What was your first car?

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1966 Ford Fairlane Sedan

BZ’s first car, only it was white.

[Sorry, no politics until Monday.  Perhaps not even then.  Just depends.]

This time of year makes me wistful, thoughtful, comtemplative.  Out of the blue I thought of the first car I’d ever purchased.

My first car was a used 1966 Ford Fairlane sedan, with a white exterior and blue interior.  It had cloth seat inserts, if I recall correctly.  It actually had air conditioning.  It was the first car I purchased with money I had actually saved, for $500.  I bought it in Ohio, when I was living in Kettering, in 1972.

The car was in great shape for its years, thought it already had 70,000 miles and the front shock towers squeaked like crazy.  It had a small block 289 CI V-8 and the mileage was, well, let’s just say it’s a good thing gas was 35¢ a gallon.  It came from the era when, if you opened the hood, you could easily see a lot of ground underneath the engine.

1966 Ford Fairlane Sedan Dashboard

1966 Ford Fairlane dashboard.  BZ’s car had a blue interior and a column shift precisely like this one.

The car had a bench front seat.  For those of you unfamiliar with the term (as there is no such thing as a bench seat produced any more, with the exception of rather bare-bones pickup trucks), this is what a beach seat looks like.

1966 Ford Fairlane Bench SeatFairlane bench seat like BZ’s car. Blue interior just like the GrungeMobile. “Wood grain” on the door was simply an sticky decal applique.

Though the air conditioner was sub-par, the heater kicked butt.  It had to, in freezing Ohio winters.  I can still remember when a neighbor couldn’t open his door one early morning until he had poured cold water over it; he slammed it shut a minute later and the hinges cracked.

On the other hand, when the defroster or air conditioner was activated, there was a terrible metallic grinding and clangour under the hood.  It was never enough to bother or concern me.  I wasn’t mechanically inclined at all, though my father had a shop/garage in the back of the house where he would repair all the family cars as well as refurbish the cars he bought and sold over the years in the 60s.

My first car was significant on a number of levels.  It was the car in which my first steady girlfriend and I would commute to high school.  It was the car where I first learned to drive in the snow and on the ice.  I remember I would purposely take it into the empty Kroger’s supermarket parking lot at night and do doughnuts, trying to avoid the concrete light poles.  I learned how to properly countersteer in those situations and how to threshold brake when appropriate.  This early training would serve me well when I because an EVOC instructor in the late 70s for law enforcement.

It was also the vehicle into which I was introduced to vehicular sex.  For obvious reasons and under obvious young and enthusiastic circumstances.

Ah, memories.

So tell me: what was your first car, and what do you associate with it?  What year, what make, and how much did you pay for it?  What was gas per gallon when you bought it?

BZ

 

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35 thoughts on “What was your first car?”

  1. My first car was a 1981 Volkswagen Rabbit given to me by my father when I graduated from college. I had that car 21 years, longer than I should have. Always reminded me of my father who died a couple of years after I graduated.

    • Thanks Caroline! I bet that Wabbit also had the vinyl seats, which were slipperier than hell. I had a 1979 Rabbit with vinyl seats also and, even with the belts, had a helluva time keeping my then-slim butt planted.

      BZ

  2. First car was a 1967 Chevrolet Chevelle coupe with black leather seats, 327 block , 4 on the floor and a posi-traction rear. Bought it new from Bill Heard Chevrolet in Columbas, GA. Think it sold for around $1900.00. Gas was around 25 cents a gallon back then. Was a new 2nd Lt just out of Infantry OCS and needed a set of wheels to impress the women. lol.

  3. 1951 Ford V-8, green, for $200, in 1960. Had been in an accident on the right front. Took off the fender, hammered out most of the dents so the headlight pointed more or less down the road. The three on the tree had been changed to the left side so you didn’t have to move your arm from your date to shift. The interior light bulb had been painted with red fingernail polish. Gas was $.25 or so. Vacuum windshield wipers. You could have wipers or acceleration but not at the same time. Fixed that by changing the fuel pump to a dual diaphragm one. I started driving somewhere around age nine or ten but the Ford was mine and I didn’t ask permission to drive it.

    Car romance was fun!

    • “More or less down the road.” I like that. Nice amorous red color at night. I remember vacuum wipers. Dad had a ’46 Pontiac Chieftain with vacuum wipers.

      BZ

  4. My first car all my own was a 1937 2 door Dodge business Coupe. 6 cyl flat head, 3 speed floor shift.
    I hot-rodded it up with dual carbs, dual exhausts,rear skirts, high compression head, Arburn clutch, Glossy black. Fender skirts, driver spot-light.
    Necker knob on the steering wheel.
    “Your daughter has been in here” sticker on the back bumper.
    When it blew up, I got a 1951 Studebaker Commander with the 289 V-8 overhead valve engine. I worked after school always in a car repair garage.
    Again souped it up to out run all, even the V-8 Buick Century.
    Took it to Texas A&M College in Sept 1956.

  5. 1963 Corvair Spyder. bought in 1965 for $400. Black with red interior and those damn vinyl seats. My grandfather and I did a lot of work on it to ‘rebalance’ it where it was actually drivable at high speed. Learned the same things you did in it 😉 Gas was $.25 gal.

