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What was your first car? What happened to it?
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My first car was a 1965 Buick Riviera. I owned it from 1985 to 1993. It was my high school / college car. It was big, comfy, old but fast. Everybody thought it was my grandfathers car. I put over 100k miles on that car. I finaly gave it up when I graduated. The 425ci engine got 10 mpg on a good day, parts cost a fortune, and the a/c did not work. Yet I would trade any of my cars to have it back .... that is except for my 1997 Buick Riviera.
I could tear the gear splines off first gear and did more than once. However, I could get a junk yard 3 speed exchanged by a local dirt track racer for only $75.00 parts and labor. My father sold the car when I was drafted and went to Vietnam in l967. I would really liked to have it back now. I am sure I would have installed the 3.93 gear and the 4 speed with Hurst shifter it really needed. Plus a good set of Hooker headers would have really made it rock n roll.
That was my first one and I really feel for kids today who never will have the opportunity to enjoy an experience like this.
Take care out there road agents !!!!!!!!
We got such a topic already! So, come on over to Maintenance Topic #143 and tell your stories.
Light in the rear and easy to spin the tires. It was a 'family' car that my Dad used for his daily commute. I ran it into a wall in January, 1970.
Sigh.
The other first car was the first one I owned. It was a 1958 Ford Fairlane 500 with a V8, radio with front and back speakers, and no butterfly valve in the carburetor. Painted flat black, there was NO rust (bought it from a guy in Encino)
and the starter didn't work. I paid $75 for it and helped a friend put a starter in it ($25). I drove it on the LA freeways for 2 months and sold it to some new arrivals from Michigan for $125 !!
The other was a 60 Impala 4-door sedan, the ignition switch was jammed so I had a couple of wires hanging under the dash to cross, it ended up lasting a couple of weeks until my dad got sick of looking at its rusty hulk in front of the house and made me get rid of it.
49-54 Chevys were hot stuff back then. We would lower them, split the manifolds, etc.
At that time, 200.00 would buy a REALLY nice one! For 100.00 or so, you could get one that looked and ran pretty well.
Once, I followed a buddy who was buying a 1950 Chevy for 50.00 from an elderly couple.
That Chevy had probably never been on the freeway before and didn't like it!
As I followed, it threw a rod so hard it took the generator off the side of the engine!
By buddy said " the hell with it" limped it off the freeway and left it parked on a residental street. Never saw it again...
For graduation I got a brand new Acura Integra with a 5-speed which offered involvement that the Camaro could never offer (except for straight-line speed.) However the car was next supposed to go to my little sister but by 1990 my parents decided to get her a smaller car, and instead gave the Camaro to my aunt.
Sometime in '92 or 93' the car was totaled after running backwards off the road into a ditch. The engine, however, still ran and was transplanted into an early 70's Chevy pickup which runs to this day. I don't know if that old "Heartbeat" will ever stop.
The owner and his mechanic (the one with the pair of channel-locks) were lifting off the cylinder head from a '46 Studebaker Coupe as I walked by. The owner said it had "a bad knock" for the past fifty miles. The "mechanic" saw that the #2 cylinder contained no piston; only a rod and record-depth scoring of the cylinder walls. He told the owner that repairs would be beyond the scope of his channel-lock and screwdriver toolbox.
In less than ten minutes the car was mine for $60. Body was OK, tires almost new, everything else worked. A few blocks away, the body of a '52 Studebaker Champion had recently fallen victim to a wild Fraternity party but I correctly guessed the motor was OK. Would you believe four guys with a chain and fencepost could easily lift that little engine out of the '52 in the dark of night? New piston rings, rod bearings, gaskets, brakes, starter and generator brushes pushed the total investment to $130.
I drove the car about 25K miles with no real problems. Cruised at 60+MPH OK. Turned it on it's side during a hunting trip; three of us flipped it back on it wheels and continued no worse for the wear.
Carnut, I believe this one would have made it to Klamath Falls! Of course, this was an expensive car; the $60 cost was 70% more than your $35. I did not have a wolf whistle but I did have a "pre-electric" Borg-Warner overdrive like yours.
Many years later I learned that only 2,465 of the '46 3-Passenger coupes had been produced. It was the only one I recall seeing. No wonder some people asked if it was a Terraplane or a Hudson.
I later had a '51 Studebaker 3/4-ton truck with the same 80 HP eggbeater engine ... acceleration was not it's strong point.
Shiftright ...while steel availability was a problem, it's my understanding that '46 production was cut short to accommodate changeover to the all-new '47. Other that the drivetrain, that car really was "all new." I'm sure you remember that no one accused the '47 Studebaker of looking like anything else.....
I advanced from newspaper carrier peddling on a one-speed bike to gas station jockey in 1964 at age 16, picking up a '55 Chevy 210 4-dr sedan for $300: 80K on odometer, 235 "Blue Flame" in-line 6, 3-speed column shift, no radio, "4-40 AC" (four windows down, 40 mph). Body by Fischer, amended with Bond-O. A classic "beach car" which took us to many surfing/skin-diving/fishing jaunts when I had the weekend off. We nicknamed this bomb "the Black Knight."
