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Cars of My Past
My first car was a 1962 Ford Galaxie 500, 10 years old at the time with 90,000 miles on her. She looked like Andy Griffith's Squad Car on the Andy Griffith Show....4 doors, slow and ugly - But, she got me through my first year of college.
Paid $400 for her...
Paid $400 for her...
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It seemed like a great car at the time, but let's face it, anything with wheels that moves under its own power is going to seem wonderful to a high school kid getting his first car! Sadly, among my group of friends, I had the "muscle car" of the bunch. I could easily smoke their Pintos, Lynxes, rusted out Accords, 4-cylinder Mustangs and Fairmonts, Cavaliers, etc. But that ain't saying much.
I liked the car though, because it wasn't all that big on the outside, but had decent room inside and a nice-sized trunk. It had about 78,000 miles on it when Mom gave it to me, and was in pretty nice shape except for faded paint and cracks in the dashboard. And there was a spot where the carpet tended to pull out from the door sill plate. But in the time I had it, it got hit in the rear quarter panel in the high school parking lot, and then one of my friends put a big dent in the driver's side door when he tried to park it one day. Don't ask me why I let that idiot drive it! I was able to pound out both dents to the point where you could hardly see them. In 1989 I rear-ended a 1982 Cavalier that slammed on its brakes in front of me. Smashed everything plastic up front, put a crease in the hood, and pushed the fender back far enough into the door that it would creak when you opened it. And from there on out, to open the hood you had to pull the inside release, but the hood wouldn't pop up until you got out and slammed the door! My Granddad and I found a 1981 Malibu in the junkyard, same shade of blue, and put its header panel on my car. And just left the hood and fender alone.
I finally got rid of it around 100,000 miles. I would've kept driving it, but I bought a 1969 Dart GT, which was a superior car in just about every aspect, and couldn't afford the insurance on two cars back then. So I sold the Malibu for $500, in 1990. I saw it about a year later, at a local grocery store parking lot. I talked to the lady who was driving it (it was her husband who bought it from me), and she said they loved it. It had about 115,000 on it at that point, and the only thing they did to it was replace the headliner, which was drooping.
I have fond memories of that car, but I have a feeling that if I had an identical car today, it wouldn't live up to those old memories. Y'know, that old saying about rose-tinted glasses, and you can't go home again? :P
My first car was my Grandma's 1980 Citation, which was every bit the horror story one might expect. My next car was an '88 Sentra, which was a better car at 250,000 miles than the Citation was at 50,000. Those experiences sealed the domestics' doom in my eyes and set me on the road to being a (pre-Renault) Nissan fanboy.
It was a non-running heap at a British mechanic's shop. Nice fellow that my Dad knew, he offered to teach me about mechanicals via a rebuild of the one-liter Singer plant inside. I was one lucky little puke.
Kept it two years while working on it and drove it for two months (legally) and gave to my Sister when Dad gave me the '65 Olds 98 convertible.
Everybody who saw it said it was a great little car. I felt no serious emotional attachment, frankly. I liked it well enough because it was a car, and enjoyed the satisfaction of helping put it back on the road, but did you know you can fit five friends, six big innertubes and a full keg in and on a '65 Olds 98 convertible?
Yes you can...
No loss though...I found a wrench stuck between the inner and outer fender, so it had been whacked before. The car was also a horrible guzzler and was very cold blooded...it loved to stall. So I didn't miss it. I got the insurance money (which was about 3 times what was paid for the car), and after awhile found the fintail that I still own, and had a few bucks left over, some of which I gave to my dad for his efforts. So it all ended well.
Dark Burnt Orange paint, light tan velour seats. A beautiful little car that ran without problems. I had it for about 3 years, and we called it "The Tank" because it had about 8 inches of ground clearance and although only a 2-wheel-drive car, it went offroad just about anywhere I wanted to take it.
Never got it stuck in many trips into the Texas boonies. :shades:
Sadly, I let the radiator run out of water on the way to a party at the lake and ended up with a busted head gasket in 1981, and my mom sold it for junk in 1983 for $300.
Red exterior, black vinyl interior with no A/C - VERY handy in mid-Missouri during the summer. It really helped me learn to ignore the pain from 2nd-degree burns.
Manual transmission (adjustable for regular or economy mode), AM radio only.
It met a similar fate... sold for bits & pieces for about $500 in 1993.
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Black with tan vinyl interior, and the 15" cragar-looking steel 5 spoke wheels that GM offered in that era. It was my mom's, who gave it to me in 1988 to drive to high school.
All in all, a good car...mechanically wore like iron, and due to the optional 2.8 (I think) V6, it had some real pick up. Could embarrass a few of the "sporty" cars of the time...
And looking back on it, gotta say it looked nothing like the other wagons of the time...it was sleek black with some red accents on the midline rubstriping.
