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For those who drive, what was your first vehicle?

Destination Unknown said:
My '79 Honda Accord hatchback was very reliable, but that's the car that I had to put the 2x4 in the engine compartment from fender to fender with a chain wrapped around it to hold the engine up, because the brace the engine mounted to had rusted off. Without the chain holding it up, the axle would walk out of the transmission every once in a while, and you would have to get out and climb under and push it back in to keep going.
The 2x4 worked for thousands of miles, however once the chain rubbed a hole in the side of the oil filter.
That car also drank other car and lawnmower used oil by the gallon.
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Yeah,those years the Hondas had low tension piston rings that let loads of oil get by.
I got a free Dodge Omni once that had the lower part of the core support rotted thru in the center.The drivetrain flopped around like it was on crack because the front motor mount was no longer tied in. I whacked it out with a quickie saw and welded two plates over the exposed channel holes. Then I grabbed an old driveshaft, cut it to fit,welded a front motor mount on it and sparked it in place. I sold it a week later for $600 and bought a '75 Chevy half ton the same day :D
 
For a very short time I had a Ford tempo, bought it for four hundred dollars from some guy in a private sale. Crummiest car I ever owned since someone mentioned POS.
During the ice storm of 1998 a slab of ice the size of a large bureau fell three stories onto the top of the car where it was parked. It caved in the car's roof, shattered the front and back windshields and generally made it really unsafe to drive :eek: When I got over the shock of seeing the caved in car, I was eventually happy that I didn't have to drive it anymore. Wish I'd seen it happen from a distance tho, that would have been fun.
 
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Nitro said:
This car was fun https://www.aspiescentral.com/media/my-1975-chevy-camaro.5132/
https://www.aspiescentral.com/media/1975-camaro.1304/
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I stuck with the low horsepower cars. They fit my budget better.
This was my version of a fun car. My favorite '65 slug bug that I should have never sold in 1988. Cal look and lowered with custom interior, and I painted it that Honda green that was so popular back then, but I was still running the original 1200cc.
My neighbor is actually now running a VW restoration company bringing in cars from all over the country.
img20160731_22215504compressed.jpg
 
Destination Unknown said:
I stuck with the low horsepower cars. They fit my budget better.
This was my version of a fun car. My favorite '65 slug bug that I should have never sold in 1988. Cal look and lowered with custom interior, and I painted it that Honda green that was so popular back then, but I was still running the original 1200cc.View attachment 27091
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I had several hundred bugs :p
We used to buy them for $25,toss a battery in them and tree beat them to death :D
Anything from 1200 cc and up ;)
I assembled a 2180 cc engine with tons of lightening mods I learned building Formula V 1200s. There was over $4000 worth of parts tied up in it and I had at least 200 hours in the machine work.
It had an Anderson Racing low nine second Humbug dragster used camshaft,40 IDA Webers,full centrifigal distributor from a '59 transporter,thinned down beam polished and shot peened con rods,lightened cam followers,pistons, VW Rabbit intake and exhaust valves with titanium retainers,over ratio rocker arms,0.100 inch shaved dual port cylinder heads with massive port work,water/methanol injection,power pulley on the crank, a full counter balanced forged crankshaft with both double dowels and double depth drilling, a full metallic pad three winged racing clutch and a factory flywheel that was originally 16 pounds trimmed down to eight. The compression ratio was nearly 16:1 and it ran on 108 octane racing fuel. The starter ring gear was half as wide as it should have been after the butchery :p

That was stuffed into a '71 Baja Bug I owned and only lasted for six hours of the most intense beetle bug rides I ever went on.
It idled at about 3500 rpm and was very easy to get loaded up when it did. On the highway,you could tach it to 8,000 rpm in first,shift to second and do the same then only dip it into third for a short burst until it got too squirreley to drive as it approached the 100 mph mark. The damned thing took down a healthy 350 Nova one night in a street race. The demise of it was when it tore the dowels out of the crank when I was street thrashing it one night,but still was the most fun I ever had with a Bug :D
 