    • My brother had a white 1963 Corvair. He was assigned to Alamagordo AFB then. He called it the White Rat. And isn’t it ODD that Ralph Nader was proven to be full of SHIT with regard to the Corvair, which was actually a good and reliable automobile.

      Vinyl seats were the bane of cars for years.

      BZ

  6. 1971 ford galaxy 500 4 door. 351 Cleveland . bought it in 1978 for 300$. I financed it with our local bank to establish credit! Gas at the time was about 60 cents. I was driving 40 miles each way to work at the job I would stay at for the next 35 years, making steel for everything from jet engines to shotgun barrels to artificial hip sockets.
    That car floated down the road. The engine was a honey. My next car, a 1973 Gran Torino, had the very same engine in it. I bought it from my uncle who kept it immaculate. It was like a rocket from a dead stop. The only car that ever beat me was a Corvette, who shifted into 2nd gear and left me in the dust. I loved that car, but a drunk smashed into both that car and another one sitting in my driveway one night while I was asleep.
    Cars are built better nowadays, but they have no character.

  7. 1962 Falcon. Dad blew the engine and gave it to me. Gave me another that a tenant had abandoned so I could take the motor for mine. Summer project.
    We had many Falcons, Econolines, Fairlanes, Comets, Cougars all with the same running platform, 200 six or 289 V8.

  8. A Volkswagon Beetle. You can do a lot of stuff in a small space when hormones dictate. Wow. Thanks for the memories. I graduated to much finer vehicles, but those first ones always hold the charm.

    • I never had a Beetle but I sure wanted one. I thought they were nice inside and they were “imported” so they were “special.” I remember as the miles piled on, the valves got tighter, not looser.

      BZ

  11. My first car was a 1975 Buick Century coupe. It was pistachio (snot) green with a white vinyl top and white vinyl interior. The quarter panels were held together with bondo. We couldn’t call it a lemon because it was green. So a friend at school nicknamed it “The Lime”. It had a 350 V-8 2-barrel. I bought Cragar mag wheels for it and Eagle ST raised white letter tires for it so it looked less ridiculous. I ran it in the winter with Mobile 1 5-30 motor oil augmented with one quart of Rislone and a brand new Die Hard battery. The car never once failed to start during the winter of ’84-85 when the temperature didn’t get above 0 F for 30 days. I put a used set of metal-studded snow tires on it in winter and it would drive through ice and snow like a jeep. Eventually, it succumbed to the rust eating away at it’s undercarriage.

  12. Not only do I skew young, but I got a late start.

    I bought my first car in 2007 as a late (31st) birthday present to myself. I didn’t even have my license yet. It was a 2001 Oldsmobile Intrigue, red. Base model, but with lots of options and low mileage.

    I only got to drive it for a couple years before inheriting my wife’s 2006 Mazda 5 when she upgraded to a 2007 Honda Odyssey.

    And then finally a few months back I got to upgrade to a very low mileage 2001 Cadillac Deville. Feels good to be driving something with some power to it again.

  13. BZ – My first car was a 1977 Toyota Hi-lux pick-up, purchased in 1979.

    My second car and my first “second car” was a 1966 Ford Fairlane sedan purchased off of my grandmother in 1982. I purchased it when she stopped driving and had to sell it. It had 60k on the odometer and was in pretty good shape for a sixteen year old car. Unlike yours, mine was a very basic model, probably similar to a “county bid” car that a social worker would drive. 200 cu. in. six. Vinyl seats, vinyl floor mats. No AC, AM radio, manual windows and door locks. Tiny wheels and tires and no interior or exterior accent trim. I think it was emberglo in color with a parchment interior. Did I mention vinyl seats?

    I kept it for a year or so, my wife drove it when we first got married and absolutely freakin’ hated it. It was a boat. A slow, wallowing ugly boat. I got a job with a better paying department and sold it to a guy on my crew. She got a one year old Toyota Corolla, the Fairlane was spotted around town for a few more years. Had it been a coupe with a v8, I would still have it. A good car, but a boat. A slow wallowing ugly boat.

    • Oh man, I remember I so wanted a Hilux pickup, the one with the turn signals on the end of the front fenders.

      Yes, my Fairlane had manual door locks and windows. Every car mostly did then, except for Cadillacs and Lincolns. I had an AM radio in it; now that makes me wonder if the radio had FM also. Mine had vinyl seats but with cloth inserts.

      By the way, was the car a boat?

      BZ

  14. My first car was a 67 Mercury Cougar, given to me by my grandparents in 1979 when I was 16. It was black with black vinyl interior. Those seats got hot in the sun! 289 Automatic and those leaf springs in the rear caused it to to hop over rough road. Very nice looking ride, and fun to drive. Bucket seats were a hassle with the ladies though! Sequential turn signals in rear and front headlight covers were pretty cool features back then.

  15. Mine was a ’53 Ford Victoria 4-door sedan with a flathead V-8 engine, bought CHEAP from an Uncle.
    That car would go 85 mph. We lived in a rural area so the car saw a LOT of time at 85 mph. A few minutes working at top speed would overheat that engine, which almost always resulted in cracking the engine block. In 1963 you could buy a replacement flathead Ford for $100. I got enough practice removing/replacing that engine (four times?) that I could do the job in 45 minutes.
    First cars frequently were learning experiences that taught us what to look for in a second car, weren’t they?

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