10 years.
One time when I was up from SoCal visiting my parents in San Francisco, I had driven my mom out to the commissary on the Presidio – back when it was still an active Army post. On the way home, on the road along Chrissy Field, I heard a metallic clunk come from the engine, then a metallic “ting” towards the back. I glanced in my side mirror and saw a pulley rolling along behind me. Given the source of the original noise and the fact that it was almost matching my speed (only 15 or 20 mph, but strictly enforced on military bases), I was pretty sure it had come from my car. But my engine was still running with no noticeable problem. I didn’t want to risk shutting it off and not being able to restart the car, so I pulled over leaving the car running and popped the hood. Mom asked what was going on, and I replied that I wasn’t sure. Got out, picked up the pulley, and then lifted the hood to check the engine. Propped the hood open, went around to the back of the car, opened the tailgate and then the trunk (it’s a station wagon, remember?) Reached into the trunk where I kept some tools and spare parts – starter engine, water pump, spare hoses, etc. Grabbed a utility knife, walked back to the engine bay, reached in and cut one of the belts. Closed the hood, threw the pulley, knife, and belt into the trunk, got back in the car and drove off. My mom was a little perplexed that a part had fallen out of my engine, I had cut out another part, and then just driven off nonchalantly. It was the idler pulley for the belt that ran the AC compressor. But the AC didn’t work anyway, and all the essential stuff used the other two belts.
Gloria DryGarden
@cope: there is some spectacular scenery on the Jeep roads out of ouray. My family would rent a jeep down there and we’d go off jeeping. Some of those roads were a bit harrowing. But the scenery!
A few friends and I even backpacked 2 nights out of ouray once, and we were jeeped up to a trail head. It was astonishing and magical. We had no idea we were hiking near red mountain pass, until we crested a rise and it opened up to a view of red mountain, totally unexpected; in the silence, two deer pranced up a steep hill across from us, with such ease. I used to own a bumper sticker that said my other car is a pair of boots.
My dad like jeeping so much they actually bought a used Jeep back at home. The old kind, with a zip off top, & a roll bar, high clearance, 4wd. I only drove it in town, but we all went up to the mountains in it. It was a fun vehicle.
Gloria DryGarden
@Scout211: we had a rambler wagon. I learned on it. 3, on the column.
Dmkingto
After the Gran Torino station wagon, came a ‘70 FJ40 Landcruiser (original F engine, but with a GM SM420 transmission). Still own it, but it’s not running and in storage (anybody looking for a major project?)
Then a salvage title 90s Honda Civic sedan bought from a friend for $800 – it got towed while I was on a 2+ week trip to China and wasn’t worth the tow & storage fees.
Replaced the Honda with a Nissan NX 1600 (also bought from a friend). Sold it for cheap when it started having some rust issues and replaced it with a ‘99 Jeep Cherokee (XJ) that I bought off an gov’t auction site in 2006. That was a fun car, despite having a medium case of the death wobbles. Alas, it got stolen from in front of my place in Costa Mesa in 2011. On the plus side, I had been thinking about selling it because it needed new tires and I was getting tired of the death wobble. I had wanted to go with slightly larger tires and a mild suspension lift, but that was going to be expensive (and no guarantee of solving the death wobble). Insurance ended up paying me about $1500 more than I had been thinking about listing it for, and just shy of what I had paid for it 5 years earlier.
Despite having wanted to lift my Cherokee a bit, I went the opposite way with its replacement. I bought a 14 year-old Mercedes SL500. Talk about a fun car. Convertible with a removable hard top. Just a blast to drive. Instant acceleration and rock steady. I’ve only been over 100mph a few times in a car as a driver or passenger (but never the crazy speeds some of the folks above are talking about), but aside from the Benz, they were American muscle cars (or station wagons). But those cars all started feeling “floaty” near or above 100 – not very reassuring! I only got the Benz slightly over 100 a couple of times, but it felt glued to the road. It was pretty reliable, too, and not that hard to do some basic work on myself. And in Orange County, there were a bunch of great independent mechanics for the things I couldn’t or didn’t want to do myself.
Once the Benz died, I finally bought a brand new car – a 2017 Mazda CX-5. I’ve got over 150k miles on it and love it. After the SL500, it was the only compact SUV I test drove that felt fun to drive.
OldDave
I saw this post last evening and wanted to join in, but family items got in the way. And so it goes.
Anyway, some of the cars I’ve owned and enjoyed over the years:
’71 Ford Pinto (2 litre). My first new car – showed it to my mom, who laughed and said “it’s baby shit yellow!”
