My First Car

[Wickersham Humble]

Everyone has a first ride, but I'll bet not too many are closer to Fred Flintstone's than this one!  Boy, I loved it -- and it hated me!  Live and learn, says the man alomost eighty!

1961: my '55 Chevy Delray two-door 'post' in all it's glory: lowered front and rear, red rims with 'Hollywood Moons,' lakes pipes, nosed & decked, all vertical bars removed from grille, 'Refrigerator White' with blue pinstriping by local genius 'Coop'.  Also, built 265 Power-Pak, three on the floor (with 'Vette shifter, plate with ash tray, and all.  Once one of the fastest cars in our rural county (in N CA) but slipping down when all the 390 Fords,413 MoPars, 6.5-Litre Ponchos,  and 409 Chevys became numerous.  No, I didn't build it, but I made payments on it ($26.60/mo., plus insurance, license, and gasoline) on an income of about $45.00 a month!  Still, I never raced a car that I knew I could beat, and got trimmed a lot.  It held Robert Hight's '62 Sport Fury through first gear, and then he said bye-bye (the Force funny-car's uncle and namesake) but we agreed the mouse motor played a superior tune at max rpm's.  Last time I saw it, after selling in '63, was in the Shasta County Sheriff's impound yard: like an old girlfriend, it can be painful to see the last of your first ride!  Outlaw to the last!  What was yours, and are your photos as poor as these survivors?   Wick Humble

[johnyrotten]

1983 Monte Carlo CL. It was 300 dollar pile, but it was mine bought and paid for. Lots of rust underneath with a decent exterior. It had a very mild 350/th350 combo(cam headers and shift kit) when I bought it. The carb was junk. I got it running right, but boy looking back this thing was hammered. I learned that g body doors weight twice as much as the titanic when not attached to the car, q-jet carbs like to leak down the manifold internally, and hood insulation is very flammable. It met its demise at the hands of my older brother. He took my keys one night while I was asleep,his car killed a four speed, and smacked a guard rail. 

[NOBLNG]

I don’t have a picture of my actual car, but it was a ‘67 Falcon like this with a straight six and auto. Paid $400 for it in 1977.

[Mark W]

Not the actual car, but this was it, $125.00.    With a 283, and stock hubcaps.

Edited Saturday at 11:55 AM by Mark W

[Spruslayer]

1963 Nova SS. 6 cyl power glyde purchased in 76 for $125

Interior was near mint but the body had a crashed rear drivers side quarter panel

Of course, in true gotta mod it fashion i put a 283 in it but alas the project never got finished as a Female caught my fancy and ended up selling it.

Don't have a picture of it but this is the color. Even had the orginal hubcaps which i  discarded 😞

 

[catpack68]

No pictures of the it,but this was my first car.A 79 Z/28 with a factory 4 speed in this color but with the base wheels.i plan on building a replica of it with the new Revell Stranger Things 79 Camaro kit

Edited Saturday at 02:01 PM by catpack68

[1972coronet]

1972 Swinger ( LH23G2B307811  ) which I bought for $800 in August 1989. 

Factory EV2 Hemi Orange , white interior; 318 / 904 , and  a host of options. 

Eventually its 318 was rebuilt and upgraded : 340/360 'J' heads; 9.5:1 (static) pistons, cam with more lift and longer-than-stock duration (nothing wild) , 360 two barrel intake with a 2 Bbl. carb from a '72 400 ; headers (lots of fun to install !) with provision for the "cold start" heat riser. 
904 was rebuilt with heavy duty everything; deeper capacity oil pan; Trans-Go shift kit , too. 

Rear diff was out of a '74 Duster 360 I found in the salvage yard ( oh, just to imagine what that car - in that condition - would bring today ! ), which was equipped with 3.21 / Sure Grip.

Upgraded the brakes - the factory 4 piston setup was trouble prone , and rotors were obsolete ! A '75 Dart gave its superior single piston calipres and other necessary wares to the cause. 

[Mike 1017]

Mine had the V6

[deuces wild]

Mine was a '68 Camaro droptop with a 327 and a 'glide... White with a red interior...

[The Junkman]

1965 Ford Falcon Econoline like this but with poverty hub caps and without the frou-frou white wall tires.  My mom got it in a divorce settlement from my dad but she never learned how to drive.  170ci, straight six that ate almost as much oil as gas.

Edited Saturday at 02:42 PM by The Junkman

[TooOld]

Guess I'm the exception here because I actually have photos of my first car , a 1969 Torino 428 Cobra Jet .  When I saw a new one a few years earlier I started saving every dollar from a job as a janitor at night and pumping gas after school making $1.15/hour .  In early '72 I bought this while I was still 16 (I turned 17 in Oct. '72). Needless to say my Dad wasn't too thrilled with my purchase and I had to sell it a year later .

