History How did you get your first car and what age were you?

My first car was a 69 VW bug. My Dad was a model A guy and hated VWs but new how bad I wanted one and after I saved the 300 to buy my first one let me buy it and bring it home at 14 years old.

I built that car with my Dad. I learned to weld on it and a bunch of other valuable lessons. My wife and I used that as the getaway car on our wedding day years later. I wish I woulda kept it.

 

It was about 75 I was going into 8th grade. I sold a go cart for a C-note and bought a 52 5 window Chevy pickup that didn't run with the money. Engine was froze solid. Filled it full of diesel and let it soak for a couple weeks. Got it to run only to find out the head was cracked on the pos 216. I put a 350 Pontiac in it that I rebuilt in 8th grade. Then proceeded to destroy it. The guy I bought it from was the owner of the 40 Master Deluxe in my icon photo. My mom Bought that car from him in 81. I'm Just now getting around to playing with it now that its mine.

 

1980 I'm 14 and helping my cousin move into an apt. complex a few miles down the road from our place. Immediately notice a black '71 AMX sitting in the back corner of the parking lot. Head straight over to look and notice mismatched small tires on the back obviously someone had removed the set of "meats" that had once been on it. A quick check underneath revealed headers and traction bars. This thing was built!!

Fast forward 2 yrs. I'm 16 just got my license and I got $300 bucks saved up. The AMX is still sitting there never moved, still no idea who owned it. My cousin takes me out looking for a car nothing interests me. I tell him I'm gonna knock on every door in that complex till I find who own's that AMX.
He tells me "give it up you ain't got enough money and besides your mom won't never let you have it anyway".

We get back to his place and what do ya know there is a couple of people looking at the car. My cousin shakes his head and goes inside, I wait.
Finally one of them hops into another car and leaves and the other starts walking back towards the building. He must be the owner!

So I ask him if he is selling it. he says $600. Then he tells me about it. He had bought it 3 yrs. before drove it for a month and it quit running and never was able to get it running again.
I offer my $300 and he turned it down so I gave him my number in case he changed his mind.

So now I'm trying to hustle up every cent I can scrounge and over the next 2 weeks I only manage another hundred selling everything I could and taking every odd job I could rustle up. I'm thinking that I'll go over on the weekend and try again, but then I come home Friday and mom tells me some guy called and said he'd take the $300. SCORE!
When she ask's I tell her I was looking at an old AMC and she say's "oh ok". So I scramble up a battery and a can of gas and head over there.

I pay the man and get the title. The car is MINE!
I dump the gas in and start hooking up the battery. By this time my cousin had come out and he is looking and says "no way" I say "what" he points at the solenoid. It was brand new and wired up backwards!

I straighten that out and pour a few drops of gas down the carb turn the key and it fires!
a little tweaking and we get it running pretty good and it's got a real nice lope to it. I am in heaven!
Put it in gear and lay down a beautiful pair of stripes until I had to let off because I ran out of pavement. YEAH!!!

I head home. Shut it off a 1/4 mile before our house and coast into the driveway. Ma comes takes one look at the car then at me and says "AMC huh?" she looks some more then gets in and holds out her hand. I give her the keys and she starts it up and shuts it right back off. gets out and holds out her hand again. Sigh. I give her the title and she goes in the house.

Half hour later my uncle shows up. Eyeballs the car but doesn't say a word as he goes in the house.
After a bit he comes out opens the hood tosses me the keys and says "fire it up". I could tell he was impressed, he says he can't believe I got it for $300 I tell him the guy couldn't get it running. he nods.
Finally he says I'll give ya your $300 back and my old nova(6 cyl.). I say "no way!". He holds up the title and says its already his, take the nova or take nothing my choice. Sigh

 

What a dirty deal!
Bob

 

I certainly thought so at the time, but my mother had insisted he sell it and he got $1200 and gave me $600 of it. So it turned out pretty good. And I have to admit now that she probably did the right thing.

 

1960/61, Made a friend from paper route deal that at 13 bought a 48 DeSota 4 door stick shift, his parents had the patience of saints. Picture this, summer evenings, 4 kids, windows down, radio blasting, up and back in his driveway for hours, mind you city lot, driveway about 100' long. Hot Dog ! we were Kool, the neighborhood girls would come and cruise with us, now 6/8 kids in car, his garage had a loft, whole set of stories/memories on that subject. That car was pretty tough, took a lot of abuse in that 100' Following along here, another FUN memory this AM.