’77 VW Scirocco. Nice Recaro seats.
Three Miatas – a red ’91 NA, blue ’01 NB, and grey ’09 NC.
’14 Cayman S – bought used in ’15, still driving it. I think both it and the Scirocco were built at the same Karmann plant.
All were/are three pedal (manual transmission) cars. Bought the Porsche thinking I needed a quieter car as compared to the top-down Miata. Ha! The engine is a foot behind me and there’s a loud button on the console.
OlFroth
My first car was a used Datsun B210, the Rustmobile. The roof was so low I had to drive hunched over! I then had a Chevy Citation, but didn’t care for it, so I sold it to someone else. Third was a used Chevy Chevette. That thing was indestructible. I think I could have put any sort of flammable liquid in it and it would have run. It finally fell apart after about 200k miles. I then got a used Chrysler Lazer. Piece of junk. I finally bought my first new car, a Hyundai. It ran pretty well, but after six years the valves started wearing out, and the repair cost was way too much. I then got a Toyota pickup, also new, that I had until gas got really expensive and I wanted something more fuel efficient. It had low miles, so I got a good deal when I traded it in for a Scion XB, right when they first came out. It turned a lot of heads, as at the time, it was pretty unique. Big problem with that car was the handle/latch for the rear hatch was fragile, saw many after a few years that looked like mine, with the latch handle duct taped back into position. My current ride is a Ford F-150. When back to the pickup mainly because I have an extensive garden, and I haul horse manure from the farm where my oldest takes horseback riding lessons. Hauling horse shite in 5 gallon buckets in the back of the Scion wasn’t much fun!
NeenerNeener
Gee, I see I left this thread too early last night. I’ve had some really memorable road trips in Ford products, and not in a good way. I learned how true the sayings “Ford stands for Found On Road Dead” and “Fix or Repair Daily” were. Besides the Pinto I had an 89 or 90 Mercury Sable that died on me while I was on a highway doing about 70 in between tractor trailors, and once when taking my parents to see my sister in Manassas Dad’s 80-something Grand Marquis died at a light in front of the Catoctin Mountain Zoo. Ford used to put some computer chip in a bad spot on the engine and when the outdoor temps went in the 90s and above the chip would overheat and the car would just die. They knew about the problem but did nothing about it for 20+ years. After the road trip with the Grand Marquis I used to rent cars if I was taking the ‘rents on a road trip. I figured if we had a problem Hertz could just bring us another car so it was worth the expense. I’ve never owned another Ford product and I never will.
les
Clearly way late, but great stories. First car: ’58 Triumph TR3, rebuilt and painted Hamm’s Beer blue by a frat brother. God I loved it, despite having to cover the entire radiator in NW Iowa winters to get any heat, weird plastic sliding windows (the whole window could be popped out when the top was down) & the clutch going out on my first trip back to school. Turns out you could put it in gear and the starter would move it enuf to jump start. With the top down and turning 4 screws to remove the windshield, you could park anywhere-it fit under the arm-type gates.
Paul in KY
@Derelict: I had a 1983 fastback Celica. Great car.
Paul in KY
@Almost Retired: I haven’t seen a Pinto on the road in at least 40 years. I wonder if there are any left that are drivable?
Paul in KY
My cars have been: 1980 Olds Cutlass 4 door, 1983 Toyota Celica fastback, 1985 Nissan Sentra, 1989 Toyota Camry, 1992 Lexus SC300, 2004 Toyota Solara, 2016 Genesis G70, 2019 Toyota Avalon.
Paul in KY
@Scout211: Haven’t seen a Vega on the road in 40 years or more. I always thought it was a nice looking car.
Paul in KY
@rekoob: I had a subscription to Motor Trend when I was 11. Loved the cars when I was a kid.
Paul in KY
@Gloria DryGarden: My parents had a 71 Dart with the slant 6. That thing would move!! Probably the best American car we ever owned.
Paul in KY
@Gloria DryGarden: What does ‘Lotus’ mean? Lots Of Trouble, Usually Serious…
Paul in KY
@CaseyL: I loved those early Barracudas.
Paul in KY
@Rusty: Hope you get your Vega running again!
Paul in KY
@Chris T.: One of our realtors in town had a Fisker Karma. Only one I’ve ever seen in the wild. Pretty stunning looking, I thought.
WaterGirl
@rekoob: I could not recall who had suggested this as a topic for Medium Cool, but now that you have reminded me, I included that up top!
WaterGirl
@Paul in KY: Yes, my 1972 Swinger had a slant 6, and it had some serious pickup!