First cars

[Ron H]

There are other threads on this having posted my fond recollections. When I got my license as a HS sophomore, I was fortunate that my mother rode to work with her friend, so had a vehicle 80% of the time. First was a ’63 GP 389/tri-power and then a ’66 T-Bird. Finally came the time to buy my first car and since my elder brother was into GTO’s wanted one. I had pert-near settled on one at a dealer; but the price was causing me to think more. On the way home from the dealer stopped at our local Mac’s and parked alongside a gorgeous 67 GTO vert. Back then ya could still back in and hang around to chat. I asked the owner about his car telling him I was pondering on buying one and the $1500 price tag. Just like that he says “You can buy mine for a thousand”. His car was rare; it had about every option available on it. That settled that! I was 17 and my dear mother agreed to co-sign on the loan for it. The pic is off the web of one near the color mine was; but had black interior/top. (I never took photos of mine or my next car a ’70 Cuda vert dammit.) Had some fantastic times in that ride while the muscle cars days were still alive and well…and before adulthood and those worries arrived..

 

[Gsmopar]

I washed dishes, paper route, and served TCBY Yogurt to save $900 for this bad boy in 1990. It's been through many stages.

before1 by Greg Ault, on Flickr

IMG_7700 by Greg Ault, on Flickr

IMG_3928 by Greg Ault, on Flickr

008 by Greg Ault, on Flickr

car4 by Greg Ault, on Flickr

DSC02493 HDR by Greg Ault, on Flickr

DSC06094 by Greg Ault, on Flickr

i-v2D5CW6-X3 by Greg Ault, on Flickr

i-3wJ2752-X3 by Greg Ault, on Flickr

 

[JDmac72chrgr]

I washed dishes, paper route, and served TCBY Yogurt to save $900 for this bad boy in 1990. It's been through many stages.

View attachment 1142003before1 by Greg Ault, on Flickr

View attachment 1142004IMG_7700 by Greg Ault, on Flickr

View attachment 1142005IMG_3928 by Greg Ault, on Flickr

View attachment 1142006008 by Greg Ault, on Flickr

View attachment 1142007car4 by Greg Ault, on Flickr

View attachment 1142008DSC02493 HDR by Greg Ault, on Flickr

View attachment 1142009DSC06094 by Greg Ault, on Flickr

View attachment 1142010i-v2D5CW6-X3 by Greg Ault, on Flickr

View attachment 1142011i-3wJ2752-X3 by Greg Ault, on Flickr

DAAANNNGGGG!!!!

 

[Hemi 354]

'49 Ford club coupe. Flathead V8. Bought it for $25.

 

[Derv]

Still have my first car, 42 years now.

 

[moparedtn]

Shouldn't that be the same?

Should be.
Wasn't....
First car (after learning/figuring out how to drive in a '71 Simca 1204) was a $95 '64 Olds F-85 with
the 225 V-6 and a slip-n-slide auto. Truly ugly but put up with a ton of abuse...
First Mopar:

1968 Super Bee (with wrong year stripe on it). 440 4 speed when I bought it...
As "wrong" as everything was with that car, I'd KILL to get it back today.

 

[71newport]

1971 Charger R/T 440 auto. In 1982 I was 16 and spied an ad in the local auto trader for this car in the next town over. Ended up buying it for $2200 from the original owner- an old lady living in a trailer park. Still have it.

Ironically, the very next week an ad popped up in our local small town paper for a '71 Superbee that was the twin of my Charger (same color combo, hidden headlights, ramcharger hood, rally's, etc.). 383 4spd. Really clean one owner car from the same dealership as mine. I wanted sooooooo bad to have the matching cars, but mom put her foot down with regards to driveway space.

Stop reading here if you have a weak stomach.

Well, the older brother of a girl at my high school bought it for $1400. I saw it around town regularly, and each time I saw it it had a new dent, a tacky accessory, or an amateur repair. The moron pounded the hell out of it. Well, I last saw it a few years later. Primered, fat tires, a late model 400, auto trans with a funky manual trans shifter that looked like it came out of a Chevy truck, and the airgrabber was propped up with a popsicle stick. I think of that car often.

 

[68BabyBlue]

The dealer searched local inventory for a Satellite in this colour combo, as Fred being a very conservative accountant, didn't want to have to buy "ethyl" and wished for better gas mileage. But no white over blue Satellites could be found in the Tulsa area. As this car had an automatic transmission, air conditioning, power steering, power brakes, etc etc, they bought the RoadRunner since Pat liked it so well.

