OTT 9/9/25: Your First Car

[Adam]

Off-Topic Tuesday 9/9/25

Doesn’t matter if it was a beater, a hot rod, or a beige sedan. Your first car sticks with you.

So what was yours?

• Year, make, and model
• How you ended up with it
• Any good stories (road trips, breakdowns, dumb stuff you did in it)

Would you want to have it back today, or are you glad it’s gone?

Pics are always welcome (bonus points if they’re old school driveway shots).

 

[Rauq]

Made me dig through the archives... '04 GTO, LS1 and 6 speed, pictured on the day it came home. I swapped clear stock headlights and '06 clear lens taillights on it soon after, replacing the tinted lights the previous owner had put on. I did a cam, headers, and BC Racing coilovers in my rental garage outside my college dorm. Also cut my teeth on HP Tuners on this thing. To my credit, it only took me a year to realize how dumb it was to blast around with open headers. I went through 5-6 different exhaust setups on this thing, probably 3-4 of them had cutouts that I used selectively but still too often. Settled on headers plus stock mufflers, and it's still my benchmark for how a V8 should sound. The '04 only had a muffler setup that was supposedly sound engineered by the Aussie GM team based off an old Judge. It was a true dual setup with different mufflers on each side.

I drove this car between Houston and Clemson several times without issue, autocrossed several dozen times, and probably had near 100 passes down the 1/4 at Atlanta Dragway (RIP).

I'd love to have this thing back. It was such a comfy cruiser, with plush but very deeply bolstered front seats. High 20s mpg on the highway as well- the '04 specifically had a lean cruise setting that, when enabled, would run the Aussie spec'd 15-16 AFR at low RPMs and low load and highway speeds. It'd probably end up with a blower or a reasonably sized turbo and an 8.8 rear.

 

[Rttoys]

1979 Chevy Camaro Berlinetta

I bought it when I was a jr in high school, around 92 or 93, for $800 from my auto shop teacher. I had to make payments even. Mechanically it ran and drove. That was about it. The shop teacher had just put a junk yard engine in it and needed it gone. 305, TH250 (not a th350) trans and 2.73 gears (I think). Great mpg on the freeway, but wasn’t gonna win a drag race. I didn’t know about the trans or gears until much later when I started working at the dealer.

After running it hot from a coolant leak and blowing a head gasket, I rebuilt a 350 for it in shop class. That woke the car up. Dad and I did the beautiful bodywork and had a friends dad paint it. I took interior panels off and painted them black, including the dash. Cut my own cheap carpet and added a sweet sound system. Gotta have the boom boom. I did have an upholstery shop do the front seats though.
In college the real shenanigans began when I met my buddy that had a 74 z28. He had tons of fun parts to swap here and there. The car changed weekly. Then at the dealer, the trans started to mess up, so the tranny guy was going to rebuild it for me, till it turned out to be a th250 instead of a th350. Another tech said “I have one in my garage you can have. It has a shift kit and all.” I just had to get a converter for it. Dropped that in and of man, that thing shifts

While we were test driving the trans, the tech I worked with said, this is slow. What gear do you have. I said 3.08. Put it in the air. Nope 2.73. He had some 3.73s in his garage again, so we put those in and woooohhh boy it made the car move.

Best at the track was around 14.0-14.2, somewhere in there. I know I never broke into the 13s with it. Fun car. It’s what really got me started in working on vehicles. With me doing just about everything front to back on that car, it gave me a lot of experience, especially on fabricating things in my own.

It would be fun to have back for at least a drive or 2, just to remember the old days.

 

[comegetjoe]

1994 Plymouth Sundance, green on gray interior, steel wheels with black center/center caps- not full hubcaps.
In my opinion it was a great, base model, first car. 5spd, 4cylinder, low miles. $800 from a local car lot.
Had it up to 115mph downhill in Mexico once while it was shaking itself apart.
I got my first ticket in it, fought it based on the "hey, its an honest mistake" defense and was let off.
I had my first accident in it.

Lots of good memories.

 

[C_Datsun]

198? Subaru Brat

First actual car was an 86 Civic si that I drove around my backyard learning manual, until the trans exploded itself a few weeks before I got my permit. The brat was a quick $500 replacement. (Back when those existed)

I used to drive my friends around in the jump seats in the bed and get air at 60mph off of the bumps in the road that would make you lose your stomach at 35mph.

I would take it back in a heartbeat and gladly pay triple what I sold it for. I thought mine was an 82, but looking for pictures I had the quad round headlights making it an 81 or earlier.

