Requiem for a Lemon

A ’96 toyota camry, which served our family well for 12 years until it succumbed to age last year. But even then it upheld the finest samurai tradition in surviving a 4 kamikaze run from DC to my parents’ house in SW Virginia. By the time I arrived there was coolant actively leaking onto the engine block and I was running on fumes. And we still managed to get a cool thou for it on trade for a 2008 Hyundai Acccent.

Ah, the memories.

’56 Chevy with 283 and “four on the floor”. Traded in during college for a ’57 chevy 4-door, in-line 6.

A ’62 Pontiac Catalina. A Pontiac dealership was near our house and it was the family brand until I got my first Subaru in the ’80s.

My father had a 1966 Firebird Convertible. It’s probably the one factor in my young life which prevented me from become a full-on tree hugger……
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Learned to drive in a 74 Vega….
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It could go from 0 to 60 in 30…..days.
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First new car ’76 Mercury Capri……
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I’d go through clutches like normal people go through oil changes.

When I was a senior in high school, I drove my mom’s 79 Chevy Impala station wagon, but the first car that was truly mine was an 86 Chevette that my parents gave me during my first semester of college.

Learned to drive in a 1965 Chevy Corvair Manza with red bucket seats and standard transmission. (Dad had just turned 40…)
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Our first car as a married couple was a also a Corvair — a 1963 Greenbriar van. $200 and worth every penny, but not much more.

’66 Chevelle SS. Piece of junk with no help from Mr. Goodwrench. My current Buick is 12 years old. A jewell. Will last until Pat Robertson holds the final tribulation trials. The Buick is a shoo in for everlasting life. Not sure how I will do. Stay tuned.

A 1966 Pontiac GTO was our “family” car until the old sky-blue Mercury Comet (also 66?) was replaced with an 1980 Ford Fairmont. 389 V8 with a four barrel carburetor. You didn’t so much hear it coming as feel it. Mysteriously became un-repairable before I was old enough to drive and my dad sold it to some a young guy for $150. RIP, Pontiac.

formerjames,
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A ’66 Chevelle 396 was the car I wished had been my first – that or a ’68 Pontiac GTO.
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Alas, was not to be, probably because the insurance premiums for me as a male teenager would have rivaled the GNP for a lot of small countries at the time.

PD:

I’m no car nerd, but I’m pretty sure the first year for the Firebirds was 1967. One of the earliest ones was my first car, a 326 V8 4-barrel, 4-speed with WAY too much horsepower for anyone, much less for a college kid with a weekend gig playing in a rock band and a fondness for cereal malt beverage.

afguy, the GTO was my all time dream car. You are lucky you didn’t possess a Chevy in those days. Trust me.

I did, formerlyjames. A ’66 Chevelle with 327 installed. First car after I joined the AF in ’68.
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I know about the reliability of the Chevy big block engines – many needed major overhauls because of the tendency of the owners to drive with their foot in the carb.
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But the small block engines were almost indestructible.

Black 1959 Cadillac Sixty Special purchased by Dad at a garage sale for $400 in 1978. With a 393 c.i. V8 with a triple 2-bbl carb(!) and unencumbered by air-conditioning, it had surprisingly brisk acceleration for a car that weighed north of 4500 pounds. Christened “The Duchess”, it easily accommodated seven teenagers and was the ultimate party car.
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For the first and only time in my life, my ride was the grandest of all. Thank you, thank you, thank you Dad. Paradise lasted about two years.
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It blew a rod in the driveway one morning shortly after a stoplight drag-race with a guy in a Porsche who didn’t beat me nearly as soon as he expected. Dad recouped his investment by selling “The Duchess” for $150 to two creepy looking guys who claimed they were going to “restore it”.
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They did restore it, so the story has a happy ending.

Sorry, formerlyjames, just remembered – it was a ’65 model.

FO,
I realized the mistake after I typed it. The 66 was a Triumph Spitfire. I also have fond memories of my 68 Chrysler New Yorker for which I paid $200 in 1977.

2004 Cadillac Deville, which I bought for $15,200 in 2006 a year after graduating from college. It runs beautifully.

Not a lot of romance in a ’76 Audi Fox with 1st-generation fuel injection. I got clipped in the rear fender one day because I couldn’t make it all the way across Porter Wagoner Boulevard in 10 seconds.

afguy, no sorry to it. I was also off on my SS. It was a ’67 not ’66. Gettin old. But even with all of the changes at that time, it was a wonderful time. Leading up to the year of years, ’68.

PD:

That’s about all the Firebird was worth when I was done abusing it.

I did take a drunken ride through Mexico with 3 friends in a ’67 Firebird. That’s another story I won’t embarass myself with, but it is fond memory. I need to leave this thread, I’m tearing up in memories.

