History OK - This will be Fun - What was your very first vehicle ?

I bought my aunt's rusted out '58 Ford Ranch Wagon for $10 when I was 13. I drove it around the farm a lot, and worked on the 352 Interceptor motor all the time. Gangs of fun and dependable - but not exactly rugged. If I hit a bump too fast, the tailgate would fall open. Usually my youngest brother would be back there with the window open, and he'd tumble out. I sold it my senior year to a local scrap yard for $50, having never gotten it tagged.

 

I have rally enjoyed reading all the stories, especially the ones bought when you were not old enough to get a driver's license.
My story is a little different. When I turned 16 in 1966, my Dad told me when I could pay for my own insurance he would let me get my driver's license. There was never any mention of a car. I joined the Navy at 18 and went four years not needing one. In 1973 at 22 years old I was being discharged from service and a friend said he would sell me his hot rod 40 Ford Deluxe Opera Coupe. It had a Chevrolet 301 with a 3 speed manual trans. I don't remember how much I paid for it.
When I left NAS Lemoore California headed for Albany, Ga. I picked up a hitchhiker right out side the gate that had also just been discharged. He was headed to Dothan, Al. about 80 miles west of Albany. WE drove straight through only stopping for gas, food and restroom breaks.
A week after getting home I loaded up my wife and we drove to Hagerstown, Md. to see my family. While I was there my next door neighbor talked me into letting him paint the car Root Beer metallic. While he was painting it I went to the junkyard and bought a front seat out of a Mercedes Benz. IT didn't fit real good so I bolted 2x4s to the floor pan and then bolted the seat tracks to the wood blocks. I drove back home a few days later Making a total trip of about 3800 miles in two weeks without any problems.
About two months later I was sitting at a red light when a 55 Chevy pulled up and gunned his motor. When the light turned green he hit the throttle and flooded out. I also hit the throttle, and witnesses said the front tires came off the ground. However when I went for second gear I blew the transmission up and only had first and reverse. Technically I won because I went a half block farther than the 55
I limped the car home and parked it on the street in front of my house while I tried to figure out where I could get a new transmission. I decided to pull the bad one out and when I got under the car I found that the previous owner had cut the center out of the X frame to make room for the motor and transmission, He strengthened" the frame by bolting a thin piece of metal across the top of the frame behind and in front of the cut.
So, I just rolled out from under the car and put a sale or trade sign on it.
A couple weeks later two guys drove up in a 1951 Ford panel wagon complete with blue shag carpet covering the whole interior. I traded him and drove the shaggin wagon until my wife came up and said we were going to have a baby and we needed something more fitting. We ended up with 69 Pontiac Grand Lemans and that ended my Hamb friendly stuff until the marriage went south. Lucky for me my next wife supports my car hobby so I can't let her go.

 

The racer Tommy Corellis, years back his team used a Caddy limo as the trailer tow vehicle. They would pull into the pits with the #357 car and he would roll out of the back seat like a rock star.

 

Sadly a 70s OT car that was already 15 years old, I had to work at a fast food restaurant in a town where very few HS kids had to work (serving your classmates with a paper hat on isn't as cool as it sounds). $900 took awhile to save.

 

Bought this 1936 Plymouth in 1964 from a neighbor (with my Dads blessing and my lawn mowing money). He was the original owner. I was 14. The top picture is about 1966 when I could legally drive. The hub caps are off my Dad’s 65 Ford Galaxy 500. Best Dad ever! The bottom picture is about two weeks ago. Getting some shine on for next summer. Still running 218 flat six with a few hop up parts.

 

1965 Senior in high school. Purchased this for $250. It was a project that someone had installed a 265 Chevy, Chevy 3 speed with a Hurst Yo-Yo knob shifter (Wish I had kept it) and a 57 Chev rear end. Not running. Towed it home. Got it running. Fixed the brakes, wired it, and put it on the road. Then my freshman year in college I patched up the body by welding in patches with braze rod and coat hangers, put 2 Honest Charly fiber glass rear fenders on it and painted it G M Manarina Blue. Reversed the Mercury front rims by knocking out the rivets flipping the center sections hammered them in, mounted them up on the spindle, and spun them, tapping with a hammer till they ran true, then had a friend arc weld them up. Did a set of rears using Chev center sections and Buick Roadmaster outer rims. (Slicks and Mags in photo were borrowed from a buddy for a few weeks). Then found a 270 HP Corvette 283 engine with 2 WCFB's on it with a cracked block. Bought a junkyard 283 and swapped all the parts over and stuck it in. Even ended up with a T10 4 speed. End of sophomore year in school started going with
my current wife of 53 years and needed a better ride. Sold it for $750.00 and bought a 2 year old 65 Vette for $2500. Those were the days. Able to pay for my college education (lived at home) and 2 year old Corvette with $$ earned over the summer working union construction.

