What was your first car

The only TR3 on Cyprus before or since.
I was on one of the squadrons at Akrotiri in 1963 and bought a white TR3 off a fellow squadron member.
Stripped it to the chassis, took off all the paint with aircraft paint stripper and resprayed it British Racing Green with a Schrader air pump attached to the engine of a Mini. Dyed some old Officers Mess stair carpet black in a 5 gallon oil drum. Came up lovely.
Sold the car to another squadron member at end of tour, who couldn't match the paint - he painted it white again (pillock).
At least the paint held the rust together.
 
My first car 1956 Ford Customline. My big brother showed me how to do my fist valve grind and replace the gearbox and it was ready to sit my licence at 15yrs old. I still remember the look on the cops face when he saw the wooden blocks my Dad screwed on the peddles so I could depress the clutch right to the floor from sitting on the edge of the seat. I wonder how the authorities would view that today, Given that car wasn't even built with seat belts.
 

Ron Earp

Admin
1978 Mercury Marquis Station Wagon Colony Park. Power everything, AC that was nippleriffic, and a 460 that wouldn't turn up any RPM for squat. Still was reasonably quick off the line for the early 80s due to a lot of low end grunt.

The picture below is a promotional but the car was the same color and options. Great car. Always ran, could seat a lot of people (had tail gunner seats too), and with the fold down floor option it converted into a two seat date machine real easy. Cool car. Wouldn't mind having one now but out of all the older cars Station Wagons took a beating and there aren't many survivors.

Electric rear window was handy too. You could put it down and stand up to pee out the back while in motion.

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1963 Impala was my first car in 1989.
Flat primer black with Cragar classics. Had a mildly pumped 350 small block with a turbo 350 trans with a shift kit. I used to spit out the driveshaft or differential all the time. At one point, I cut the tail of a dead raccoon from the side of the road and hung it on the antennae. It looked bitchin'. Got into heaps of trouble with that car, both financially and legally.

2nd car was an 81 RX-7 in 1991. Had continuously owned an RX-7 since then up until the time I bought the SL-C.
 
1966 Mini Deluxe (An Australian variation of the Mini which solved a lot of the basic probs). 998cc, single carb.

Modified to the hilt, could blow off 1275 Cooper 'S''s.

Stuck it off the edge of Mount Keira, Wollongong. The insurance company wrote to say this car wasn't standard. What had been done, who did it, and how much did it cost? Replied, listing everything they could see. They payed up! Father had not realised that mine was a bit different to his, purchased the same day. This was the same man who could not understand why anyone would want a radio in a motorcar!

The start of a motor modifying/car building life.

Clive
 
Most of the UK guys seem to have had minis, and most of my friends had one for their first car, but I have always considered them too cramped for comfort and bought a Morris 1100 two door in red. This had the "thermometer" speedo (straight line left to right, with a red stripe to show the speed). What I did not know when I bought it was that it had been stage 2 tuned and had the performance of a Dolomite Sprint, 115mph on a cushion of Hydrolastic suspension. Went very well for a few years until the engine pulled the front subframe away from the body and it split in two. I think that was the start of my fast car addiction.
 
I hope its not too late to chime in. My first car was a 1963 CHevy Corvair with a faded paint job, but I loved that car. It used to chew up fan belts due to me reving the thing to redline all the time, but it was a blast to drive. The PC Police dissed the car later in the decade, but that was a load of bull. America's first made for the masses sports car.
Garry
 

Dave Bilyk

Dave Bilyk
Supporter
1947 MG TC Red
My friend and I saw it in a driveway 2 miles from home. A bit dilapidated, with broken spokes and a bit of rust. We got together 7s 6d each, handed over the 15s and my dad towed it home. We replaced some rotten wood in the ash frame, patched the wheel arches with some metal from an oil drum, had the wheels refurbished and for a spend of £65 she was good to go. Later sold her for £180.

Dave
 
my first car was(is) a 1973 triumph spitfire with 2liter lancia/fiat twink bought it in 1988, it is still running and I still have it after 23years
 
My first car was a 1973 Opel GT. After I crashed it into a fence post after failing to negotiate a curve, I repaired it and painted it a psychedelic school-bus yellow color. Then I rebuilt the engine, which was losing a ridiculous amount of oil, went with higher compression, improved valvetrain, and ditched the Solex for two Webers. I put the biggest tires I could possibly fit in the wheel wells and it was quite the ride.
 
I just dug up an old photo of me with my very first car, on the day I brought it home, back in October 1989.