The downside of being the youngest was that my parents car was never available to borrow, so I never even got to drive until I got my own car, a 1968 Chevy Camero 327 RS. The upside of being the youngest was that my parents allowed me to get such a cool car (my oldest sister got a Pinto).

I think we’ve learned more about each other in this post than in all our arguments over politics.

KT, you appear to have located the mother-lode of nostalgia. I’m feeling happier than I’ve been all day.

1988 Dodge Dynasty with the grey vinal top, gold hundred spoke rims, and 2/3 of a tire mounted to the rear bumper. It died against the side of a Ford Tempo before its wonderful chrysler tranny had a chance to go out. Oh and good riddence to Pontiac which hasnt made a decent car since … well before i was born anyway.

A 1985 Chevy Blazer SS, for $800, in college. No AC, no CD player. It was one of the first years they tried a smaller model, so the engine was weird – it took an act of Congress to pull out the oil filter.
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One night after a date, it refused to start. The ignition had busted, so a friend of mine wired up the battery to a button in the dash and I started it that way.
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We tried to rebuild the carburetor on it, and it ran horribly – so much that I gave up driving it and sold it off for $100.

Learned to drive in Dad’s ’76 VW Super Beetle (PD: 0-60 in 30…weeks.)
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First car: 1970 Buick Skylark. Rust bucket, but it had a 350.
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FYI: My wife and I have always tried to keep one “commuter car” in the garage, and over the years have noted with saddness that we:
– drove an ’86 Chevy Nova (Toyota Corolla) that got 45 mpg,
– got a ’90 Geo Prizm that got 40 mpg.
– bought a ’96 Nissan Sentra that got 35 mpg, and
– now have an ’00 Sentra that gets 30 mpg.
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What’s wrong with this picture?

My 68 Camero was candy-apple red with a black vinyl top. I paid $900 for it in 1982 and drove it for 6 years. Then I sold it for $1500 and bought a VW Rabbit. That Camero though, best memories I’ve ever had of a car – the smell, the sound, the power… I wonder if that particular nostalgia is a thing of the past? Would you really get the same feeling remembering your first Prius?

First 3 cars: Toyota Corolla, upgraded to Honda Accord and now 2007 a Toyota Camry. My wife had a Pontiac and used it for four years (trouble free). Tells me I am not a good citizen. Oops.

“Mine was a used 1975 Plymouth Duster. which I replaced a few years later with a brand-new 1981 VW Scirocco. Neither one exactly qualified as a marvel of automotive engineerng.”
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Maybe not but, if I’m not mistaken, the ’72 Dodge Duster (w/340 small block) was the fastest stock production car that year. My first “car” was a Honda 350, before they made cars. My first car was a ’69 Fiat Sport Coup – 4-wheel disc brakes (which came in handy more than once) and intermittent windshield wipers (not like my later VW where one would fly off from time to time but purposely intermittent for drizzle), in 1969. Apparently Ford hadn’t even gotten around to ripping-off the inventor at that time.

1974 Pontiac LeMans baby!
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Think this (not my photo):
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/14168332@N07/3408658895/
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My one and only V8–way too much engine for a 16-yr. old, trust me. I hit the curb twice parallel parking during my driver’s test. I think the cones’ span was a foot longer than that battleship!
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I also:
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1. Hit a mailbox in reverse at about 40mph
2. Hit a snowbank for fun (dented the door much worse than I thought). Snow is hard!
3. Hit a concrete street-lamp pillar while parking at my HS
4. Tore the side of a girl’s car apart, misjuding just how long the front of my car stretched
5. Skipped school way too often and drove 100mph on country roads
6. Drank and drove way too much, fortunately never hurting anyone
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And oh yeah, “necked” with my first gf more times than I can count! Nancy “Built like a brick sh-thouse” Hall : ) Fine times

KT, don’t put down the VW Sirocco! It was a Golf GTI, but with a sexy Guigaro-designed coupe body. Imagine Ellen DeGeneres in Heidi Klum’s body, or Matt Perry in Clooney’s.

BTW, my first car was a Fiat Panda with all of 995cc and a top speed of 80mph, at which point all the body panels would start to shake. I grew up in Europe, hence the small weedy car.

My first and only car a 96 Pontiac Sunfire died a final death in March. It lasted me a good 11 years and was used when we got it. Fantastic car. I’m looking now and as much as I am trying to convince myself that I should get a Honda or Toyota, I still want a G6 or a G8.
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It was a sad day. I was hoping that Pontiac would be make it.

jcapan: My one and only V8–way too much engine for a 16-yr. old, trust me.
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When I 15 and asked about the kind of car I was hoping for, I answered a Firebird. My dad’s said “You’re not getting a V8, way too much car for a 16 year old.”

