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BangShift Question of the Day: What was your first car?


BangShift Question of the Day: What was your first car?

At Wilmington this past weekend, there was a 17-year old racer who managed to run 200mph under the guidance of his dad, who is an experienced land speed competitor. The kid kid a great job, followed all of his pop’s instructions, and handled the car very well. It was cool to watch. I forgot to ask him what he drove to school in, but let’s take a stab and say that it is something cool. I figure it has to be the dude’s first car, so it got me thinking about my first car and the junk my friends first took to the roads in when we were 16-17 years old.

Mine was a 1984 Monte Carlo that came from the estate of my recently departed great aunt. It was slathered in the lovely two tone brown paint that so many early 1980s mobiles were saddled with. Inside the brown trifecta was complete with brown cloth interior. I had the car painted Ford Aculpulco blue and not having any money, decided to have them skip the jambs and other detail stuff. So I had a blue car with brown guts. The wheezy 305 was propped with with an assortment of bolt ons and stuff to make a car that sounded decent and was just powerful enough to do burnouts, donuts, and dust off the typical commuter shitboxes most other kids were driving, but it was still a turtle.

Anywho, enough about me. This is your time to spill the beans on your first car. Was it cool? Did it suck? Was it fast? Did you wreck it? Did you sweet talk mom and dad into buying something you were not capable of driving? We want the story behind your first set of wheels!

Tell the world!


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43 thoughts on “BangShift Question of the Day: What was your first car?

  1. William Robinson

    My first car was a 81 toyota tercel sedan, but since I never really had it registered or insured but still managed to drive it a bit. I really dont count it as my first. The first legal and road worthy car was a 88 Mazda 626 gt turbo. I dondnt suck it was fast for the time and I had alot of fun with that car. The best was pulling up to a fox mustang at a light and getting into a stop light drag, id put my foot on the brakes and build the boost up a bit and then dust the fox, not by much but enough to say I beat em.

  2. tigeraid

    1989 Dodge Caravan Cargo. 3.3 litres of torquey fury. What a burnout machine! And a great junkyard crawler too, tons of room for parts.

  3. Challenger 6 Pac

    A 1955 Plymouth Savoy 2 Door Sedan. It was in pretty bad shape when I bought it shortly after I turned 16 in 1962. In 1963 I manage to get my hands on a 413 and put it in. Tore the rear end clean up.
    I still own it and am rebuilding it for about the 5th time. Upgrades this time around include disc brakes with abs, and a 500 cu in engine.

  4. 75Duster

    1973 Dodge Dart Sport with a 225 / 904, the car that started it all on my Mopar passion.

  5. jerry z

    My cirst car at 17 was a 68 Camaro convt. Before you saying awesome this was 1980 and the car had a 6 cyl w/3 spd manual. The only option on the car was a power top. This car was hand me down, first my brother own in 1969 after Nam, then my dad gave it to me in 1980. Couldn’t own a V8 thanks to my rwo older brothers! It was a POS and did a lot of damage to the car before selling it in 1983.

  6. Robert M.

    My first car was a 1941 Ford Super Deluxe Coupe which I bought in 1974 when I was 16.

    It had no seats or motor, but was otherwise complete. The body was clean and rust free. I paid the astronomical sum of $200 for this car! That was 100 hours of working at my $2/hr. minimum wage job. (How times have changed!)

    I found a flathead V8 to put in it which cost me $75. I rebuilt every system on that car…engine, trans, clutch,brakes etc.

    I had an enormous amount of fun with that car and also learned a hell of alot about mechanics.

    I sold it before I started college. I have no idea where it is, although I am sure that it is still out there somewhere. I would love to find out where it is and see it again!

  7. Mrocketscience

    59 Ford Galaxie in 1970. I was 15, Dad bought it for $75. Didn’t last me too long I’m afraid…

  8. TheSilverBuick

    1977 Buick Skylark with a very wore out odd-fire 231 and TH200. It was silver =D I thought everything about the car was awesome, though it required regular work just to keep it on the road and pass CA smog.