I got a 1996 subaru outback legacy station wagon for a few hundred bucks because my aunt was moving out of country and just didn't want to deal with it. It had 210,000 miles, no AC, and a half blown head gasket(Bars leak was my best friend). I loved the car with a passion and hated it all at the same time. It broke down constantly and tried to kill me a couple times but it got me where I needed to go as long as it wasn't more than five miles away. I ended up pushing my luck by trying to take a girl to a concert and finally put the final nail in the coffin. I didn't have the skill to replace the head gasket and the price for a mechanic to do it was more than the car was worth (stupid horizontally opposed cylinders). I sold her for cheap and bought the car I currently drive. I can't find a picture of it this example looks like it, but mine had more character.
th
 
midlife aspie said:
I got a good idea of what models were reliable by how many I saw come into the shop when I worked at Farm&Fleet. Honda Accords and Toyota Camrys were the most numerous and tended to be the oldest on average. I did not see a Ford minivan that wasn't trash or a Chrysler over a few years old with good factory rims. Dodge truck lugnuts were garbage too. In general, I came to adopt my father's opinion that "all cars are made like garbage, from the cheapest to the most expensive" during my years in that shop.
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I think that the two best manufacturers in the world are Honda and Toyota. They both make a wide variety of products and they both make them well. I have had a lot of experience with both and every machine that I have encountered was well built. It just seems like a shame that they are both Japanese.
 
What was the first car you ever drove?

Mine was this, boyfriend passed out and this was his car. Had to drive him home, I was scared to death as soon as I put my foot on the gas. We got home safely, it was a straight even road, just took off a bit of the hedge when I turned into his driveway.

corvette-stingray-1.jpg
 
Mia said:
What was the first car you ever drove?

Mine was this, boyfriend passed out and this was his car. Had to drive him home, I was scared to death as soon as I put my foot on the gas. We got home safely, it was a straight even road, just took off a bit of the hedge when I turned into his driveway.

corvette-stingray-1.jpg
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"wrap your a$$ in fiberglas" :cool::p
 
Nitro said:
"wrap your a$$ in fiberglas" :cool::p
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I worked on a bunch of 'em but never owned one. I have a collection of pre 1968 parts for them I picked up along the way that are now worth a small fortune :cool:
 
Did anyone ever work on or own a 1966 New Yorker? My grandmother drove one and I thought it was so cool as it was the first car I rode in that had power windows. Grandad hated it, saying "I feel like I'm driving a bus" every time he had to use it. I have never seen another one. He drove a 1965 VW Bug. Had to open the hood to put gas in it.(the bug)
 
He had to open the hood to put gas in the VW bug. I find that funny for some reason. Did the VW bug have a air cooled rear mounted engine?

midlife aspie said:
Did anyone ever work on or own a 1966 New Yorker? My grandmother drove one and I thought it was so cool as it was the first car I rode in that had power windows. Grandad hated it, saying "I feel like I'm driving a bus" every time he had to use it. I have never seen another one. He drove a 1965 VW Bug. Had to open the hood to put gas in it.(the bug)
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I took my driver's license test in one of these. It was a VW chassis mated with a glas body in kit form we assembled over the course of two years. I may bring her back to life with a Buick 3800 supercharged drivetrain in a hand built tube chassis if I live long enough :p
img1.jpg
 
Rayner said:
He had to open the hood to put gas in the VW bug. I find that funny for some reason. Did the VW bug have a air cooled rear mounted engine?
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The fuel tank was in the front inside the trunk. VW engines are 4 cylinder boxer style engines with air cooling.When Ferdinand Porsche designed the cars,they intentionally had weak valve springs in them that acted as a rev limiter.They were very hard to blow up unless you neglected the oil level.
 
I took my drivers test in my buddy's 1992 Acura Vigur. Do you know anything about Acura Virgurs, Nitro?;)

:D



Nitro said:
I took my driver's license test in one of these. It was a VW chassis mated with a glas body in kit form we assembled over the course of two years. I may bring her back to life with a Buick 3800 supercharged drivetrain in a hand built tube chassis if I live long enough :p
View attachment 27102
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I though so. Are those particular VW's prone to over heating?

Nitro said:
The fuel tank was in the front inside the trunk. VW engines are 4 cylinder boxer style engines with air cooling.When Ferdinand Porsche designed the cars,they intentionally had weak valve springs in them that acted as a rev limiter.They were very hard to blow up unless you neglected the oil level.
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