 

My first vehicle was my 1950 Chevy 3100 that Dad and I “restored”. The quotes are because I was 14 and Dad was a Union Carpenter. I still have the Chevy and Little Truckdoctor are going to update the drivetrain and brakes starting this spring. I drove the 50 every day back and forth to school and work until I bought a 1966 F-100 with an FE. Mom and Dad only let me buy the F-100 because they never thought I’d get it running. When I bought the Ford, I was working on school buses before and after school. I learned enough to get the Ford running and driving. This was in the spring of 1991 and I was a junior in high school. I paid $110 for the old Ford.

 

I bought my 1929 Model A standard coupe in 1968 when I was 19. I worked three jobs: unloading trucks and stocking children's clothes in a hot, dusty warehouse 40 hours a week; washing dishes and making pizzas at a pizzeria; bucking hay bales (a penny off the ground, a penny off the truck). It hardly ran, no fabric on the top, three of the four brake rods came loose on the way home from the seller. I rebuilt the engine thanks to a local machinist and JC Whitney, rebuilt the transmission, replaced bushings, wiring, glass, bought a tudor to part out for the passenger door. Just kept buying tires, one at a time. Drove it for a little more than a year to college. No radio, poorly producing heater but I loved crank-starting it in the college parking lot. I bought it for $450 and sold it for $600.

 

1965 VW bug at closed bid auction, $127.97 had a valve dropped in #3 cylinder [ that wasn't known ]. I was 15. Dad gave me input on what to offer for a best chance of winning the bid with what I could afford. Got my first ticket in that car before a drivers license. Also got a schooling by the machinist that I need to learn how to clean parts when I was making this car run and drive again. Man have I been cleaning a lot of parts since.

 

A 1961 Pontiac Catalina, bought for $70 on January 1, 1976. There's been at least one '61 Pontiac in my garage at any time ever since.

 

In 1986, I bought a 1964 VW Notchback from a friend I worked with. I paid $950 for it. It had no steering wheel, which almost turned out to be deal-breaker. But lo and behold a pair of vice grips did the trick and I was able to bring it home and drive it that way until my next pay check which I averaged at about 45 bucks a week back then for bagging groceries. Good times.

 

My first was a '68 F-body droptop chevy with a 275 horse 327... White with a red interior and white top..

 

A guy in my town drove a 396 powered T bucket as his daily-in Iowa! 15 year old me fell in love. I couldn't afford the $199 Bird T-bucket bodies I saw in Hot Rod, so I searched locally. I decided what would work was an early truck cab from a junk yard. Dubuque is hilly and they salt the hell out of the roads, so vintage tin is scarce. I discovered that heavy duty truck cabs being mounted so high, weren't all rotted out. The best looking thing I came up with was a 1964 Reo Gold Comet truck cab. $75 delivered. So that was my first vehicle. I spent the next 2 1/2 years building my hot rod. I used a free '61 Biscayne chassis, Which I shortened, and a 454 out of a Suburban. The thing was scary fast and dangerous. I loved it...for a whopping 14 days. Lost control of it and ran off the road over some huge boulders along the Mississippi. I was unhurt, but the pain of killing it stays with me. I'm busy now at building my reprise of the thing, but the new one is a bit different, and a bit Off Topic....hopefully it will live a longer life.

 

64 El camino when I was 17,now 40.same car ,still got it.ive learned a lot and still am.was 1000 bucks and my dad bought it for me from A friend of his.paid him back by working for him.it had 4 bent craigers and a hood scoop!couldn't be happier! Alot has changed but its still on the road

 

My first car was a 58 Kharmin Ghia in 1967. It had 36 HP and I added a 3/4 race cam. Down hill and with a wind it topped out at 75 mph. My Mom hated the car and told me to get an American made car. So, a year later I got a 67 Nova SS with a 327 4 speed and modified to 400 HP and a 456 rear. That started my love for Hot Rodding.