    It now has 2 times the displacement, gets about 3 mpg more and makes 5 to 6 times more horsepower =D

  9. Scott Liggett

    Like Brian, my first car was a hand me down in the way of a 73 Coupe de Ville. Dad bought it from a friend of his who went through the caddys every few years. We got it set up for towing with a big class 3 hitch, dual exhaust (super quiet) , trailer brakes, and a posi with something like 3.23 gears. He also dumped the 472 for an Eldo 500 for extra pulling power. It would annialte studded snow tires in a spark throwing smoke show which I did grinding down an annnoying speed bump in our HS parking lot.

    I didnt get to drive it very long as I got it after my sister had it and abused it badly. She spun out in the snow and hit a tree bending frame. Dad fixed it, but she got it air borne in total Duke boy fashion. Dad fixed it again, but it never drove right so he sold it. I was sentenced to a 77 Accord hatcback with a whopping 83 hp and the Hondamatic until I saved enough to buy my own car.

  10. Matt Cramer

    A 1966 Dodge Dart four door with a 225/904, in 1996. Still have it, although it’s off the road for a turbo buildup.

  11. Bob Shuman

    It was 1961, and I was 14 and had just gotten my farm use license. I bought a 1946 Plymouth coupe. It was maroon with rolled pans front and rear and nerf bars. It had chrome reversed wheels with baby moon hubcaps. The flathead six ran fine. I paid $15 for it, and had to put a set of recaps on it for $20 more.

  12. bkb

    65 Plymouth Barracuda with 250K miles on the 273 2bbl. in 1976. I rebuilt it before I got my license and my brother and sister put another 200K on it over the next decade. I rolled it out of existence in 1988.

  13. leland edwards

    49 Hudson
    Had a nice cam, milled head/ twin H-Power and 4.11 gear with O.D. car is buried in a farm field now. did a lot of street racing with the old bathtub. wish I had it back

  14. Matt Riley

    My first car was a 1964 El Camino. It was a project gone bad from my father. When i got it it was a bare chassis and bare body. Nothing else was attached to the car. I parted out 4-5 other El Camino’s and Chevelle’s to build the car. It was Candy Brandywine with light gray interior. Small block 400 with a turbo 350 transmission. I drove it for two years when I was sitting and waiting for a school bus picking kids up and the dip shit behind me did not stop totaled my car. I have had several more since but nothing like the first one.

  15. Joe

    in 1973 I got a 1965 Buick Skylark 2 door hardtop. 300 cu.in. little V8, 2 sp auto, bucket seats. Dark blue, med blue vinyl interior. 1st modification, a glasspack for the single exhaust. Nice car, then in ’75 when I graduated from high school I sold it for a 1971 Pontiac LeMans Sport with the GTO front end….way cool!

  16. Karl w Stier jr

    Amy first car was my steps dads 1965 ford galaxy 500, 4 door hard top, 6 cylinder 3 on the tree. I drove it for about a year or so. Then my grandpaw gave me a 1966 ford custom, 2 door, 289 v-8 three on the tree. I turned this into my first hot rod. First I took all the Crome trim ,inside, out if the 1965 galaxy. Including the factory clock. Then it was on, I rebuilt the engine with 11 comp. pistons, a solid lifter cam( a big one ) 4 barrel intake with a 780 Holley carb( a real one 3310 ) a 4 – speed top loader, and a 4:56 gear in the 9 inch rear end. And 10 rear tires. I would launch the car at 5500 rpm’s and shift at 7800 rpm’s . A hell of a first race car ( low budget ride )

