What Was Your Favorite Car In The Past?

[Roger]

I would like a Lotus Elan (the proper one) and Europa TC, DB4GT Aston Martin (Zagato for preference), Bugatti type 51, and Jaguar XKSS, please.

And I wish I still owned an Austin Seven sports and my Honda S600.

Oh, well, I'm alive and lucky enough to own an Elise. Life's not too bad.

 

[bcliff]

Probably the car I had in college, when I started dating my wife. It was a 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner. It really got the stares when the top went down. It was preceded by many Model As and prewar Flathead V8s. Then many more followed. Bought my first MGB in '79, and it has been mostly British cars since then
Bruce

 

[TR6oldtimer]

A friend of mine had one of those, even then, it was more tank then car. And then there was lots of fun when the top lifting mechanism broke doen half way through the up or down cycle...

 

[Nunyas]

The only modern expensive car I want is an Aston Martin Vantage Coupe.

Favorite car from my past... Parents' MGB... then the '76 MGB that I recently lost.

 

[PAUL161]

Well, seeing how we can dream a little in this thread, I still think I could take a liking to this. As I said, dream!

 

[bugimike]

So long as we're dreamin'...

 

[Shinsen774]

WOW!!

Loaded question, but I guess it would depend on when.
First car was a 65 Mustang convertible 289 auto.
Red with white interior. This car attracted bikinis faster than anything else. I think this would be my fav because the car was great and so are the memories.


Dave

My first car, and the car I drove in high school was a 1965 Ford Mustang convertible, 4 speed, 289. Paid $300 for it in 1973. Great car. That was my favorite car from the past.

 

[coldplugs]

This shows our driveway "back when". The plastic cars in the front were mine and the German iron at the back was my father's. My mother's Skyliner separates them. (I forgot how <span style="font-style: italic">big</span> that thing was...) Probably taken when I was a freshman. The <span style="font-style: italic">good</span> stuff was in the garage. Those were the days....

 

[wkilleffer]

I really enjoyed the 1980 Olds Cutlass Supreme my parents bought new and I started driving in about 1993. It was silver with a burgundy cloth interior, and looked really nice with a fresh coat of paint. I stll like those cars cause there's something kinda mini-muscle car about them.

By the time I started driving it, its V6 engine had over 120k miles on it and was quite worn out. I was saving my nickels and dimes to buy a used 350 cid V8 and transmission to put in it on the next school break, which would have probably been a summer. I was on the way to school one morning and someone ran the light, and I hit them in the corner of their pickup bed. Smashed half my front up pretty bad. Other driver was at fault, but my car was totaled. Needless to say, I wasn't happy. Still miss that car.

 

[jsneddon]

Believe it or not it was a 1972 Dodge Dart with the slant-six. Bought it in college for $400 after my '79 Pontiac Grand Prix was stolen from in front of my apartment the day after I moved to Minneapolis for a summer internship.

Guy I bought it from was going through the auto-tech program so we were kindred spirits and it was the best car buying experience ever. He showed me how to wiggle the auto trans. lever on the column to get it to trip the microswitch and complete the starter circuit, jacked it up and showed me where the selector linkage would sometimes pop out on the tranny, made sure that I knew how to pop off the dizzy cap and dry it out if it died when you hit a puddle on the right side....

It was the best 400 bucks I ever spent. Full of only what could be called "character"... the rear rockers were rusted out so I had a buddy bring home the days offset printing plates from the school paper "The Daily Egyptian" and we picked the most visually interesting of them and riveted them on over the holes and bent under the lips. No need for paint!

That thing was indestructible. Drove it for 4 years until the frame finally gave way on one of the torsion bars in the front. Then I drove it another 3 months at a rather strange angle until I graduated.

