Your Sons First Car - What Did You Do?

My son had this obsession with a really ugly 55 Desoto. He found it at the Newport Hill Climb 9 years ago. I told him then he better really like this car because he would own it as long as I was still breathing air. I wish I still had mt first car.

Between our good friend Tom Culbertson teaching him and me throwing my input in he has a pretty neat custom. Dustin has done an awfully lot of the work on his car himself. The car has taught him how to teardown and rebuild engines, install rear ends, wire cars, do sheetmetal, brakes, top chops and paintwork.
The old car has been a true testbed of his skills. He got the car when he was 15. He is now 23 and if you have ever met him, the relationship he has with his car that he affectionately calls Priscilla is phenomenal.

 

Bullshit, I was 12 when I started working on my first and learned how to paint it by being my mentors monkey. Drove it at 14 (legal here) and never looked back except for a minor break in my 20s.

 

When my oldest son, Patrick, turned 15 he started to bug me constantly, &#8220;What kind of a car are you going to get for me when I turn 16?&#8221; And I have to say that I was not impressed with the way that his 16 year old friends were treating their vehicles. It was like they were barely able to put gas in them let alone actually check the oil/radiator fluid occasionally. This was not the way I grew up in the 50&#8217;s and 60&#8217;s. An automobile was a part of you. It was who you were. Today it is more &#8220;matter of fact&#8221;, the kids think their parents owe them a nice car. So I said, &#8220;No, you&#8217;re not getting a car.&#8221; But, after a couple, of months I relinquished somewhat and changed it to, &#8220;Ok, you earn as much money as you can and I will match it. Then we&#8217;ll see what kind of car you can afford.&#8221; Of course, this didn&#8217;t make him feel any better because he had no money and little prospect of earning what he needed. I also told him that I couldn&#8217;t afford to just go out and buy him a car. So, when I walked into the living room on his birthday and tossed him a set of keys he was ecstatic to say the least. He ran past me, out the front door and into the driveway where he found a 1977 chevy C-10 pickup. It was an old highway department truck and it was still yellow with a straight six and three-on-the-tree! I thought he would complain about it but he was so convinced that he was not getting anything and even this was way better than nothing. We started working on that pickup every day after school. When I got home from work I always found Pat in the garage doing something to it. We finally finished the body work and had a local body shop spray it a tan color. Later we went out to the local junk yard and bought a pair of bucket seats out of something and bolted them in along with a homemade center-console and covered it and the floor with some used carpet. As luck would have it, a friend of mine was replacing a 283 with a big block in a 1964 El Camino so I bought the small block from him and, without even an engine stand, we began to dismantle it on the floor of the garage. Pat asked me one day if I really thought this engine would ever run again. Well, with a little help from my friends, it became a really great running 283; good enough to make it through 2 ½ teenage boys! That&#8217;s right. When Pat went to college, his younger brother, Chris, took over ownership of the pickup. With Pat&#8217;s reputation with this truck at the same high school that Chris was attending, however, he had to do something to make it his own. I helped Chris accomplish this by lowering it about 3&#8221;, replacing the original 3-speed tranny with a 4-speed <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Saginaw</st1lace></st1:City> that I bought from a friend for $50 and changing the paint job to match the one I have on my 36 Ford drag car. About the time Chris graduated and left for the Navy, my 3<SUP>rd</SUP> son, Kerry, was turning 16 and, naturally, inherited what was now the &#8220;family&#8221; truck and, like his brothers, had to make it his own. Kerry lifted it back up, installed a 2&#8217; body lift kit and, after blowing up the 283, installed a 350 with a hot cam and a th-350 automatic. Kerry worked at a muffler shop for about a year after high school and did a lot more to the truck on his own like custom interior, wheels and exhaust. When he finally decided that an engineering degree was something he was ready for, I told him that we had better see what we could get for the truck and get him some better transportation. He said, &#8220;If I have to sell this truck to get something else just forget it!&#8221; So his truck was parked behind my office and Kerry went to school with a newer truck. He got married, graduated, got a great job in <st1lace w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Houston</st1:City>, <st1:State w:st="on">Texas</st1:State></st1lace> and had his first little girl, Emily. Here I sat, over 400 miles away, staring at that truck every day and wondering what to do with it. One day Kerry showed up with a trailer and said, &#8220;I guess I&#8217;m ready for it.&#8221; So we loaded it up and he took it to <st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Houston</st1lace></st1:City>. About a year later, (in December) with the bed in the back yard and the a-frames laying on the garage floor, a new employer talked him into moving his baby daughter and 7-month pregnant wife to <st1:State w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Michigan</st1lace></st1:State>. (Don&#8217;t ask!) They would only transport the truck if it was running, though, so Kerry put it all back together. He now lives in <st1lace w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Battle Creek</st1:City></st1lace> and the truck is in his pole barn with a 496 BBC setting in the corner and a sand blasting machine that his wife bought him for Christmas. Turned out to be three pretty good boys.