Looked like this one:
IIRC, the Eurosport had a fuel injected 2.8 with 125 hp. It probably had fairly aggressive gearing, too. I'd imagine that it could do 0-60 in around 10 seconds, maybe a tad quicker. That might sound laughable today, but most cars that rolled off the assembly line in 1985 would've been proud to hit 10 seconds! I have a 1985 Consumer Guide that tested a Celebrity with the 112 hp carbureted 2.8, and I think it did 0-60 in 11.2 seconds. For comparison, a 4-cyl Camry was about 13.4 seconds, and I think the Stanza was similar. The Accord was around 11-12 seconds. On the domestic front, something like a K-car or Dodge 600/Plymouth Caravelle was good for around 13 seconds, while a Ford LTD with the 120 hp 3.8 V-6 was 11.9.
I remember those rims, too. There was a similar RWD style that was common on the S-10 pickup, Monte Carlo, and I think the '82-83 Malibu. I almost got a set for my '86 Monte Carlo, but that car got totaled 3 months after I got it.
I was very covetous of those Montes back then...esp. the SS versions with the "SS" decals on the lower part of the doors.
But the "realistic" car I wanted was a Chevy Cavalier Type-10 hatchback...I thought those looked soo cool.
Yeah, for some reason RWD car wheels are like that. More "offset" or whatever you call it compared to FWD car wheels. I'm sure there's a technical reason for that...maybe the CV joints take up more space, so that's why an FWD car wheel ends up with more backspacing?
Farout
It was the closest new car I could find like a convertible that I could afford to pay cash for, which is what I really wanted. I had been saving for a new car since I was 12 years old, and I was 18 when I bought it in April of 1972. One thing that stands out is the dealer could not cash the check I wrote because their "people" said I could not legally enter into a contract due to may age, so my parents had to write the check. It took the dealer three days to figure out all the legal stuff. But who cared, I had the car!
That roof leaked like a sieve, much more so in a drizzle than a down pour. In fact, it leaked not one bit during the drive home from my job at the time in Indianhead to my home in Bryans Road during Hurricane Agnes. But by late August, still living at home, I talked my Dad into letting me get my convertible--a brand new left over 1972 Chevelle Malibu, same 307 V8, red with black interior, very few options other than auto, power steering and brakes, and again, that AM radio with the rear speaker. That car actually had carpet. I was in heaven! I remember driving to my new job in late October with the top down and seeing left over snow on the ground! It was cold out, but I sure was cool with the heater blasting!
Ah, nothing like wasted youth on the young!
I had a love/hate relationship with it. It was great to have my own car and the little Beetle was fairly well made with good steering, brakes and seats but it was really slow, noisy and scary when the wind was blowing hard or it was raining.
I put 40,000 on it in two years and swapped it for a used TR-4A.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
It didn't. It had the 292 CID V-8, once a Thunderbird engine, it was no great powerhouse by 62. VW Fastbacks were a good race for me.
The XL models got the Police Interceptor 390 CID 4-BBL engine, and those were scary fast!!!
You're very good, Andre - as I stated above, I had the 292, which I believe, but could be wrong on, was the base engine for the car. The rest of your engine specs are correct - except I'm not positive you could get the 406 in a Ford. POssibly in the Thunderbird, and for sure, in the Mercury. Those were the days, when Mercury was actually more of a car than the Ford.
A 406 was available on XL models anyway, I think I have seen one before. Low volume, Ford's 409 in a way.
my first car was a '66 impala station wagon(3 rows of seats). 283 and powerglide.
it sat in the garage for about a year. my dad said if i could get it running i could have it. floored the gas pedal, turned the key, it started! i think he was shocked.
it had a bad tranny and he sold it a couple of weeks later, and always let me drive his car, after that.
the first car i actually paid for was a '74 duster (slant 6)in mid 1978. it was blue with a black vinyl roof on the FRONT half of the roof. remember those? by the time i was done with it, it was know as the 'bruisemobile' because it was black and blue all over.
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Oldengineer
I raced VW's fintail, what does that tell ya? Sometimes I won. Mine was tired, 90,000 miles in those days was nearly spent for even a V-8. It had a lot of blow by, a TON of blow by. It was really shot, probably had a couple of nearly dead cylinders, I never did a compression check on it. It ran ok, I was 18, it got me to college. I sold it when my folks gave me their 66 LTD Coupe with a 390. Now that one was fast and sleek....I was way classed up on that one.
I loved that car, and it remains my favorite.
I also used to own a '64 Ford Econoline pickup with the 170 I-6 and 4 speed Dagenham tranny. A turd in most ways, but still the only ex vehicle I wish I still had.
The 4-speed was a one year only option in 1964. Dammit, I wish I kept that POS!!