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Yes. My first car was a 1972 De Tomaso Pantera! :shocked:

At the time I bought it, I didn't have a driver's license, and I didn't even know how to drive a car! I had a motorcycle license and had been riding for three years, but had only been behind the wheel of a car once, for a few minutes.

A friend had to drive the Pantera out of the Los Angeles basin for me, and I took the wheel once we got into California's wide, open, straight central valley, and learned to drive on the way back to San Francisco.

Driving a Pantera in San Francisco, with its steep hills, and non-functional handbrake was a bit interesting, to say the least! :anxious:

This, by the way, was one of the worst Panteras on the road when I bought it--it looks halfway decent in the photo above (door dings notwithstanding), but underneath the paint it was rusted to the point of translucency, and had been wrecked in the right front corner, and left side behind the door as well.

It subsequently underwent a three-year restoration that took 17 years to almost complete :)rolleyes:), and it's only a few items away from being genuinely 'done' (it hasn't had a heater or A/C system installed yet, for example).

Here I am driving it on the track in 2009:

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It blew up last month and wound up on a tow truck (for only the second time since I've owned it), but today a friend and I fixed it--bad fuel pump. It felt great to drive it again!
 

Glenn M

Supporter
My Mum, God bless her, lent me the money to buy my first mini before I'd passed my test. She was not best pleased when she popped round to the garage to see her little boys new car and found that I'd chopped the roof off to make a Minisprint! Still, it turned out all right in the end.....
 

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Jim Craik

Lifetime Supporter
Mike,

A Pantera for your first car, how cool that must have been!

I had a very plain old Mini 850 (this is in California) and I though I would pick up girls.............what a dope.

Now that I think of it, it worked, I taught my Wife how to drive in that Mini, crash box and all.
 

Pete McCluskey.

Lifetime Supporter
!959 Austin Healy bug-eyed sprite - taught me about oversteer in full size cars, thank God I had been racing karts before that and had the necessary reflexes to stay alive. Also learned the awful truth about Lucas ('be home before dark') electrical systems.

hahah My third car was a bug eye, you are spot on with the oversteer.
It was the first car I raced, diabolical in the wet. But the fact that I could not afford good tires may have played a role. Yet another car I wish I still had.
 

Ian Clark

Supporter
My first car was a boat, a land yacht, a batmobile wannabe. 1960 Cadillac Series 62 convertable. Black with a black leather interior and white top. She's was later reincarnated as four Honda Civics. Had a 390V8 with a four speed automatic.

That car was seriously quick from 0 to 30>40mph, then settled down. Fast enough to surprise 383 Road Runners, 390 Torinos etc (I have witnesses). Also one of the most beautiful barges ever to grace dry land.

These pics are of a car that came up on Ebay, made me cry because I was short about 90K, of course I cry about that every day:)
 

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Charlie Farley

Supporter
Saved up my pennies and eventually found a 1966 Mini Cooper S 1071 cc. This was 1977.Completely disassembled the car and learnt mechanics on the fly. Brother did the welding work and i did the filling. Repainted red with a black roof. Ditched the hydrolastic subframes front and back and fitted a dry front frame with chopped down trumpets and negative camber bottom arms. Rear frame was replaced with a racing pedigree A frame. Found some JA Pearce magnesium wheels and fitted Goodyear Rally Specials.
Bought a 1275cc S lump and had it rebuilt. Bored out to 1430cc as David Vizard's book specs. Fitted with a full race head, long centre branch exhaust and Weber 45.
From the lights, many times i embarassed owners of Capri 3 litre JPS liveried cars.
They would catch me back at around 70mph. It would easily spin the front wheels until i changed into 4th gear !
Followed home one day by a USAF Colonel, who was returning stateside and made me an offer i couldn't refuse. Guess it must still be in the USA.
 
62 Fairlane 500 SportCoupe, the car was 6 years old when I got it! My Dad insisted that the car stay stock/original or no go! The first thing I did was lower the car and install chrome reversed wheels with center bullits, then pin striped it. He thought it was "cool" and kept taking it to drive to work. My brother and I then chopped the top, shortened the wheel base 12 inches, then lengthened the nose 12 inches. We added a 71 Mustang Mach I hood to it and trimmed the front edge to a "V". Did a resess on the grill and got rid of the front bumper and add a roll pan below it. This gave it the 70 Cuda look to the grill opening. Added a 302 with Hilborn fuel injection, custom interior with Mach I buckets etc. Then after all of this it got run over by a garbage truck. Then the Mustang phaze started that evolved into Cobra's/Daytona Coupe/and onto GT40's. FOREVER FORD!
 
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