 

my son at 16 and his first car he could drive. his first car that he bought was a model a coupe project

 

Are you kidding? Let him build it & drive it and Thank God he's not into tuners........

 

You misunderstood me Tman, didn't mean all kids would be like mine, just a warning some will be. Cars consumned me too since I was a kid but face it, kids today have too many dissractions. All we had was cars, girls, school and maybe a part time job to finance the first two. Now they got computeres, playstations ect and seems to me a lot more partying.

 

Been thru it several times too...
Oldest son, now 43 got a ~1960 Scout with a 327 Chevy and four speed...
Fun little rig......
Was basically all there, just needed some clutch work and a bit of engine TLC and was a great first rig for him.....

 

66 El Camino 283 4 speed car. Call me crazy, I didn't want him to have anything with a backseat. Gary

 

Found an extremely low mileage 86 Dodge pickup (18000 miles) - put on a set of nice wheels and let him go. Truck now has about 150000 miles and he has just redone it from one end to the other -awesome truck! Make it safe and reliable whatever you do!

 

Here's a few of his 2nd car. 98 S-10 at the local dragstrip. In the 2nd shot he's racing the HAMB's own Malcolm back when he still had his Galaxie. Gary

 

kids crash cars. it's not a matter of IF, it's WHEN. the doggie diesel sounds like a great idea. my son stopped crashing when he started driving an old 3/4 ton pickup with horrible mileage. i paid insurance (very cheap on big old truck) and he paid fuel.

he wrenched a ton with me in the garage on fun projects, and he also fixed all his own crashes in his first car. we have great memories in the garage together. he melted a clutch into a wad (in a parking lot) which he had to bust his knuckles to fix, and when he took standardized exam there was a question what a pilot bearing is. if he was in an old car like he wanted to be, i think it would have been a worse outcome.

19 years old now and i think he respects the limits of classic cars. took a few years, but all kids are different.

 

I agree here. Hard to beat a later model chevy truck for a daily driver.

Nothing says he couldn't have a project car for the weekends too.

 

I don't have any kids yet, but I already know what I'm getting for them when they have them. AIR COOLED VW...

Inexpensive to buy
Inexpensive to own
Good on gas
Reliable but too reliable so's not to learn the value of regular maintenance.
Simple
Fun...

Air cooled veedubs are awesome first cars.

 

I love them but would NEVER put my kid in one as his first car. They squash like a tin can.

JH

 

My first car was a beater... and it got beat. Then I got a 1970 caddy w/ climate control, guess who's driving.

Get something safe and work on the project car for graduation. Just a thought

 

My first car (67 Impala that I still own) wasn't ideal for a 16 year old. Not reliable enough, always costing money, hard to park, and I had to learn to drive right so it got bent and scraped. I love that car...but Dad would have been better off finding me a cheap 70s pickup. These days I would look at an S10 or Ranger; some very clean ones turn up; easy to customize, cheap to buy and run. Nothing wrong with buying the Mustang, too, but save it for a few years.

 

My first is in my Avatar. 26 years now. I like em low. My 16 year old on the other hand has a 93 F350 4x4 with a Turbo Diesel, flatbed and a chrome stack. It`s a beater, 1500 bucks with 180,000 miles. We`ll see how long that lasts with the price of fuel. I think he`d be happyier restoring a John Deer tractor than a Hot Rod. My 10 year old daughter would want a Slug Bug if she had a choice now. At least they are showing signs of intrest.

 

My theory has been (based on how I was as a teenage driver)

Put them in the biggest, heaviest car you can find.
Make sure it has good tires and good brakes.
Hope like hell no one gets hurt when they have their first accident.