 

Hello,

My brother bought a 51 Oldsmobile 2 door sedan in 1956 at age 15, despite the fact that he did not have a license at that time. After looking at car magazines for years, the urge to drive was there. I was recently told of this car buying escapade from the person that bought that 1951 Olds from him, in late 1957, after my brother had painted it a Lime Green. “Everyone of his friends laughed at him for buying a car before he even had his license. But, with his hard earned money from after school jobs, he had enough to buy it.”


He wanted a fast car to be able to cruise and also win at the nearby Lions Dragstrip that had opened in 1955. His age group was the first one to see the Lions Dragstrip from the elevated railroad berm behind the junior high school, when they played baseball and other sports on the big grass field. By the time that group got to high school, hot rods and cruisers took precedence over being a high school football/baseball athlete.


The modifications to the 51 Olds sedan were relatively minor, no big time bore/stroke, cam or multiple carb set ups. It was just a clean fast v8 with Moon Discs, to at least make it look fast. He did tell me of some “Cherry Avenue Drags” episodes, but he still wanted to go faster. So, in 1957, we went searching for a supposedly, clean, Model A sitting in a lady’s back yard under a canvas cover. It was about ½ mile away from our house. Thoughts of a big v8 motor and new running gear would have made this Model A really fast. He had plans.

Jnaki

He told me to give him some money so he could offer a low price to the old lady. He offered $2.00, but the lady wanted $5.00. So, my money made the purchase and I was ½ owner of a not so clean, stock, rusty Model A at age 13. I guess owning a car before getting a driver’s license runs in the family.

We worked on it for a week and got it running. At age 13, since I already had experience behind the wheel of a 55 Mercury from our neighbor, back when I was 11. My brother allowed me to drive the Model A around the block for my actual first drive of a car by myself. Being a ½ owner of a car, driving by myself, what could be better than that at the moment? (Despite being under age and no driver’s license?)

“It wasn’t until 1955 when I borrowed our neighborhood music teacher’s 55 Mercury Hardtop to take some of her piano students for a joy ride in the neighborhood. Yes, we had the keys. Hot wiring came several years later in a 57 Ford hardtop. So, I knew how to steer, knew that the brake pedal stopped and the gas was for going. What else was there to driving for a 11 year old kid?
All of those years of "steering/driving" my dad's big Buicks paid off."

"I always assumed that the driving/steering episodes for those early years was the start of my car education. So, thanks dad… but no one actually taught me to drive a car down the street using the gas/brake/mirrors, etc. It just happened to a little kid brave enough to show off to a couple of girls that he could drive a 55 Mercury hardtop. (the “D” was the mode of normal driving, but the girls wanted me to put it in “L.” It made a better noise going fast and slowing down with the rap, rap sound.)"

 

It was 1974 and I was 15 years old. Dad was a gear head and I think he was already worried about me and the future so he started selling, first went the 31 chevy coupe with 409/ 4 speed, then the 62 chevy II with Z28 fulie/ 4 speed high boy, then the 55 and 57 chevys in the back yard, then the 68 GMC short bed 327/ auto. I like the rest of you I mowed lawns did minor repairs on cars all kinds of odd jobs. I lied about my age and went to work in a plastic injection mold shop that summer making $2.75 an hour (big money back then). Didn't have a clue what it was going to be but it was going to be great. I found a running 57 2 Dr hardtop blue and white for $200 went and told Dad and he had a fit!!! No way. So I kept looking 2 weeks later a man offered me a 36 Ford coupe for $300 dollars just needed the intake put back on, figured Dad would freak out again I didn't say nothing about it. That weekend we were in the garage bench racing with some friends and the 36 came up. This time I got reamed for not getting it, boy was I getting confused. Next week or so Dad and me were out riding around and he pulled into Ed Fanning Chevy and we went in. Dad had a salesman friend Glen Pugsley that worked there. He said Glen the boy needs a truck help him pick out what he wants and I will give him my 70 Nova for a trade in to help. Got me a 74 Chevy short bed black with charcoal interior. We went to the bank and Dad said to the banker that he would back me how ever he needed but I would make the payments and be responsible for my truck. I was building my first street machine. Headers, Thrush side pipes, custom wheels and wide oval tires from farm and fleet in Dekalb, yards of charcoal gray crushed velvet custom interior, built in 8 track player from K mart, custom fiberglass cap with a murial of the grim reaper coming out of a grave yard with more yards of fake fur, stainless steel mirror panels, and walnut wood trim (Remember it was the 70) , and so much more Dad and me Did so much to that truck. For 53 weeks It grew into the coolest truck in town (Imho) then this storm blew into town it was real crazy as the wind got up and things started blowing around. I was at work in Sugar Grove (Elmers Service center RV Dealership) went outside to try to tie things down. It got bad fast a tornado picked up a U-haul trailer and sent it flying into my truck smashing both into a customers 70 Chevy truck totaling both of them. That was the first of many trucks for me. I'm building a 64 C10 now. Guess Dad new I was a pickup man before I did. Love ya Dad miss ya too.