A little over five and a half years later, Fred decides its time to buy a new car as he traded cars approximately every lustrum or so. He mentioned it to my Dad, who, of course had heard nothing but "car" from me since I could speak. [it was my fourth word] Just so happened that my birthday was approaching too, and Dad and I had been looking at cars anyway. At first I rejected the notion of this particular vehicle as I did NOT want automatic or A/C. But, as most of the RoadRunners, GTOs, Chevelles and Impalas that we had viewed were worn out junk [or grossly overpriced/out of my range], I decided to go ahead and look at the car.
Well, you can imagine what a 5 year old car with 42000 miles belonging to a post middle aged accountant looked like. The only 'issue' was that Fred and Pat lived in a rural area and had 2 miles of dirt road to travel to get home, hence, this being December, the car wore whitewall studded snow tyres...[Ever done a burnout with studded snow tyres? makes an odd sound and throws sparks...

] A price was agreed upon, Dad and I agreed on loan and repayment terms, [actually Dad set the terms and I agreed] savings were relinquished on the spot, my dirt bike was put up for sale immediately and the hunt for a job began in earnest the very next day.
When we went to pick the car up that Friday evening, Fred brought out not only the title and owner's manual, but a factory service manual and a stack of paper that contained every receipt for everything ever put in or done to the car. Along with all this documentation, was a carburetor kit. When I queried as to the repair parts, Fred answered "John, I know you had to have noticed, and if not, your Dad certainly did, but since you all didn't say anything, I feel I must tell you there IS something wrong with the car. I have had the carb rebuilt every year ; at first under warranty and since it's run out now, I was going to do it myself this spring."
"Why Sir?"
"Well, obviously there's something wrong with it. I have NEVER been able to get the car to idle smoothly!"
The car idled just right as far as I was concerned, firm and slightly lumpy, so I thought for a moment...then it hit me. Right as I was about to say something, my Dad elbowed me lightly, looked at me sideways , smiled and said "Don't worry about it Fred, we'll get it figured out."
Poor Fred never DID really understand exactly what all "RoadRunner" meant...[/QUOTE]

My friend Bob Miller, who sold me Baby Blue in 1983, has a similar story. Her original owner also wanted a 318 satellite, but a shrewd salesman convinced him to order a GTX to get the free automatic transmission. Mr. Bender commuted to work with her for six years, then she became Bob’s first car for $600 in 1974. He cared for her fanatically for 9 years, kept her stock because he couldn’t afford aftermarket parts.

 

[Nevada dan]

69 roadrunner $150

 

[33 IMP]

My first car was a 55 chevy Delray two door sedan, with a 265/glide. My parents bought it new, in 1954.
Its still in my backyard, waiting for the 454 transplant.

 

[wldgtx]

First car bought with money made working @ a Dairy Queen in 1985. The car was a 1970 Challenger RT/SE 440 auto (gator top).

 

[towtruckAl]

first car 1950 ford cpe for25.00 first thing I did was hack saw the top off to make a carson lift off , when winter came couldnt figure out how to fit or make windows so was parked till spring . sold it to a buddy for 50.00 , lesson learned , first mopar was 1960 chrysler 300 conv bucket seats consul push button . M an but I was in with the girls then .

 

[Matthew Miller]

My first car was a 1969 Dodge Dart GTS 383 Auto.
I got it when I turned 16 in 1978.
It was sold new in my town McCredie Dodge in Keokuk IA.
When I bought the car it had fender well headers and had lived a hard life.
I doubt it had an original body panel on it and I know the engine had been replaced with
a 69 383 from a Superbee that had been hit by a train.
I don't remember if it had a fender tag, hell nobody cared then. We just wanted them to go fast.

I remember when I pulled up in it and my cousin who was about 10 years older than me saw it started laughing. He was good friends with the guy who bought it new and told me a lot of crazy stuff happened in that car. He could not believe it was still on the road......
I blew the engine up a year later, stuck a 440 in it. Sold it off when I went in the Army.
Lost to time.

PS:

Now I can't stand Rallye Wheels on a 69 Dart, but thats what I rolled with back in the day.