The owner of the gas station had been racing at a local strip for a couple of years and said I should give it a try . Here we are loaded and ready for my first trip to the drag strip .

[Ulf]

I differ greatly in that I was 36 years old when I finally bought my first own car but then it was all the more fun.

[johnyrotten]

1 hour ago, Mike 1017 said:

Mine had the V6

The last car my father and I put together was a '65. It was originally that exact car, going off the numbers. 6 cylinder. Guy we bought it off was trying to build a g.s. clone. I owned it till I was 30, sold it so it wasn't lost in divorce. 

[Wickersham Humble]

Wick again: I didn't search this topic, but I'll bet this is the umpteenth time 'my first car' has been floated to the clan.  If I can find the snapshots of my '55, I'll do a decent scan and my bro says he can clean the images up for better definition; sorry they were both roatated badly!  I guess now I'll dig up my second, third, and so forth...  Thx for the interest!  Let's see more! 

[Rbray47]

77 Impala 2 door. It was wrecked on one side so I got it for $475. The metric trans made it to about 130k miles and I swapped in a TH350. The 305 made it til 160k.

[Wickersham Humble]

Whee; nostalgia-is-us!  This is my third car, 1951 Ford Club Coupe; it has the flathead from my second ride, a $50 rust-bucket from MI, which drove to CA under it's own steam, so to speak; it was so decrepit that the very fact that some one would attempt that in 1963 is amazing!  This is also a $50 car, bought with dead engine -- my wife's cousin Jerry had been commuting to our town to work on the Sothern Pacific, and usually considered anything under top speed to be wasting time, BUT he had the wrong dipstick in the flattie, and burned it up for lack of oil!  After a year of driving it at Jr. College, the replacement mill burned a piston, so I got a reman flathead from a wholesale out fit Dave Beck Inc. in L.A. (same guy who was busted for racketeering with the Teamsters?) who mostly sold truck parts.  My step-dad had trucks up in Modoc Co., and let me borrow his Beck catalog; the total for the 239-cu.in. V-8 (exchange) was $98.00 plus shipping!  It ran like Jack the Bear, and was flathead motoring at it's best; we all loved the car and I improved it as budget permitted: new interior and full-body job with new Hondouras Maroon enamel from a Redding CA ?$#9,95" shop called Marcum Bros. -- cost me $100 total.  It came to grief a year later against a '59 Dodge; no-fault accident in a blinding snow storm!  I put in new A-arms and front fender (from one of my parts-cars!) and got most of my dough out of it.  I now own a '51 Crestliner (very old restoration) with a new flattie (now costing $6,000.00!) just for fun.  It's named "The Wanderer II" in memory of the original one -- and with the loose Ford steering, it did wander!  Ole' Wick

[thatz4u]

My first car...drove it till it wouldn't go any more....

[Wickersham Humble]

The model of my '51 didn't upload, here it is.  Converting the AMT '49 coupe to a '51 isn't as easy as it might seem; fabbing the chrome '51 tail-light housings was a challenge I didn't quite meet, obviously.  Luckily, my 1/1 car had lost it's grille, so that part was easy, and changing the dash/steering wheel wasn't bad.  Anyone remember those cylindrical accessory headrests that were all the fad in the mid-sixties?  Best accessory was my gennie Hurst 'Mystery Shifter' kit; really let me swap gears; beat all Corvairs but the Spyders, and most Chevy sixes -- and Volvos!  My Ford was a budget car, and kept it's single 2-bbl. carb and stock heads.

The Crestliner, for some reason, was based on the '51 Tudor sedan, not the coupe body; same length roof as the Fordor; note roll-down quarter windows, not flip-out like the Club Coupe (as I recall, the Business Coupe had fixed quarter windows), and wasn't as sporty in profile, but more foot room.  Ford, oc, belatedly came out with the true pillarless hard-top Victoria in mid-1951, so the Crestliners were only sold in 1950-51, and discontinued in that crazy two-tone form when the Vickies hit the showrooms.  All hardtops were based on convertible doors/windows, etc.  A '51 Vick has all the mounting holes for a folding top, vestigially.  Also, many had a special custom steering wheel, which had probably been glombed off my black/yeller car by the '80s when it was restored.