 

Paper route = mini bike...to motorcycle to gas pump jock = more money....tried to trade the motorbike in on a 1941 Plymouth coupe than ran-drove-stopped at the local car lot....the dad wouldn't let me bring it home....after selling the motorbike he "had found my Studebaker truck" that needed a transmission which was on me to get fixed....kinda think he thought it would be years before I fixed it....at 16 it was ready to go....just needed to pass inspection which took me to a friends dad station which wouldn't pass it to the one across the street that did.....loaded it up with my clothes and moved out at 17....never looked back. And the in the back ground also is the free VW's I'd haul off and part out as much as I could selling the rolling pan easy for a $100 to the dune buggy guys - which is something I was doing between my dad's short deployments.

 

12 yrs old traded my soapbox derby car for a 40 Chev sedan. hid it down the street and drove it late at night in low gear because I didn't know how to shift it.

 

My Dad was going to buy me a 40 Ford tudor for my 15th birthday. I woke up at O'dark-thirty that morning, eager to travel half way across Iowa to tow this home. Nope, a blizzard was blowing outside and we would wait until next weekend. You can't imagine how dejected a young hot rodder can be!

The next weekend we did go get the car in very frigid temperatures, and it still did snow and blow that weekend too. But we made it without incident, flat-towing with a borrowed bumper hitch. I've still got that car.

Dad had a 40 Ford for his first car too.



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1976, I was 12. Was working with my Mom catering weddings every week-end.
I was car crazy and bought a ‘57 Chev 150 4 door sedan, 235 w/ 3 on the tree 8 hours away in Fort St. John, BC.
My Dad drove the car home with me riding shotgun........ and come to think of it he never made me pay for the gas. Good memories.
I’ve got a photo of the car up North that I’ll post when I get back up there in a week.

 

At 15 kind of know what I wanted to build an started hunting parts for dream hot rod roadster,Dad made me keep my parts pile out back* . No parts in his carport!. At 16 I knew its going too take time too get a hotrod together an Dad was not hot on the idea anyway. 1958 Dad lets me buy a used up Crosley Hotshot,that ran on 3clys with a few boxs of spair parts from PO=Dad desides to SCCA H-MOD ,out of it for him an one of his buddys/end of me having a sports car for less then a week,so dosen't count.
I find more parts for my hot rod project,but do buy a used up Henry J so I'll have a driver with a roof* Hotrod was running by 1959 an "J" by 60,both depenning on weather I drove too highschool. Wet ="J",.
Just could not stand the "J" stock,so started custommizing it.by jan. 63 in was in Car Craft mag. So first car get all mixed up,with when an what.

 

1968, 15 yrs old. My grandfather was a horsetrader - cars, boats, travel trailers, land. He buys a 1936 Chevy PU with 327 Chevy, Duntov 30-30 cam, 2-WCFBs, headers, muncie 4-speed and Pontiac rearend for $850 in Redlands, CA. I'm pretty sure he bot it for me because he was a Cadillac and Lincoln Continental guy. I waited 6 months to ask him for it, then promptly went out without a license and blew up the engine! It was a couple of years before I had that back on the road. Still have it, altho its not streetable at this time.

 

My avatar was my first car, 1933 Chevy standard, the car was owned by an old gent who was the ONLY person to ever ride in it. 35 k on it when I got it for $200.00, car was mint, my pal and I painted it with the flame job. 15" www with 48 chevy dog dish caps and trim rings, 50 Pontiac taillights, dual straight pipes, home made triple carb manifold with only one working. It was great but sooo slow, sold it and bought a 38 Ford tudor with a v/8 motor! I was 12 when we bought the car and drove it all the time, small towns had some advantage!

