Friday Fun Thread:First Car

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I'm surprised in a sense that with the apparent wealth of all of the Calgary Puck posters, that this wasn't a thread titled

My first private plane - It was a G2, all my friends had a G3. I was so jelly, I hate my father hate him hate him
My first yacht - it was a 51 footer, anything below 100 feet is so trashy
My first butler - It was a guy named Smith, I told him his name was Sunnyfeathers,

Well one of the CP'ers more wealthy than myself can make one of those for the next Friday Fun Thread.

[wretched34]

First car I ever purchased for myself.
Spotted it with a for sale sign in an alley, took it for a spin, and bought it.
Drove for about a year and a half, then the O2 sensors went, and thermostat, and floor boards were rusting out. I sold it to a buddy of mine, turns out, he had actually owned it with his dad several years prior as a project car, so he was happy to get it back, and restore it the way they had initially planned.

[indes]

I got this truck with 240,000km on it.

Still my favorite vehicle to this day, thing was *almost* indestructible.

I flew off the road in winter going down the icefield parkway, I ground the whole side
of the truck on the side of the mountain I hit. Ended up stopping in the ditch and was
about 8' down a 40 degree slope. Kicked it into 4 low and the truck popped right out!

I had no windows but I made it home. Unfortunately I had to retire her after that.


Burgundy interior was too classy.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

Had no idea there were so many pimps on cp.

hahaha. i had the pimp mobile. A 1988 White Toyota Supra. Bought it in the spring and was awesome until winter hit. Then i was doing donuts on Crowchild in light snow!

[BurningYears]

Not super old, but was super barebones for a 2007 vehicle.

[greyshep]

1981 Toyota Crapola.....errr Corolla



Mine was silver and didnt sport the dent in the rear fender that the one in this image has but boy oh boy was this thing a lemon! In the 2 years that I owned this thing I replaced 3 clutches and a transmission among numerous electrical gremlins. That experience soured me so much on Toyota that I have never considered buying one again. Most unreliable vehicle I have ever owned by a mile.

It actually looked quite nice for the time though so there was that.

[bossy22]

1986 Camaro IROC. Yes, I had a mullet, and lived in Edmonton at the time.

[DoubleF]

Prior to this, I shared a forest green 1997 Acura EL with a sibling. In my stupid days I discovered it could go a maximum of 180 ish and up to 188 on downhill on the Transcanada, but it wasn't enough power, so...


2001 Infiniti i30t automatic in black. The first car I ever bought.


(Not mine, just a pic)

In the first year of ownership, the brake lines froze in the winter due to some poorly done back yard mechanic work. I somehow drove that thing dealing with frozen brake lines (took 10-20 minutes of idling and it'd be fine) for the rest of winter (4-5 months).

Then I changed from my moron of a mechanic to someone competent. Everything was fine after the new guy took over.

The body had random damage that started rusting due to people randomly keying my car for no reason. Or dinging it with their doors. I'd literally park far in the parking lot beside no one, walk a block to the store, return later and someone would have keyed my car. It had a bunch of small rust spots, but nothing obscene like those Mazdas out there.

In the end, I named my car the knight in rusty armor due to the rust that was accumulating all over the car (KIRA for short). Strangely enough I never had paint blisters, especially around the wheel well, like other infiniti i30t. Just random splotches near the surface that I was too dumb and cheap to seal. The muffler rusted in a weird way near the end which made the car sound deeper in a raspy badass way. My mechanic determined it wasn't worth fixing so he wired it in place so it wouldn't wobble like those crappy mufflers on Pontiacs and GM cars that move like bobble heads and told me not to idle too long in the same spot.

I loved the over drive button on it which gave extra torque feel and would cause the "gear" to change at a higher RPM. Other random features I miss are: an electric screen that I could raise and drop for my back window and a secret cup holder above the vent on the passenger's side. Excellent leg room in the back for friends etc.

I sold it 2 and half years ago for something like $550 and bought my TL when I determined replacement tires would have more value than my car. Tires were near bald, the car was just about due for an oil change, had so little gas the light was on, the driver's seat would get stuck if you moved it too far back, amongst other misc things like surface rust. I don't believe it had rust on the actual frame though.

While I like my TL a lot, I still miss that i30t every day. I really should have sunk more money into it and driven it into the ground for good measure. I never bothered trying to break my records in the Acura as I started wising up.


I still remember selling it. I was driving along with a "for sale" sign in the back window and some guy saw me and called me. He loved the feel of the car, the sounds it made, the way it drove and apparently he was going to back yard mechanic it for fun (I was forefront with the issues the car had) with a buddy but had to request a family member purchase the vehicle for him due to divorce proceedings. It was kinda funny when he called me after the sale and was like, "Uhh, I need you to un-sell and resell me the car or the car can't get registered."

God I miss that car. My head turns every time I see one driving down the road. Awesome car.

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by Locke

1984 Ford Mustang 5.0L



That is not the photo of my actual car, its just the same style and colour but I had just stock rims on it.

That thing with a tired engine and decent all-season tires and 500 pounds of sand in the trunk was a bitch to drive in the winter.

What a fun car!

Mine was an 1980 and sadly it only had the 2.3L. I still drove it like it had a V8.