It's a real highway cruiser, with 3+OD, front and rear Fatman sway bar kits, new springs, etc.  I lowered the front about 1-1/2-in. after that pic was taken, put on Porta-A-Wall whitewalls and some new stock dog-dish caps that came with the car (the nifty full wheel-covers, the first for Ford, keep popping off with the R205-15 Michelin radials it has.  This car also had Red's Headers, dual Smitty's, and a 12V system with alternator, and H-4 headlights. A flattie always sounds a bit offended when 12V hits the starter motor, but boy does it fire right up!  "Purrs like a kitten..." but no lakes pipes to roar!

Yep, putting in a new idler-arm saved the steering system.  Former owner drove it to V-8 Club meet in NB, also to N OR.  Re-upholstery showing it's age, and some dubious body repairs, but fun for all, if hard to park! Wick

Sorry the photos aren't better; I'm learning.

[DanL]

My first car was 1961 Chevy impala SS that my dad bought for me when I was 15. He paid $115 for it and bought form a co-worker. 283 with powerglide, white with the red stripe insert and red interior. I was driving it on the day I turned 16 +one day. Drove it to High school everyday on a allowance of $1.25 per week and whatever else I could scrounge up. I remember a couple of times actually putting in a single dime worth of gas. Started to modify it right away... put chrome Baby Moon hubcaps on, blacked out the front grill and along the lower edge of the body.  It had a radio that still used tubes and worked intermittently . Learned a lot about cars and maintaining them and also how to manage money... learned valuable lessons. I went on to own 3 more Chevy SS cars... 64, 65 and 67.  Actually just finishing up the AMT 1961 Chevy SS model kit right now and will post it soon. Cameras were not as common as they are now so it seems many of us don't have actual pictures of our early cars... too bad.  (Included a couple of representative pictures)

Cheers

Dan

[Wickersham Humble]

Dan, hope the 1/1 was as sharp as your model!!  What a great first car!  What year was that you got it?

One of my college roomies Dad bought him his first car, another Impala bubble-top, but no SS.  He called it the '2-2-1' because it had a two-barrel carburetor (283) , two-speed transmission (PG), and single exhaust -- half of the Olds muscle car!  Quiet, comfortable, and ultra-reliable -- cheap to keep!  His was mint green with the aqua interior, and withstood a lot of gaff; only mods were baby-moons and a contact-paper 'wood dash' we inflicted on it. Kept the stock muffler!  Another roomie had a '60 Studebaker Lark two-door hardtop, with 259 and B-W A/T; a lot more fun than you might expect, and a durable little bomb.  If it had a 4-speed, I might have bought it when he became a family man. By this time, I'd gone back to a '55 Chevy I'd picked up for $475; 265 and three-on-the-tree, which quickly became another Mystery Shifter -- Chevy column shifts were the pits when wear set in; got stuck between first and second if you weren't careful.  Oddly, I owned two other '55s with 265 V-8s, both converted from 235 sixes by previous owners!  No 'vee' bowtie emblems under the tail-lites, like my first car.  Wick -- again.

[THarrison351]

1975 Ford Granada Ghia Four door, white with turquoise trim, vinyl top, and interior. 302, auto, power everything 105K. $500 in 1982 drove it for almost three years, rebuilt the transmission, and traded it in on a new Escort in 1985. Drove that for ten years. Looked like this with Turquoise top and trim

[Brutalform]

Not the actual car, but it was just like this 73 Ford. Big 2 door, blue on blue. I’ll bet money that the old Ford rode smoother than cars of today. 
 

[Ace-Garageguy]

I posted much of this elsewhere recently...

My first car was a $250 '62 VW Bug some flipper (yeah, they had 'em then too) put a terminally leaking 36 horse engine in (sposed to be a 40). I was 18, that was all the money I could scrape together, and I wildly overpaid for a total and complete POS.

I knew nothing much really useful about cars, only having changed points and fiddled with tuneups on the family rides, and a little bodywork (small crease low on a front fender) with a claw hammer and files and rattlecan touchup paint (which came out very well, as I hammered and filed and primered according to an article in Rod & Custom until the metalwork was just about perfect).

Anyway, eventually I rebuilt a junkyard 40 horse for the Bug, added headers and a 2-bbl carb, replaced the front suspension assembly (the torsion bar tubes were bent when I bought it), lowered it all 'round with a rear "camber compensator", fitted a JC Whitney quick-steering Pitman-arm extender (that probably would have killed me if it had broken on the Interstate just a few minutes before it failed in the Burger King parking lot adjacent to the Ga.Tech EE lot where the slaloms were held), and a quick shift kit, rewired it (for real gauges, 12 volts, and in general 'cause chimps had already been at it), gutted the interior and put in a roll bar and fiberglass buckets, bolted on flared glass fenders and wheel adaptors and Chevy chrome-reverse 14" steel rims with Polyglas tires...and finally stuck a $500 Porsche 356 SC engine in it.