 

Around ‘78, my dad and I just finished rebuilding his ‘31 coupe. It got a 283, new chassis, and repaint. I wanted my own Model A and we had lots of stuff that wasn’t deemed good enough for his car but would be fine to scrounge up for my first car. I wanted a coupe but they were too expensive so I got a ‘30 pickup cab for $50 and a bed for another $50. We boxed the frame that came out of my dads coupe and used it. A neighbor wrecked her ‘68 Fairlane fastback so I bought it for $300 and used the engine and trans. In retrospect, I would have had a much nicer car had I just fixed the Fairlane. Little by little, with help from local guys and what I could buy on my scarce budget we finished the thing enough to drive the next year. The year after that I moved to Phoenix Az, and not only drove the A pickup the 1200 miles there, but it was my only car for 2 years I lived there. I drove it back a couple times for holidays, and one more time when I moved back to NorCal. I took it apart to update it in ‘85 and it sat for the next 30 years. I sold it to a guy in Centralia, Wa a couple years ago and I heard he sold it to someone else. If you own a red Model a pickup, Ca license 883 ZVW and want to know more, drop me a line.

 

I love all these cheeky dad helped posts. I worked a country milk run after school hours as a kid, which was over three hours long running ,dropping milk a day at $7 a shift, and paid $360 for my junk pickup when I was 14, Im 46 years old now. Nothing has ever been more faithful and satisfying , and it’s been the best financial decision I ever made in life in respects to smiles per miles

 

1978 I was 14 and had for the past few years been reading the custom car mags on the shelf at the local newsagents where I delivered papers.. The wages were £1.75p for the week plus tips on Friday when you collected customer payments.. Over the past 2 years I have saved up £225 which I kept in a post office saving account, where you bought saving stamps and stuck them into a savings book..

One of the car mags was called HOT CAR and on the cover was a Fordson Van called Speed Freak .. I was hooked ..

Saturday was the classifieds day in the local paper and one Saturday a Fordson 5cwt van came up for sale for a whopping £150 .. I annoyed my old man to let me buy the van and eventually he caved in an drove me over to see the van which I manged to buy for £125 He made no bones about it My old man called it "another flash in the pan" Nothing like encouraging your offspring eh !

We lived on a new build housing estate on the edge of a pretty rough part of town. The upside was that stolen cars used to get dumped and vandalised close to where we lived, most got recovered pretty quick but some lay around for a bit..

One week a suitable donor car turned up dumped and half burned out , I walked past it on my 5 mile walk to and from school every week day for the next six weeks.. .. It was pretty obvious it wasnt going anywhere and was probably dumped by the owner .

Given where I lived was still a building site, I borrowed a wheelbarrow, and took the Kamasa tool roll I got for Christmas and made it my mission to relieve this junk car of its engine, gearbox and rear end.. But one problem was I was on my own, I had no engine hoist, just a scissor jack, a tool roll and a wheelbarrow.. So I stripped the head and all the ancillaries from the engine, still to heavy to lift the block out ( a 1600 xflow Ford motor) so got under and got the gearbox out, flywheel off, sump off, crank out and manhandled the block out of its hole... Then made endless trips with the wheelbarrow bringing the parts back to the house for a rebuild.

Long story short, my school books were covered in doodles of the van and I would work on it every day. Having now left school at 16 and scoring a job on a government youth employment scheme as an apprentice motor mechanic at Citroen dealership I one day managed to actually drive the van to the garage for our vehicle annual test (MOT) .. The tester obviously didnt think was serious and refused to test it LOL I still dont know why, I had driven it there and lived !!

That car was the start of the next 40 years of on off hot rod builds and ownership..

My old man is still alive and now in his 80s, hes always keen to see the cars in the garage, what Im working on and messing with... Stranger than anything else, Im actually restoring an old pickup that belongs to the fella I bought the Fordson from .... seems fitting that I make that the last outside job and sick to my own stuff from now on in..

 

16? You have a full mustache and receding hair line! You must look 110 now. Ha! Ha!