[DoubleF]

Question, my previous mechanic cut away my heat shield in the i30t to deal with a rattling he couldn't find. The rattling persisted and he charged me for the work anyways.

Is it common to cut away heat shields to reduce rattle and weight? He told me it was common to do it in older cars. One of the reasons why I stopped going to him. He also couldn't get the brakes to feel proper after he worked on them. They always felt like Toyota brakes instead of the Nissan feel.

I'm just curious to know if he was BSing me or if he was being truthful. I've to this day felt he was being untruthful to me.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by DownInFlames

Mine was an 1980 and sadly it only had the 2.3L. I still drove it like it had a V8.

The biggest con (in terms of driveability but pro in terms of racing) was that they weighed nothing.

So tons of power to the rear wheels but no weight. You learned a lot. Fast.

[JonDuke]

My first car was a G6. I liked it a lot, but it's not extremely exciting.
A Dodge Arrow is what I learned to drive on and was sexier.
Large pic. Ours was a little more orangey than this one.

Spoiler!

[mivdo]

Originally Posted by csnarpy

I had other cars before this but this was my first Brand New car. I bought this little guy from an America base when I was posted in Germany. Great car, topped it on the Autobahn at 243. Brought it back to Canada after my base closed and had it for 4 years before getting a jeep.

Just a great little car.

My first car as well as well. It was not brand new. Driver side window wouldnt roll all the way up and heat didn't work which made for 2 long winters but by far the funnest car i have ever owned. Felt like I is was ripping around in a go kart.

[snootchiebootchies]

I inherited my first car from my parents. My dad bought a new MPV mini-van so he gave me his 1982 Oldsmobile Omega. Mine was showing some rust, unlike the one in the photo.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Since1984

A hand me down from my Mom. I was lucky enough to drive a 5.0L 1984 Buick Lesabre


The picture isn't of my exact car but it was the closest I could find.

I had an '82. Paid $500 for it. Fully loaded, with cruise control, AC and power everything. I put a chain steering wheel on it, everyone always wondered if the steering wheel got cold in the winter but no one ever seemed to wonder about how hot it got in the summer, I always had to have a pair gloves kicking around just in case lol. I had to get rid of it because it wasn't worth the $2000 quote to get the entire braking system redone. It was devastating because I loved that car, but at least I don't have to say it died, instead I can say the beast was unstoppable!

[Mazrim]

My first car was a Subaru Loyale. The very definition of meh. It had low kilometers when I got it though so it had a good life.



My least favorite part about the car was that it had less gears than any other car I've driven, so driving on the highway meant endless amounts of high RPM driving. I always ended up with a terrible headache driving from Kelowna to Calgary.

[tete]

My first car (early 1994) was a 1984 Chevy Chevette, silver. My dad bought it for me for $400 or something like that and made me drive it home - it was a standard and I'd driven standard about three times before this. I was so petrified of stalling the car coming to a complete stop that I coasted through stop signs whenever I could for the first year of driving it. (I lived in a small town, no cops and very few stop signs, no lights). The throttle would get stuck open in the cold when I'd go to start it, had to learn how to unstick it. I "upgraded" my ride in third year university when my brother sold me his 1990 Chevy Sprint. It met an untimely end in 2000 when I rear ended a van at 70km/h on Highway 9 north of Winnipeg - it was a miracle my passenger and I weren't severely hurt, to be honest, no airbags in that car.

My first big car purchase was a 1997 Saturn SL1 to replace the totalled Sprint. I just sold it two years ago to my nephew, who is still bombing around in southern Manitoba with it.

[You Need a Thneed]

First car I owned myself:

1999.5 VW Jetta - very rare Futura Yellow in colour.
2.0L 4 cylinder
5 speed Manual

This isn't a picture of my car, but mine looked exactly like this, except for mine had stock 15" alloy wheels, and wasn't lowered.



Loved that thing. Had to trade it in because I wasn't going to tell my extreme morning sick wife that she had to learn to drive stick to get to work. We were going to have needed a bigger vehicle anyway.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

85 Volvo 240 DL. This is a stock footage pic, mine had a lot more rust in the wheel wells areas. Also a scrape from on the A piller from that time I rammed a parking lot entrance barrier that was at a 45 degree angle (I thought I could make it.

It was handed down to me from my dad for "free" in 1998. I say free because it needed thousands of dollars of work every 6 months or so for various gremlins including a bent clutch fork. Not ideal as a university student.

The last straw was a fried wiring harness that cost me $1,400 to fix. Sold it immediately for $2,200 right after.

I loved this car - it had presence. You saw this thing lumbering down the road - you knew it was me. Being RWD with a 5 spd manual - it was a pig in the snow but it taught me valuable car control skills, like how to catch and control a fishtailing car. Those parking lot donuts weren't for nothing you know....

Rode low in winter with sandbags- I still remember scurrying out on John Laurie to pickup up my exhaust system after driving over a chunk of ice off of someone's mudflap. It ripped my muffler, various piping and catalytic right off the hangers. Damned if I was going to pay for all that stuff again, traffic be damned.

The kicker is - I've seen the old girl around Calgary still, as recently as a couple years ago. I think she's still alive....

[Enoch Root]

72 Datsun 240Z

The first (and only true) love of my life