 

My Daughter, who will be 15 the first week of August recently told me she wants something like this:



Even if I win the lottery I would waste a Fastback on a 16 year old kid.

She will most likely end up with something similar to this:

 

I put my son in a 93 Dodge dually with a 5.9 Cummins. Only had 115,00 on it so it should last for years. Mileage isn't bad and it pulls the horse trailer great. Insurance is way cheaper than I thought it would be for a 17 year old boy.

 

Got to admit Mutt she has good taste. I have found out a few things about fastback Mustangs. They are either nice and really expensive, or junk and expensive.

 

I was going through some tough times in the tail end of '78 and I needed a car.. My dad bought himself a new Ford LTD (last of the big ones) and he ended up giving me his old '72 Maverick Grabber... Looked just like this one... I did try to keep it in good shape but the doors were so rotted from rust, I finally ended up scrappin' it a year later..

 

Wow this hits home

My Daughter is already shopping..wants a Mustang..@13Y.O.

than one day she asks me what they go for (new or old in nice very nice condition about the same)..I told her she should have started saving her money up when she was born

Also living in Michigan..I dont think so..it will probably end up being a 4x4 s-10 or suv
dont need to be pulling a Stang out of the ditch on a snowy day..or when it just looks like its going to snow

 

Don't have a son, my daughter had a car when she was 16. I had my first when I was 14. I guess we both turned out alright, I wish my daughter would have had a better life than I but that is not the case. I doubt that owning a car is the problem though. It is just the way it is. She is capable of doing most of her own repairs and what she doesn't know I can teach her over the phone.

Ask yourself this, when did you own your first car and did it ruin you for life?

It won't hurt him to own a mustang, granted most of us would like him to own something else but it is a start and no doubt will be a good enough car for him to learn on.

 

Our first son's first car was a 4x4 1977 Ford 100 stepside pick-up. Pops had put an old Sportsman class 400 racing engine in it and after CA went to smog laws he decided the truck needed to go to WA where no such issues exist. We let no. 1 son drive it through high school. Then passed it on to no. 1 daughter, then to no. 2 daughter then finally to no. 2 son. All of the kids worked on the truck. They learned everything soup to nuts. Not a one of them wanted to take the truck when they left home. It sits in the shop used only for garbage runs and skidding buckskins logs off the landing for firewood. It got horrible mileage that kept the kids close to home. They all fourwheeled it at the river and occasionally it had to get rescued by the John Deere when they got it in too deep. The kids still talk about the memories. Our first grandson will be driving in three years. He is out there in the shop all summer trying to learn as much as he can. He will drive it next. It will keep him close to home too. We like that.
Get your son something that will have usefulnes. Something you can pass on to future generations.

 

My son isn't old enough yet, but My 17y/o daughter brought home a '59 Chevy Apache to put together as a daily driver. It is her money and her labor and though it has been alot more work than she had hoped for she is sticking with it and she gets more excited every day closer to completion. I have even been blogging it for her On Face Book so she has a recorded journal of her first Truck. http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Jessicas-59-Apache-Page/130140737020875?v=photos


My son is already looking for his first project so we can start it after his sisters truck is done.

 

^that's got to be one of the coolest things I've ever seen. 17 year old girl building her own old truck.

 

In 1967, my aunt who lived in New York gave me my first car when I was 13. It was a wrecked 57 Chevy 4Dr Hdtp. Needed lots of work. My step dad gave me a small tool box of tools to call my own. He said that he would help pay for half the parts that it would take to make it roadworthy and safe and that I could use the tools to install those parts and work on the car.

It did ruin me for life>>>>

 

I bought my first son a 70 Chevelle hardtop with a 307-- p.glide. Drove the hell outta the $300.00 car for three years. Couldn't have been better. ~sololobo~

 

I've watched lots of friends go through this with their kids, and the things I've seen that really seem to matter is 1. they must like the car they're working on or it will never be finished and 2. don't over worry about it; let them decide the direction and help them get there. We all seem to worry about our kids going too fast, being reckless, etc. because we were. At 16, we could buy a 425hp used car for under $2500 and go street racing that night, so there has to be a trust factor and some understanding there too.