 

A bunch of us kids used to meet after work on pay day at a local bar known to serve under aged but mature looking, if not acting, fellas. Most of the guys blew most of their check on beer and gambling, or other vices, every week. I told the guys I wasn't blowing my whole check and left without a ride. I was hitch hiking. An old guy known for making book at the same bar pulled over in his big black 65 Chrysler to give me a ride. As we headed up the road I had to reach over and grab the wheel several times to avoid a head on collision. I thought he was drunk. I asked him if he was OK. he said "Yeah, I'm OK, just going blind". I said "Should you be driving"? He said "No, I should sell this car and get off the road I suppose". I asked him how much he was selling the car for. He said "$150". I handed him $150 and told him "Pull over, I'll drive ya home. Some of you on here may remember that car with no mufflers that I hand lettered "Captain Tug" with the "C" looking like a ship's wheel.

 

Yes , I do look 110 to me , here I am with my Cousin Mike , note same hairline and bigger moustache

 

How did I get my first car at age 15?
I worked my ass off from age 13.
Had to pay my own insurance,repairs and gas.
The old man didn’t allow any freeloading.

 

At the ripe old age of 15, in 1959, I found a 49 Olds 88 with the trans out in a local junk yard that I was able to purchase for $75 including a used tranny. With the help of a few friends we managed to man handle the trans change in the driveway while laying on the concrete before my 16th birthday when I got a license. Drove the ever loving shit out of it until it blew up and then bought my first hot rod of sorts, 1939 Chevy 2 door with Fenton split manifold and dual carbs and the rest is history, my love of anything that would go fast has never wavered!

 

Mines boring, worked at Jack in the Box for a year in a town that the youth rarely works and I was in the drive thru (so I was REAL popular ). Saved $1000, found my first car in Downey, Ca. (where my grandparents lived), best part was my grandfather helped me look for a car a few months before he passed away. I did have a car for senor year at least.......my second car story is much more fun (I still have it, my '60 Elco).

 

I was 12, and it was 1958 or 1959, my uncle towed an old car and gave it back to my father, for me. My dad had bought the car new, but gave it to his mother after a year or so. She kept it as her only car until she died, from about 1930 to 1954. In her later years, she lived with my uncle and his family, so my cousin drove it a few more years until he went in the Navy. It was mine, but the first thing my dad said was that I could not drive it until kit had hydraulic brakes. He helped me with that but I was mostly on my own.
It was running by the time I turned 16, and I got it painted a year later. It was never as nice as I wanted it, but I kept it until now and rebuilt it from about 2010 to 2016.

It is visually mostly like it was in 1964, but a hundred times nicer, as my skills and finances have improved over the years. It is still powered by a Model A four cylinder motor and is painted the original Andalucite Blue, still dropped axel and 1949 Mercury based wheels, and bias ply big and little wide whites.

 

Derby Line? Brother Greg?

 

1962 Nova Two Door Hardtop with very faded orange paint. My Dad and I drug it out of a field when I was 12 years old. We pulled it home (about 10 miles) with a chain running through a piece of pipe since it had no brakes. I sat on a milk crate and steered it with a set of vice grips clamped to the steering column. It was an ex-drag car with no interior. No motor or trans. About halfway home I guess Dad got to feeling confident with the chain and pipe not to mention my driving so we probably got up to about 45 or so (at least it felt like it from the milk crate). Suddenly the driver's side front fender dove down to the road and the vice grips made some wild spinning moves. After we stopped I noticed the wheel and tire rolling out into a field and scaring some cows. I had to go retrieve it. The lug nuts were still in the hub cap so we put it back on and limped it home.


Not much of photo but about the only one I can find these days. I didn't have the heart to change the color so we painted back orange and dropped a 400 small block in it! Those were the days.

 

Mid March 1975, I was 14 and my Uncle "Boots" was over cryin" the blues to my Mom that he was moving, and could not take his 1948 Jeepster with him. After a few beers I convinced my Mom and Uncle that I should be the next custodian of the Jeepster. Two weeks later My Dad flat towed it home with his 1969 Delta 88, and rolled it into his one car garage. Still own my first car to this day.............

 

Neat Jeepster---What engine/suspension, etc. Bill

 

4th grade, I'd been mowing lawns for several years and saving my money (almost 30 years ago)
Friends knew I was on the lookout for a 57 2door hardtop. One owned a restaurant with a magazine rack. Well he got the car trader mags a month ahead of putting them on the shelf. So he spots a 57. we call the guy, he SNAIL MAILS photos to us. its got a straight body but the floors are GONE. its a 210 2door hardtop original V8 car, fully loaded for a 210. Guy had all the trim to make it a BelAir. strike a deal and drive across 2 states to drag it home. was a 23 year long frame off build, but I have the car of my dreams now. And yes, I kept it as a 210