Nothing in the world like that pre-K-car feather-touch steering! Highway cruising was a dream, cornering was surprisingly grippy for a family boat, you could hang the rear end out and throttle through just about anything, ground clearance was high enough for any Southern Illinois country road you wanted to take. Trunk big enough for 2 kegs of beer....

now THAT was a car....

now I'm getting all misty-eyed

 

[swift6]

I hear you on that one Jim, My first car was a 1973 Plymouth Scamp (just like the Dart) with the 225 slant six. Lots of good memories with that car. Inherited the car from my Grandmother.

 

[DrEntropy]

That brought back a flood of rememberance! It was called "Cloud"! A '65 Valiant, white, with the slant six. Did you know (if not too rusted out) they would float?!?! My pal of forty years now had one when we were in the Air Force. We "tested" that thing in many ways. It was astounding. It would do regular excursions from Virginia to Maine and back, did a trip to Atlanta for the runoffs in'72. Hundreds of thousands of miles on it.

 

[NutmegCT]

Slant six! Yesss! Had that in the Valiant, the Dart and the Aspen. Great engine.

T.

 

[PAUL161]

The slant 6 was one of the toughest in line 6 cylinder engines ever built. Probably why they took it off the market. We had a couple of Dodge pickups with the slant 6 in them. At about 200,000 miles, the bodies rusted away while the engines, transmissions and rears were still in perfect condition.

 

[MGA Steve]

After watching the last few Barrett-Jackson auctions on TV, I would love to have my 1956 Chevy Bel-Aire 2-door hardtop back!

It had all the goodies--265 V-8, factory Power Pack (4-bbl and dual exhaust), 3-speed overdrive and 4:11 rear end, push-button radio (AM only, of course), and ELECTRIC WIPERS (they didn't stop when I accelerated, which any high school kid in the early '60's did as frequently as possible).

 

[weewillie]

The slant 6 was one of the toughest in line 6 cylinder engines ever built. Probably why they took it off the market. We had a couple of Dodge pickups with the slant 6 in them. At about 200,000 miles, the bodies rusted away while the engines, transmissions and rears were still in perfect condition.

Had one in a dodge van, biggest piece of junk I ever owned and with the dizzy on the bottom side of the block every time I went through a puddle it died. Now the 318 in my satellite was a great motor and the 360 in my royal monaco wagon quit every time it saw a cloud. My Chrysler Laser 2.2 turbo blew a head gasket the day I traded it in.Never again will a Chrysler belong in my driveway.

 

[waltesefalcon]

I'd have to say I'm still in love with my first car. My 52 IH half ton pick-up. Runs smooth, turns a few heads, and starts every single time and doesn't die.

 

[sparkydave]

I can't say it was my car, but my dad had a 1983 GMC van, and had the rare 6.2 diesel engine option in it. That thing was unstoppable. It must have had well over 250,000 miles by the time the thing was getting too rusty to pass inspection, but the thing still drove like new. Working on it was a PITA, because it was the first year the diesel was available in the van, so that had some teething difficulties like weak motor mounts (boy, you had no trouble knowing when one of those went out), and many parts were so unique that even GM couldn't always get the right ones. One parts store didn't even show a diesel engine for it, and others would frequently get parts for the Suburban or pick-up mixed in. We went on many trips, camped out in it, and it was dad's beast of burden for towing his old Lincoln. I commuted to school in it for a while (hey, how many 3/4 ton vans can get 25 MPG?), and the nice thing was most folks didn't argue with the big van when parking was scarce. For some reason, folks liked to tailgate that thing on the highway, but I found out that if I just downshifted into third and maintained speed, the plumes of diesel exhaust would usually convince them to back off.

 

[DART]

Fave early owned car was a yellow '49 Jeepster. Sold it when grad'd college in 58. Fave parent's was mom's TD.

Top of my wish list has always been a gullwing, silver of course.

And the 61 SP250 (#100849)in it's 3rd year of resto is obviously the one I'm most attached to. Bought it in '69 for $500 after selling a 3000 MKIII for $1,200. Today the 3000 is still worth at least twice as much as the SP.