I dunno about other years, but in searching around on the web, I found a blurb saying that the 1963 292 V-8 only put out 170 hp. In comparison, I think a Chevy 283 made something like 195 hp with a 2-bbl carb by that time. Chrysler didn't make any V-8's that small in 1962, but when the 273 came out for '64, it had 180 hp with a 2-bbl carb, or 235 with a hopped-up 4-bbl.
I think the 292 was also kind of heavy and outdated, and wasn't much of a revver, especially compared to something like a Chevy 283. It might've been more of a torquer, though.
In the early 90s my dad rescued a '60 Ford Country Sedan, with a 352...it seemed competent, even for something of that enormous size.
It was a 2 door coupe (notchback), beige with beige vinyl, with the 2.5L "Iron Duke" engine and a 4 speed manual (I wonder if that was why the previous owners put so few miles on it?). No tach, no AC, just an 85 MPH speedo and a gas gauge.
I added aftermarket fog (yellow) and driving (white) lights under the front bummper and an aftermarket Kraco AM/FM Cassette deck and two rear speakers - the rear parcel shelf was so narrow that I had to use external speakers that were mounted with a U-shaped bracket.
My cousin and I cut a hole in the roof and installed an aftermarket sunroof. Let me tell you, that was the scariest thing I ever did, when we fired up that jigsaw. However, the installation went very well and I had many hours of enjoyment.
In February of 1983, I moved to Phoenix (from Southern California) to attend college, and I took the Sunbird with me.
The first order of business was to address the heat situation. Without AC, I was suffering immensely when the weather got warm - in Phoenix, if the high temp stays under 3 digits, it's just "warm"; above 100 degrees, they can officially say it's "hot". I checked into an aftermarket AC unit, but it was going to run about $800. I was able to convince the folks that a pair of genuine sheepskin seat covers was much more cost effective at $300, so that was what I did.
The folks had provided me with a Union 76 gas card which I was supposed to use to buy gas with. Unfortunately, in the 32 months I lived in Arizona, that card got so much use that it split in half.
The problem, in a nutshell, was that the car wouldn't always start. It would run fine for some time, then I'd jump into it and it wouldn't even crank. The gas station mechanics couldn't figure it out, and I didn't know enough about cars to be able to make my own diagnosis. Just had to live with it.
After about a year or so, I was involved in an accident where a lady made a left turn in front of me at an intersection and I T-boned her. Cops wrote her up and her insurance paid for my repairs. I remember driving a Mercury Lynx as my rental replacement during that time.
After getting the car back, I noticed that I was having trouble getting the car into and out of reverse. Again, not all the time, but enough to be quite aggravating.
Back to the local Union 76 station, where I was told that two of the motor mounts were broken and the engine had sagged to the point of becoming mis-aligned with the transmission. They replaced the motor mounts, but my shifting problems continued.
I also had the heater core replaced; someone thought that might be the cause of the problems I was having getting the car started. Nope, still had that issue to deal with.
Despite these troubles, I drove the car back to CA a couple of different times, plus quite a number of weekend trips to Yuma and was never stranded.
A few months before graduating college, I was taking the Sunbird to a repair shop to have the transmission looked at again when I rear-ended a lady who was turning into a parking lot. I was in the middle of a lane change at the time, and had turned my head around to look over my left shoulder when the accident occurred.
This time the damage was fatal. My insurance company (well, Mom and Dad's insurance company) cut me a check for $2000 and totalled it out. I bought a '77 Buick for $1000 to see me through graduation, then sold it afterwards and moved back to CA.
Well it was certainly heavy, being all cast iron, don't know about how outdated it was, they were all pretty much the same, but it was not at all much of a revver, and with all the blow by it was not any good at torque either. It was just damn slow.
When winter came, I learned something about driving RWD vehicles in the snow and ice. After the first snowfall, I turned the corner and found myself sliding inexorably into the sidewalk. After the encounter, the front right wheel and axle slid an inch or sow backwards, so the steering wheel must be held - tight - in a certain crooked way to drive straight.
Froze solid on a city street on a 20 below night right before I was to move and leave it behind.
It had the 289 2bbl and was an auto (cruise-o-matic) and would move out pretty well. Burned up a set of rear tires in 3 months, that was a fun conversation with dad.
Put some $$ into it, painting, trim, top etc. and sold it in 90 for 6500. Had to get something mre reliable to go to college in. That turned out to be an 89 Beretta with so-so reliability.
Oh, to have that Mustang again....
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Chris, if I remember correctly, while the Studebaker V8 was OHV, the I-6 was an old flathead design that Studebaker had used for years. It might have been a pre-WWII design, in fact. The six was economical, though, and well suited to the Lark's mission in the marketplace. By contrast, the V8's design was similar to the Chevy small block, and it was quick.
Rocky
Rocky
Rocky
Oh, you pooor thing! I'm surprised you didn't turn in your license!!
Rocky
Rocky