A 1976 Dodge Aspen. I should have known it was a problem when it overheated on the test drive because nobody had bothered to fill the radiator in the factory. It went through 2 axle bearings, then a total rear replacement, body cancer within 3 years on the top of the front quarters. On the plus side, it had the famoues Mopar 225 ci slant six….original cost was about $4100, got $700 in trade for it 6 years later.

Jerrica, your dad was tres wise! My mom merely passed her “blue bomb” along. Powerful cars and an adolescent libido–a potent, dangerous combo. I didn’t know how to handle either phenomenon. My size 12s took to the accelerator like an enormous cockroach, stomp stomp! I used this method to vault myself out of the merge lane, to back out of driveways, to parallel park. It was a freak show of epic proportions.

First car: 1977 Toyota Corolla. Ironically enough I didn’t have a driver’s license, so Dad stole it from me to handle the commute from Bremerton to Richland and back (that’s a 200 mile trip, no he didn’t go that far in one day!) and ended up blowing the engine the day after I sold it. Never had a Pontiac, although I did drive my mom’s into a ditch when I was four years old. Didn’t cause a dent but scared the bejeezus out of her!

He made the right call. It probably saved my life. In her day the sunfire could take a curve like nobody’s business. The things I did to her in those early days I could not imagine doing a decade later.

I think we’ve learned more about each other in this post than in all our arguments over politics.
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Karen, milady,
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It’s because remembering one’s first set of wheels knows no politicals labels.

And we get to remember a time when we ALL had something in common.

I think we’ve learned more about each other in this post than in all our arguments over politics.
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K-Tum: A retired minister I’ve known for years would use the following set of questions as an ice-breaker when a new study/work group was forming: “Let’s go around the room, fellas. Tell us who you are, where you’re from, and your favorite car story.”
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Usually, the hour would be up before everyone has a chance to share. Priceless.

1967 Grand Prix. Sadly, it’s love affair with guard rails and telephone poles broke my heart. Not to mention it’s frame.

“When I 15 and asked about the kind of car I was hoping for, I answered a Firebird. My dad’s said “You’re not getting a V8, way too much car for a 16 year old.”
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My dad taught me to shift in his 327 66′ convertible Corvette, which coincidentally was “wrecked” while he was coming home from work just weeks before I got my license – right about the time he would be getting quotes from his insurance company for adding me as a driver. He never had another “accident”.

’88 Renault Alliance. Terrible terrible car.

I’ve totaled 7 cars. Wrecked on the way home from the repair shop, drove a car into the river, hit telephone poles, a bridge, another car head-on (skull fracture), stop signs, mail boxes, guard rails, a swing set, garbage cans, a retaining wall, rolled a car over (3 times), helped tear down an old garage by driving through it…and yet I haven’t even had a speeding ticket in the last 25 years. I took driving classes (court ordered).

’88 Renault Alliance. Terrible terrible car.
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Ironically enough they’re aligned with Nissan now. And I had a Nissan at one time. Great car even if you had to have a stick to hold it in fifth gear and a strange exhaust leak that no one could find…

my first car that I paid for myself was a 1971 firebird-cameo white with a black vinyl top and the Endura Bumper. A babe magnet(replaced the dome light 3 times.)

The first car I owned myself was a 1972 Cadillac–in 1985. The thing was a monster, very well engineered. A young cousin once sneered at it as he got in. But when we got on the highway, and I really hit the gas, the gee force shut him up. 450 HP? Can’t remember now.
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A fellow grad-school student, from Australia, called it my “Yank Tank.”

Carless now. Bought one new car in my life. A Honda Civic, stripped (stick, no air, no radio, no color preference). That purchase was surprisingly difficult. Since then, I had a 1985 Accord in the late 90s; I was spending too much money on rental cars on trips to clients in NJ. The car cost 600 dollars from a brother’s neighbor.

My first car was a 1975 oldsmobile ninety-eight bought in 1982. It was a dark blue tank of a car built before the trend of making cars with plastic and fiberglassthat took hold. It could have handled today’s suv mano to mano and probably create more dents than it would ever receive. Boy those were the days — I put that yellow baby on board in the back window and had the body weight and hardcore steel bumpers to ram anybody who failed to respect the sign. Thanks jayackroyd for reminding me of some very fond memories of my gas guzzling, fear inducing, big blue large enough for the crew, with enough back seat comfort to sleep and to screw.

My first car was a 1939 Plymouth, purchased in 1951 in Ventura, CA. I was working there that summer after my freshman year at college in Maine. I drove the car across country and it served me well for nearly three years in Maine winters. It was stolen and recovered once, had a few minor (and one fairly major) bumps and bruises, and even had a Bermuda bell mounted under the floorboard. A great college car.

My first car was a chrysler New Yorker with posh interior. It was wrecked within a year, but I’m not into vehicle worship the way some people are. I show off my status with a collection of books and by smiling widely and giving poetry recitals.