 

[f569]

Picture is not my car but one that looks exactly the same.
'73, 318-2, auto, p/s, p/b, a/c. White vinyl seats with the gold and black hounds-tooth inserts. Appx 25k on the odometer if I remember correctly. The owner was literally the little old lady that drove it to church and the store. Mine didn't have the raised whites or the mags but the grill was busted in the same spot from when one of my ******** friends put their hand through it when stuck in the snow. Still living at home when I was 17, Mom and Dad didn't approve when I told them about it. "Too big" was their main issue. Gramps went with me to check it out, he had no such misgivings being a Dodge man at heart. The gleam in his eye instantly told me it was coming home with us. He fronted the cash and I paid him back weekly from my part time supermarket job while I was in high school. I only had her for a brief time, a drunk driver in a '69 Caddy broad sided her in the passenger door doing appx 40 mph (according to witnesses). Good thing my girlfriend at the time was driving and I was not in the car. She was beat up pretty bad but healed up fine. Had the two of us been in the car together .... who knows?
40 years later and I STILL have dreams about that car. Wierd? Wish I still had her, I loved that car.

 

[Budnicks]

Like others have said there's a few 1st car threads
& what was your 1st MoPar memory or the likes

anyway technically 'my 1st car was'
61 Renault rear-engine, don't remember the model
I got it when I was 10 y/o
it was turned into a dune-buggy type deal,
hacked rear fenders & paddles
for Pismo or Glamis Dunes etc. a truly shitty car,
My stepfather said he'd cut it into pieces
if he ever caught me driving it on the street, he did just that too...

I worked all summer, plus some @ $1.65 an hr & a lot of OT & tips
Paul Petterson Shell Service Tires & Tune
saved every penny that didn't go into my gas tank
to get to work on my Hodaka motorcycle

Now;
my 1st legal car for driving, was a 65 Galaxie
$150 POS I bought from a friends mom
I didn't have it long, I had dreams of grandeur, a 390 BB 4 speed

My 1st 'real car' my 68 Charger R/T I bought for $350
GG1 dark green, black-top & guts 440/727tf
from a neighbor lady down the street from my mothers' house
in Antioch, I was 15 y/o still, 1974 I only had my permit
that was;
Shortly after I got the POS Galaxie, it was sold the next week

I saw the light pretty quickly...

 

[SteveSS]

Nice writing Guy. I am very familiar with Claremore, Oklahoma. Home to Will Rogers. My parents had a ranch down there. Totally undeveloped land. Lots of Indian caves and Cottonmouth snakes. That part of the Ozarks is like a tropical jungle.

First car: Dad was our city manager and found out about a recovered stolen 1965 Barracuda. 273 with a 4 barrel. No one could start the car and dad bought it for $5. The shift linkage was off one notch so put in reverse and it started right up. The car was a real POS but I did my first donuts in that car. About 1972 Dad bought me a 1966 Mustang 2+2 fastback. It was nice but like all spoiled kids, I tore the hell out of it. Wish I had it now. I wasn't really spoiled, I had to work my *** off on our cattle ranch in Kansas. We didn't live on the ranch but it took almost all my spare time. Movies make cowboying look fun but it's hard, hot/cold, and dangerous. Picture yourself getting up early every winter morning before school to go break the ice so the cattle could drink. Bales of hay and nutritional supplements in the evening. Lots of stuff like that.

 

[qkcuda]

My Dad owned a Sunoco station so we had a succession of used vehicles. Technically I think the first one I owned was a 66 Buick Le Sabre with a ....340. My first Mopar was a 71 Demon slant 6. The next one was a 68 Barracuda. The first of 6 A body Barracudas.

 

[beanhead]

'72 Demon, bought it for $250 int the mid-80s, my junior year in high school. It was silver with black interior, had the mighty slant 6, and three-on-the-tree. Nobody wanted that **** back then. It was no hot-rod but it looked the part and was plenty fun, and durable. And it got used and abused that's for sure...

 

[AR67GTX]

First car and a Mopar from back in 68. Black on black with 383 - 4bbl, torqueflite, PS and PB. Owned it until 72 - wish I still had it

 

[Cranky]

66 Belvedere II with 318 poly modoor. Didn't really care to have it but it was a 'gradiation' gift for half of what it was worth. From mowing yards since I was in my very early teens, I had the money for the other half lol. Needless to say I didn't graduate at the top of my class plus we weren't exactly well off either so getting a car to call my own was better than not having one at all. About a year later I dropped in a warmed up 383 and liked the idea of having a sleeper and during that time had fun with it until my draft notice came in early 71. I had an eye out for a 2dr sedan Belvedere I and found one in 88. Found one in 69 but the used car dealer wasn't all too friendly with a kid that looked like he was 13 at the time so that deal didn't take place....plus he was an ahole. Even at 25 and out of the military I still looked like I was in my mid teens and no one believed what my ID said.