It was pretty quick as a slalom car by that point, sometimes setting FTD (fast time of the day) if the guy with the 140-horse Corvair engine in a Manx with real race rubber didn't show up. He was unbeatable, period.

I ended up wrapping it sideways around a tree after sliding on a patch of loose gravel that was on a hairpin turn on a road I'd never driven before. Body and chassis were pretzeled, went to a junkyard, bought a pan / backbone, swapped everything on to it, drove it like that on the street (bare pan) for a couple of years, and continued running slaloms. Got pulled over frequently just because, but everything about it met the exact letter of the law, including the little square of plexiglass needed to adhere the inspection sticker to (the law at the time said if you had a windshield you had to have functional wipers, but nowhere did it say you had to have a windshield).

Always intended to get another Bug shell, but at some point I got into Corvairs and the Bugpan got parted out.

Sure wish I still had it. There may be polaroids floating around somewhere, and I may have some slides or B&W negatives of it (I know I have shots of the girlfriend at the time).

[oldcarfan]

Not mine, but the same. My first car was a 1974 Toyota Corolla in yellow with a half vinyl top for some reason. That little car had the 1200cc engine with a four speed and no power anything. The car was was surprisingly rust free and I drove it for  a year though that little engine couldn't deal with highway speeds. Sadly, it blew it's head gasket one day at the beach after some spirited racing in the sand. That car taught me the joy of driving a slow car fast. It handled like a go cart.

[Jim Dodson]

49 minutes ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

I posted much of this elsewhere recently...

My first car was a $250 '62 VW Bug some flipper (yeah, they had 'em then too) put a terminally leaking 36 horse engine in (sposed to be a 40). I was 18, that was all the money I could scrape together, and I wildly overpaid for a total and complete POS.

I knew nothing much really useful about cars, only having changed points and fiddled with tuneups on the family rides, and a little bodywork (small crease low on a front fender) with a claw hammer and files and rattlecan touchup paint (which came out very well, as I hammered and filed and primered according to an article in Rod & Custom until the metalwork was just about perfect).

Anyway, eventually I rebuilt a junkyard 40 horse for the Bug, added headers and a 2-bbl carb, replaced the front suspension assembly (the torsion bar tubes were bent when I bought it), lowered it all 'round with a rear "camber compensator", fitted a JC Whitney quick-steering Pitman-arm extender (that probably would have killed me if it had broken on the Interstate just a few minutes before it failed in the Burger King parking lot adjacent to the Ga.Tech EE lot where the slaloms were held), and a quick shift kit, rewired it (for real gauges, 12 volts, and in general 'cause chimps had already been at it), gutted the interior and put in a roll bar and fiberglass buckets, bolted on flared glass fenders and wheel adaptors and Chevy chrome-reverse 14" steel rims with Polyglas tires...and finally stuck a $500 Porsche 356 SC engine in it.

It was pretty quick as a slalom car by that point, sometimes setting FTD (fast time of the day) if the guy with the 140-horse Corvair engine in a Manx with real race rubber didn't show up. He was unbeatable, period.

I ended up wrapping it sideways around a tree after sliding on a patch of loose gravel that was on a hairpin turn on a road I'd never driven before. Body and chassis were pretzeled, went to a junkyard, bought a pan / backbone, swapped everything on to it, drove it like that on the street (bare pan) for a couple of years, and continued running slaloms. Got pulled over frequently just because, but everything about it met the exact letter of the law, including the little square of plexiglass needed to adhere the inspection sticker to (the law at the time said if you had a windshield you had to have functional wipers, but nowhere did it say you had to have a windshield).

Always intended to get another Bug shell, but at some point I got into Corvairs and the Bugpan got parted out.

Sure wish I still had it. There may be polaroids floating around somewhere, and I may have some slides or B&W negatives of it (I know I have shots of the girlfriend at the time).

Bill, your tale rang so many of my memory bells. Such as, J.C. Whitney, air cooled bugs. I had put an EMPI Quick Shift kit on my used 1971 and fell in love with that bug all over again! 15 years I kept that Beetle, long enough to justify the replacement carpet and upholstery kit. (Both from previously mentioned catalog). Even used the ex-wife's real estate agent's signs she left in MY garage taking up wasted space when she moved out to patch the corrosion hole in the rear pan from a leaking battery. Eventually gave the car to my niece for her first car (but made her daddy teach her how to drive a stick on hilly roads. LOL