 

[Robinjo]

1985 Ford Ranger Sport with 5-speed. My grandfather got a new Ranger and I got his old one. Then I promptly blew the engine in it and learned about engine work. It then became my younger brothers first car, my father's farm truck and basically indestructible.

 

[Desert Sasqwatch]

A 1968 VW Type 3 Fastback. Bought it for $50 when I was 14 from a neighbor down the street. It ran, but not very well. It had a Bosch mechanical fuel injection system that the pump was out of alignment for hitting the injector pulses. Never got this fixed, ended up replacing it with a pump from a junkyard microbus - $25. Ran fine, did some brake work and fluids - $ 30. Would drive it with my grandfather, we would switch seats when out of sight of home, to use it to drive back and forth to his plumbing shop. Sold it when I was 15 for $300 and used these funds, plus another $150 I had save up, to buy car #2 - a 1957 Chevy Sport Coupe (this a whole other story).

 

[Goblinfanclub1234]

1991 Dodge Dakota
- nothing too special
- previous owner worked at a saw mill and the interior smelled like saw dust
- no A/C was the worst thing
- used this to haul around motorcycles during college

 

[Rttoys]

1985 Ford Ranger Sport with 5-speed. My grandfather got a new Ranger and I got his old one. Then I promptly blew the engine in it and learned about engine work. It then became my younger brothers first car, my father's farm truck and basically indestructible.

You can’t kill a 80-90s ranger, S10 or Toyota. Cheap, basic and bulletproof.

 

[Mahkoi]

1992 Dodge Shadow 2 door with the 2.2L and a automatic. My dad was going to scrap it at 220k miles and said if I wanted it I could have it but had to work on it myself. It was a hooptie and about once a month it would start missing so badly it wouldn't go over 35mph so I had to direct it towards a large pothole then it would be good for another month or two.

 

[Adam]

Thanks for all of the responses. You guys had a pretty wide range of first cars.

Some sporty... some not.

We had 2.5 trucks on the list as well (hopefully counting the Brat as 1/2 a truck isn't offensive to @C_Datsun ).

And I had heard of percussive maintenance but never considered using a pothole like @Mahkoi .

I’ve got a few ideas lined up for future Off-Topic Tuesdays, but if you’ve got a topic that you think will get guys talking, send me a message with your idea. Don't post your idea here or we might end up with this thread wandering all over the place.

 

[C_Datsun]

We had 2.5 trucks on the list as well (hopefully counting the Brat as 1/2 a truck isn't offensive to @C_Datsun ).

Not offended at all, my daily is a Ridgeline, so I still haven’t owned a real truck

 

[Markm]

I had 1979 Plymouth horizon tc3. I had very little money to buy a car so my sisters fiancé gave me the car. He parked the car in the barn with the pigeons after the steering rack had broken. I replaced the steering rack and got the car through state inspection after I cleaned the 2” of pigeon droppings off it LOL. Was an ok car it got me around a couple of years before the rust took out a strut tower. No I wouldn’t want it back

 

[Scott #321]

First car 74 Pontiac firebird formula with non functional ram air factory hood scoops 305 w/4speed. Had a couple vans (67 and 74) Ford before i received my license that I did conversions on with my father to build budget for first vehicle I could actually drive when I received license.

 

[WA08TC]

Made me dig through the archives... '04 GTO, LS1 and 6 speed, pictured on the day it came home. I swapped clear stock headlights and '06 clear lens taillights on it soon after, replacing the tinted lights the previous owner had put on. I did a cam, headers, and BC Racing coilovers in my rental garage outside my college dorm. Also cut my teeth on HP Tuners on this thing. To my credit, it only took me a year to realize how dumb it was to blast around with open headers. I went through 5-6 different exhaust setups on this thing, probably 3-4 of them had cutouts that I used selectively but still too often. Settled on headers plus stock mufflers, and it's still my benchmark for how a V8 should sound. The '04 only had a muffler setup that was supposedly sound engineered by the Aussie GM team based off an old Judge. It was a true dual setup with different mufflers on each side.

I drove this car between Houston and Clemson several times without issue, autocrossed several dozen times, and probably had near 100 passes down the 1/4 at Atlanta Dragway (RIP).

I'd love to have this thing back. It was such a comfy cruiser, with plush but very deeply bolstered front seats. High 20s mpg on the highway as well- the '04 specifically had a lean cruise setting that, when enabled, would run the Aussie spec'd 15-16 AFR at low RPMs and low load and highway speeds. It'd probably end up with a blower or a reasonably sized turbo and an 8.8 rear.

View attachment 53780

I see you Rauq