A mechanic's dream, however, as I experienced a constant parade of repairs and maintenence items:
tires (6.70 x 15), radiator, clutch, shocks, head lights, carburetor, muffler, leaf spring, etc. I saved on lubrication: monthly or every 1000 miles done during "slow" periods for free.
My brother dreamed of inheriting this "heap" when I left for college, but it was sold for parts. Today, he's a certified auto mechanic; every family should have one in-house.
buckets, console
huge hood and deck lid, weighed 4500lbs
tough to find parts for
bought in '75 for $150, sold in '77 for $150
next guy drove it for 1 year then lost track
replaced with a abused 1970 Olds 442, 455 ci 4 speed for $500
too many tickets before the suspension fell apart
put the engine and front disk brakes into a 1966 Pontiac Tempest convertible
now that was a sleeper!!
It ran on a 237 cid v8 that roared so loud I could be easily identified up to a mile away. It was a beautiful blue-green color that was called "Coronado Aqua" in those days, and it got me from place to place very nicely. One of the best fringe benefits about having a beautiful old car in the 90's is the attention you get. I would have people staring at my rambler at every stoplight.
Unfortuneately, the car was headed for the ground. I bought it from my uncle in Wisconsin where the winter salt on the roads rotted the undercarriage to pure hell. And going from that climate to Miami was perhaps a mistake, as the heat and humidity only loosened up everything that could be loosened. The driver's side floor collapsed and ended up like those cars in the flintstones where you could use your feet as brake pedals. The choke was is bad condition and even after getting the butterfly cleaned it would often take upwards of ten minutes to get the old beast started and running. And although Miami is as flat as a dime, any type of incline like a parking structure ramp could cut the engine off while it was running and prevent it from starting again.
Any way, about 6 months into driving the rambler, the brakes failed and I smashed into an infiniti I30. After that, everything went downhill. I spent more than I paid for the car to replace the radiator, water pump and fan and do a complete overhaul on the front and rear brakes. I didn't have any money left over to take the rambler to the body shop to replace the front end (not to mention that rambler body parts are hard to come by).
So to make a long story short, the rambler turned into a money pit. So, after 2 years I was within 2 weeks of moving to California and had to get rid of the rambler. Well, a friend gave me a 88 honda for free so I had reliable transportation and my parents refused to keep the rotting rambler in their driveway. So I junked it for $80. Boy was that a sad day.
Someday, when I make enough money, I'll buy another rambler (63-69) and restore it.
It is white w/red interior, 400ci (360 hp), Rochester Quadrajet, 3 spd Hurst shifter. The only modifications are radio (had to cut a bigger hole in the dash) and different wheels, though I still have the original wheels and wheel covers. Everything else is stock.
The engine has never been apart (yet) and it has about 150k miles, most of which I put on. Very few mechanical problems during the 20 years of driving before storage. I still have all repair and oil/filter change records. A truly great car.
My wife claims I will sell her before I sell the GTO. I asked her yesterday if she was appreciating or depreciating. Things got real quiet.
Good sturdy and honest car, the Terraplane.
There were '64 Futuras in the two-door-hard-top, 260 V-8 configuration, but it's the Sprint I want. An alternative to the over-priced Mustangs.
We had a customer with a black '63 Sprint convertable. This was very much a Chevy town, but that was one nice car! The only thing he modified was the exhaust. He had a nice set of "pipes" installed with glasspacks.
It had a sweet sound and could hold it's own against 283 Chevys and the like...
Memories....I can still hear it!
Yes, I'm looking around for something else now. But I feel kind of like a traitor. It's basically the only thing I've ever ridden around in.
(I hope this works)
I had never experienced automatic transmissions before (too expensive to run in Ireland), but after three months it didn't feel quite right to me.
Still, I had a buyer. I warned him that it sounded a little off to me, but he drove it around for a few miles and said it was fine. He gave me $600 for it, took it home, and I went back to Ireland a few days later.
We had a mutual friend, who told me he drove it into NYC and lost reverse gear in a parking lot. He got it home, by which time it was slipping a lot in Drive too, and parked it on the street.
He then proceeded to buy a transmission for it, which he left sitting in the back seat.
After the winter snows had melted, the local authorities noticed that the previous Fall's leaves were still piled around the car, and towed it.
That was the end of it, and to this day it's the only car I ever made money on.
That's why I like Ford's,they are much quieter, at least they used to be. I guess GM quieted their product down a lot now.
Had it until I was 18. Let somebody drive it and he turned it over. Me and three other guys were in the car, nobody got hurt, but I had a lot of explaining to do. That was back in the sixties, and from that day to now, I never let anybody drive one of my cars!
of rust underneath. (PA inspection) It was sold to junk for $250.00. The junk dealer sold it to a Floridian wholesaler for $500. The wholesaler sold to a retailer in Puerto Rico who in turn, sold this same car for $2000.00. Maybe I am naive, but this really surprised me!