wow you kids are young. started driving in early 60's...
i remember going with my dad to pick up his brand-new 1959 VW beetle. It had a spedo/odo and two indicator lights. that's it.
no gas gauge. no radio. about 29 hp...if that. i rode home in that tiny space behind the rear seat. i still remember the smell. the car was so air-tight that you had to crack a window or the door would not close. the coolest thing about the first VWs is they had no gas gauge = instead there was a lever in the driver's footwell that you could turn to enable the "reserve tank", which held enough gas to get you to the end of the month.
our neighbors were dairy farmers so all the kids learned to drive as kids = tractors and hay trucks and whatever farm vehicles were around. i learned how to "hot wire" a beetle way before i could legally drive one (I don't believe any of the farm vehicles still had a key) and became acquainted with the over steer by donuting in the night pasture among the cow pies. this was all in early teens. This experience came in very handy when I bought the Corvair...which would actually spin in oversteer as opposed to the VW which would just fold up the rear suspension and roll like a marble.
1963 Ford Falcon convertible ($110) (first lesson: if you see your muffler in the rear view mirror, don't run back and pick it up).
1965 Corvair 4-door ($90) (got 30 miles to a gallon of oil; second lesson, never use the heater/defroster in an air cooled car)
196? Datsun Bluebird (gift from FIL)
1970
Ford Pinto automatic (the low point)
1975 Ford Maverick 4-door (first new car...married with kid)
1965 Mustang 4spd/HP 289 (divorced)
1980 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme (used to explore state forest roads leading to possible hang gliding launch sites in PA mountains)
1970 Datsun 240z (first sport car...wow...so much fun and very reliable ...destroyed roof trying to transport my hang gliders)
1980 Chevette 2dr 4 spd (most fun in snow)
1982 Plymouth Colt GTS turbo 8spd. (accumulated 50 points speeding to and from PA mountains and lost license for a while)
1986 Audi 5000cs turbo
1990 Lexus ES 250
2005 Lexus ES 330
1998 Volvo V70R
2006 Volvo V70R
2002 SL 500 Silver Arrow
2001 SL 600
2017 Mazda 6
2014 E63S estate (pretty frickin' amazing vehicle in every respect....fastest I've ever driven...way too easy to be stupid fast = one of those cars that seems rock solid at very high speeds = opposite of the '65 Mustang which got scary at 65 mph).
2014 BMW 328x
2022 Lucid GT
Bobby this was fun. Had a trip down memory lane. Thanks.
I wonder if we want to try a " did you ever die doing that?" car thread?
Like the time I finished my closing shift at the burger joint 2AM and drove dad's VW 40 miles to see my girlfriend who had just moved back to college, fell asleep, rolled the beetle around a curve back up on the wheels again...with the rims folded 90 degrees. Ran to girlfriends apt. got laid. called dad. Thought that was the worst day of my life ...