 

1967 Camaro RS red with black vinyl top, 327, powerglide, 12 bolt posi, black deluxe interior. My father bought it for me in 1976 for $850 Cragars in rear and baby moon hubcaps in front.

 

My first car was a 1947 Chrysler Windsor, flathead six with Fluid-Drive transmission. In 1964, my brother owed me $20.00 and giving me this tank was how he repaid me!
This is not an actual photo of it but this is exactly what it looked like...

 

Plymouth Barracuda fastback, the next car "given" to me will be my first one, paid $235.00 for it, torsion bar ripped out of the frame and that was the end of that, too new to list a year.

 

I got kind of a late start. My first didn't happen until after High School. A friend of mine had a towing service in a town about 60 mi from me and this is one of two Nomads he pulled from an alley at the request of the city. The other was a '56. The pic was taken the day I sold it in '66, a week before the Army took me away to exotic place. Oh, and I paid $100 for both of them

1st Nomad by cavman posted Oct 8, 2013 at 11:49 PM

 

Fall of '63 I bought my first car : 1948 Crosley station wagon for $35 from a guy going into the army & drove it home. I learned how to drive a non-syncro gear transmission, as well as mechanical brakes, & tune-ups on that car, & fell in love with "bangers", although my next car was a '53 Lincoln for $50(just needed freeze plugs).

 

‘49 Ford Tudor sedan, when I was 11 years old…next door neighbor had it in his back yard, he did bump & paint in his garage on the side, offered the ‘49 to me for labor/payment for stripping a customer’s ‘65 Mustang to bare metal…I bought a Plymouth Valiant from another neighbor for $35 to get the Slant 6, trans, and rearend out of to transplant into the ‘49

 

Lot of cars I wanted,not going to ever get most,but I got a few.
After model car kits, push cars n go carts, I did buy a used up ,broken Corsley -Hot Shot/ a small 4 cly sports car. @ $75 with box of parts,with my paper rout $>
In less then two weeks,an just as I got it kind of running>Dad took it*,too build a racer SCCA H=Mod,,I don't think that one really counts!
The next was a Free-Bee,the one I count as first,,I dragged home from a farm feild= Rusty an missing a lot,no motor seats or glass+,plus crashed bad in the rear trunk 1928 Model A Roadster. In early 57. For the next 3 years,hunted and draged home free parts out of junked cars in the woods n dirt road dumps. Dad let me keep the junk out of site in the weeds out back of house. By 1959,I had put together a hotrod that I drove around the block the first time. This was too have a car for starting high school.
I like what I did first,got other cars too,but kept my 28A still.

 

Mine was a 49 Ford four door, it was the summer of 2000 I had just graduated high school. I traded some work (oil changes, a grease jobs, and a couple of tire rotations) with a 49-51 Ford collector for it.

Having attended 2nd the Rockabilly Rumble about a week before I got it I had big plans!

A V8, floor shift, lowered front and rear with a slight rake, white walls all the periods correct good stuff!

However, I quickly realized how much it needed, how many parts were missing, I had no place to work on it and no money to put in it I ended up selling it for a (small) profit.

I long ago outgrew that silly V8 fad!

 

My first car was a 64 VW bug. Guess that's where I got my love for fat fendered cars!

 

My first was a '63 Econoline van, inherited from my step-dad. I think I was 14. Just before I turned 16 my uncle needed the van so he traded me a '55 Ford 4 door, 272 automatic. I drove the crap out of that Ford for about a year until the transmission gave out. Then I went the muscle car route with a '67 Chevelle SS 396, 4 speed and 12 bolt posi for $350. That was about 1975.

 

Got my first car 5 months before I was old enough to get my permit. Got a 56 Ford Victoria 2 door hardtop, 292 A/T. Car couldn't spin a wheel and 80 MPH was all it would do. Traded the tea pot carb and intake for a 57 2bbl. and that car came to life. Not my favorite car but would love ti have another.

 

I am 28, so both my first & second cars were very far from HAMB friendly (a Mitsubishi and then a Ram). But the first car I ever really sought out, wanted, scraped up money for and bought on my own volition was a '31 Model A coupe. I still have the chassis from that car. I sure wish I still had that body, but at the time, there was no way for me to get to where I'm at now without getting rid of it - c'est la vie! The roadster I have now is really way cooler.

 

My first car. Don't know what kind it was but it was a 1948 model.

 

The only pic I have of The Toad. You could watch the road through the floor, and the cab was listing on the frame. Never worried where I parked it when hiking down to the swimming hole.