  17. ratty

    A little red 1951 Dodge pickup… I was around 18 years old, and had just ridden bicycles with my girlfriend at the time, on a one month trip that covered 1,500 miles from Winnipeg Canada, to Seattle Washington. We sold our bikes at the end of the trip, and with the $500 we got from the sale bought the first thing we could find, that puppy dog cute pickup. Top speed in the truck was a whopping 55mph, but it seemed like we were going 200mph compared to what we were used to that past month. We ended up traveling down the west coast to San Francisco, living in the truck doing the whole see-the-country-living-on-the-road deal (this was back in the mid 70’s), and over to Colorado, eventually settling down in Steamboat Springs, where the truck seemed to die. But one day I decided to sell it by putting a ‘For Sale $10’ sign on it, and within literally 10 minutes, someone bought it. After approximately 3 cases of beer and a short trip to the ER after I accidentally guzzled down a bottle of gasoline (I had filled one of the beer bottles up with gas to help us prime the carb and of course set it next to the hundred other bottles of beer on the truck’s fender), we got it running. For about two weeks I’d see the guy driving around, always with a couple of cute girls in the truck next to him. He said it finally died, but it was the best $10 he ever spent.

  18. Russ

    My first car was a 1968 Camaro, white with blue interior and a bumblebee stipe around the nose. I bought it at a garage sale for $2000 in 1985. It had 125k miles on it when I bought it and 6 years, 3 engines, 2 transmissions, at least 4 sets of ties and a new coat of blue paint later it had 262K on it when I sold it. I wish I had kept it.

  19. C1BAD66

    Mine was a ’47 Ford convertible in the late ’50’s. Honduras maroon with a white top, it was.

    It had the 239 flathead 8 and 3 on the tree.

    I was just old enough for a learner’s permit and I couldn’t get a parent to go out on the street with me nearly enough.

    I honed my clutch pedal/stick-shift skills by going up and back on a [probably] 70-foot narrow driveway ’bout a zillion times. ‘Made the close-by neighbor quite upset after a while.

    ‘Put J.C. Whitney headers and flex-pipe duals on it. ‘Put in a ’39 trans, ’cause I had to have a floor shift and couldn’t get an Almquist floor shifter to work…

    ‘Wiped out the poured-babbit bearings several times over-revving it on the street.

    In retrospect, I wish I’d had sense enough to swap in a junkyard 265 SBC like the one a buddy’s dad did for him on an almost identical car.

    ‘Had a guy torch the front [transverse leaf] spring ends for a dago rake. Cool! The spring broke within 2 weeks, I think.

    The funniest thing was when my dad was behind the wheel and knocked off the [loose] horn button to discover a condom package stashed there… Well, it wasn’t funny, then.

    1. C1BAD66

      Oh, yeah, I paid $165 for the car with newspaper route and lawn mowing money at about 14-1/2 years of age.

  20. crazy canuck

    74 Plymouth scamp . My dads company car, they were on a sales trip upcountry and skipped the timing chain going up jackass pass . they towed it back and I bought it for 50 bucks and put a 360 in place of the318 with the help of the company mechanic. I then drove the wee out of it till died and got scrapped . paid for the car with a newspaper route and sweeping/ cleaning dads shop

  21. Whelk

    Mine was a hand me down 73 Olds 98 Regency Brougham that I founds its way to me in 1981, right after the gas price spike. The 455 in it was good for about 6 mpg around town, up to 12 on the interstate. The car has no end of space in it. I could almost fit a spare car in the trunk.

  22. 1badmonkey

    1973 Olds Omega 2dr very faded light green with white vinyl top and dark greek int
    350
    American T thrusts
    Hi jacker air shocks, and extended shackles to get L60-14 tires on the back
    had the trans rebuilt, always thought the 2nd gear scratch was the poo !!

    bought it in 87 parked it in 91, still sitting behind my dads shop. one of these days i will fetch it and fix it… wish fort worth wasnt so far from Iowa… 🙂

  23. Gary Smrtic

    A ’64 426 max wedge factory super stocker, which was my brother’s when new, and given to me in ’69 when I was 16. It’d run high 11’s on 7 inch wide slicks, was street legal and occasionally driven on the street. My daily driver, however, was my ’62 Morris Minor, or if I was lucky, my Mom’s ’67 440 GTX…

  24. Monk

    It was a 1956 Ford Fairlane, 292, 3 speed Foxcraft floor conversion.
    White over Blue.

    Bought it in July of 1965, paid $95 for it and the dealership put in
    a new clutch and pressure plate.

    Money doesn’t like a lot in today’s dollars but it was a bunch back then.

