I bought a 51 Ford 2 door Custom, when I was 15. That was in 1960.
Flathead v8 3 speed, I put in floor shifter.
It would burn rubber in all 3 gears.
For some reason the driveline in the car kept breaking. Axels, yokes, U-joints transmissions, clutches. The motor held up verry good.
Still wish I had the car back. Oh yea, big back seat.

 

1999 Ford Ranger 3.slow xlt 4x4 supercab in black with the offroad package. Got me into offroading. That was like 2 years ago, haha. That truck was a pig piece of poo, but i miss it, it was really good for offroading.. Then i moved up to tthe f150.. then into my little mazda3 for daily driving and now I have a 78 bronco for offroading.

 

When I got my license in 75 I bought a sweet 65 Ford Fairlane 500 fastback, sky blue and ziebarted. My Dad, the chevy lover, talked me into selling it to a friend, never have forgiven him for it! It's surely still running around somewhere but have no idea what happened to her, miss that ole car.

 

An '84 Mazda B2000... Red and White!.. It had the 4cyl and it was manual tranny. For the year I got her ('95) and the milage, she had no dents but maybe a few small scratches. Everything was alright up until the block "sprung=a=leak" right at a coolant passage wall and spritzed water all on the exhaust manifold.

I sold her to a friend of the family and temporarily took up ownership of a '90 Olds Calias, and '89 Ranger (2.9L)

Then I bought my first new Ranger '98 (4cyl. Toredor red, Rcab) then '99 (white 3.0, SC) then a '99 (blue 3.0, SC) then the amazon green 3.0L SC I had up until late last year. Then the '05 150....

 

1961 Volkswagen Beetle. 1200 cc. 72 mph flat out. 36 mpg (Cdn.) $ 600. Great first car. I traded it in on a '67 Camaro 327 V8, 4 spd., RS model.

 

Any chance it had a 428 with tri-power sitting on top of it?

 

1989 toyota corrola, a e350 took "care" of it

 

OP asks if you remember your first car...who could ever forget THAT?!

Mine was a 1966 Morgan (British wood-frame car that looks like the MG-TD/TF's but faster). A blast to drive...seldom had the top on, even during a two-week trip (if it rained hard, I pulled under a bridge!) Morgans are still made but rare & expensive.

 

daddio360, the old Buick dealership I used to work for used to assemble Morgans for customers who ordered them.

From what I understand, the customer would order a Morgan; then it would get shipped un-assembled. Then our old dealership would assemble it, then off it went to the customer.

 

wow, I'd love to hear more about that...what time period was this? How much assembly did you do? The frame (& some body parts) were made of ash (very hard wood) but I think the only wood in the new ones is the dashboard.

 

daddio360, unfortunately, this was before I started working there.

They were also a franchise Ferrari dealer, either back in the 60's or 70's.

My old parts manager told me this. He started work there in 1953.

The old building use to house street cars (trolley cars) in 1892, a bakery and flour wharehouse in 1916, and made custom made bodies for both auto and truck. They also made wooden frames for airplanes.

I wish I had photos of these custom bodies and airplane frames.

Now it's an Office Max.

 

My first I bought and owned was a $95.00 1949 Plymouth Special 2 door. Had to tow it home behind my Dad's '48 Plymouth as it had a cracked engine block. My Dad pulled me with just a big rope tying us together...I only banged into him once the whole 20 mile trip! He towed me straight to an open field auto graveyard and he had made prior arrangements with owner. He told me if I was going to drive, I had to learn how it worked! He stopped next to this wrecked '53 Plymouth taxi. He said for me to take the engine out of that and put it in mine. This was summer of 1956. I was 16 and I still work on my own vehicles most of the time. BTW, that old Plymouth ran into the 1960's and I finally traded it in an another car.....believe it was a '55 Chrysler. Drove it till the wheels fell off....actually! Was in Key West, Florida it it rusted to death!

 

1955 Volks beetle. Dad bought it new and it was one of two in Alberta at the time. I got it in 1960 and a year later a buddy and I drove it to San Francisco from Edmonton and back. Manifold heating and colder than a witches ....... in the Edmonton winters. Had it for our honeymoon and a trip thru the mountains but traded it in in 1966 for a 58 Dodge Custom Royal. Man what a change in power. The Volks was a lot of fun. Could write a book on the adventures.

 

My first car was a white 1962 VW Beetle bought in July of that summer, right after college. It had "ALL" of the accessories available - which was only an AM radio and a outside mirror on the passenger side. That was the year they increased the HP a whopping 11% - from 36 to 40 HP and they also syncromeshed 1st gear in the manual tranny. Paid $1500 for it, right off the showroom floor. Took it into the Army service with me in October of '62 with 1500 miles on it, much against the advice of my Dad (he said I didn't need a car in the Army and refused to co-sign the loan with me). Exactly two years to the day, when I was discharged, I had 147,000 miles on it (that's an average of 200 miles/day for each of the 730 days in 2 years). I got paid seven cents/mile for Army-related trips, but it cost me about 1.2/mile to run it. Top speed was 72 mph, but the speedo pegged at 85. To me, it only had two speeds -- ON and OFF.

I had it pegged once and was still accelerating down a long mountainside on Interstate 80 in western Pennslyvania when three of the four pistons decided it was time to change cylinders with each other. Felt a bump and saw a blue cloud in the rear view mirror, with large metal pieces rolling down the Interstate out of the cloud. When I finally coasted to a stop and opened the rear motor hatch, I had bare concrete staring back at me - it took out the entire block, generator, engine cooling fan, and both heater boxes. Got towed to the nearest VW shop, threw a new engine and other parts in it (no choice - I had to make it from NYC to Phoenix in 72 hours), and drove it until March of '65 when I "upgraded" to a C*e*y Corvair Monza (with the "big" 115 hp engine).

With the VW, I needed a good mile of open road to pass someone if they were driving 60 mph. Finally realized I should have originally bought TWO new VW's, instead of just one -- one for each foot!

Sold it to a dorky guy who wanted a "college car" for his daughter, and kept trying to hassle me on the price. The body and paint job were in outstanding shape, and the odometer only showed about 54,000. He asked if that was the original miles, I told him "yes", and he paid me $600 in cash. The new engine had less than 30,000 miles on it, and I wasn't particularly enthralled with his bargaining technique. In retrospect, I should have told him the whole story.

 

My first car was a '59 Plymouth station wagon. Had a 318 V8 and push button trans. I had to put on an exhaust system and brakes and it ran pretty damn good till I got tired of being 18 yrs old and driving a station wagon. That was July of '65 and in October I bought my first brand new car, a '65 Ford Galaxie 500 w/ 352 4 bbl. It was nice. Never knew a car could ride so smooth.