First CarsMy first car - a hand me down 1966 Buick LeSabre from my Dad.  Almost identical to th

First Cars

My first car - a hand me down 1966 Buick LeSabre from my Dad.  Almost identical to this one in my favorite color blue (top) but a sedan rather than a hardtop and with much rust from Minnesota winters.  But it was all mine when I was 16.  Monstrously tough and a gas guzzler (~8 mpg) but very unsafe.  I did like the bench seat which let me drive with my arm around my girlfriend in the days before mandatory seat belts etc.  And trips to Post Road by MSP Airport - the local lover’s lane.  Good memories.

The second one was a 1970 Maverick that I bought used with 48K miles in 1976.  Continuing in the theme of ‘unsafe’ it had an automatic transmission column lever that would not stay in park, an explodomatic captive gas tank like the Pinto and no power anything (steering/brakes) making it a chore to drive.  But it too was rugged and mostly reliable until someone cut me off on the highway and I skidded diagonally into the guardrail at ~45 MPH.  Fortunately I was wearing both my lap and shoulder belt (also both purely manual [no retractors]).  I waited with the back of the car sticking out into the fast lane for the fireball hit that fortunately never came.  A broken collarbone and a cut across the top of my head where I hit the top of the driver’s door windowframe was all I got.  The car was bent like a banana and totaled.

Cars are so much safer now.  What stories do you have about your first car(s)?