  25. squirrel

    My first car in 1977 was a 59 Chevy longbed half ton pickup. I was covered with brushed on beige house paint, and the inside was orange and blue. It had a wore out six and three on the tree. I overhauled the engine, and got it on the road not long after turning 16. Then I put a big block in it less than two years later, stripped the paint and did some bodywork and got a friend to paint it orange, etc. I didn’t wreck it until 2005, I got it back on the road in 2012. See the project page.

  26. Troy

    98 dodge dakota sport, i bought it at 15 to learn how to drive standard good enough for the road in the process i put 47 miles in the sideyard (the roots around are black walnut tree are still about 6 inches deep because that was my (powerslide) corner… i miss that truck

  27. Anthony Castillo

    It was a very cherry, basicly stock, 1951 Kaiser Henry J. No trunk or glove box. It got rearended and was never the same, so I sold it and got an 1968 AMC Javelin SST, V8, four speed car. I wish I still had both of those cars. That’s what I drove to both of my high schools.

  28. 3nine6

    1975. I was 15. Decent 1965 Buick Skylark with a 1970 Buick 400/4bbl. $150.00. The major selling point, 4 brand new Cragar S/S wheels and Auto-Flite Avenger 60’s. Anyone remember those? (The tires, not the wheels.) Tore it apart. Dreams & ambitions far exceeded skills. Never saw the road except for a few, parents not home burnouts. Parted it out and bought a nice ’69 Cutlass. The Cragars went on the Olds.

  29. ka67_72

    ’67 Chevelle. Double hump headed 327. Dad bought it for my Mom in ’83. They parked it ’86. I started driving it in ’91. I still have it, but it has a twin turbo 454 now.

    Kevin

  30. alvis

    1970 Mercury Cyclone GT, I was 15 years old and bought it from my sister – what a great time.

  31. arrow1100

    Not counting the cars mom & dad ( let me drive because they weren’t driving them )
    the first I bought on my own was (in the year 1984) a 1969 Dodge polara 500 4 door with a 318 that burned more oil then gas
    I paid $30 for the car & $200 in parts to get it certified as safe ( Canadian Law )
    Had fun in that car 🙂 17 years old .it was not sexy or fast but my god it was FUN I could fit 12 of my friend in it and go & I had wheels They all paid for oil and gas 🙂
    One of the best memories of my dad was when it jumped the timing chain and he was following me on the way home. It filled the muffler full of fuel and then BOOM ! right be side a cop I got pulled over & cop giving me all the sh#t of Cop sh%t. My dad jumped out of his car and gave the cop all the shit. I did not break the law it was a mechanical fault My dad was high up in the ministry of transportation . he knew the law of the road that’s why I had to make if safe first run well second.

  32. Eric

    My 1st car was a 76 VW Rabbit, had damaged floors and a thrashed interior. I learned how to install new floors with my Dad and bought an interior at the junkyard.

  33. Greg Waner

    In 1971 I’d had a newspaper route for about 4 years. I’d saved up around $400 and my Dad found a black 64 Impala 2 door with red interior (no, it wasn’t an SS….). Really good shape, classy car. Had a 283, 2 bbl carb, and a slushbox powerglide. It got an actual 20 mpg on the highway if I babied it. I hated that damn powerglide. There were a few guys in town with older Impalas that were stick shifts and I was envious.
    Great car for high school. I took the hubcaps off and just let the black rims show, thought it looked cool. Drove the heck out of it, you could easily seat 6 teenagers in that thing, with room in the trunk for at least 2 or 3 more.
    A great car, but eastern winters, road salt and old steel don’t mix. Sold it to my neighbor who’s kid drove it through high school again. When I sold the Impala, I moved up to a 69 GTO, rare bench seat with a 4 speed.
    Don’t really wish I had either of these back again, but the memories are nice.

  34. Herbie Zampini

    1971 Mustang Mach 1 351 4V Cleveland 9″ Ford 4:10 gear with FMX Tranny that lasted 2 weeks before I blew it up, then put a C6 in it .

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