Your Most Humiliating Car

[lumberjim]

we had an OldsmoBuick that was like that, Tink. you had to keep it revved at stop lights or it would sputter and stall. We got it for $50 and ended up giving it away after I got hit by a guy in a firebird that dented the fender and totalled it.

[fargon]

We had an 87 Oldsmobile Delta 88. It leaked gas, the exhaust system was non existent...so we drove with the windows down even in winter in Illinois, the hood latch had completely rusted away, so our cream colored car had a red strap ratched across the hood to ensure it was secured down. Then we figured out how to ratchet it in the front so the strap was not so visible. Our friends called it the 'Ghetto Mobile.' We bought it for $250.00 and sold it for $250.00 after about 4 months. We felt it was good karma.

[Shawnee123]

What's an OldsmoBuick?

First car I drove was my 'rents' Dodge Charger...though I can't find a picture that looks like it. They're supposed to be muscle cars but I don't remember that about this car. Maybe it was an off year.

[Elspode]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

My grandma was almost killed in her Pinto. Unsafe freaking car.

I had an Escort back in the day..only thing good about it was it was manual transmission.

My first brand new car was a 1979 powder blue Pinto. I bought it in August 1980, and my then (pregnant) wife totalled it on Xmas Eve. Our *next* car was a 1981 Mercury Lynx (an Escort, essentially).

Of course, neither of these were my most embarassing car, since they were shiny new. The Lynx was the first model year for that car, in fact. I bought another one after the first one caught fire.

No...my most embarassing car was probably the 1969 Buick Wildcat with the dual glasspak mufflers. Or maybe the 1970 Cadillac Eldorado with no trim and an Earl Scheib blue paint job.

I'm more embarassed by having no wheels at all than by the condition of whatever I'm motoring around in.

[Cloud]

first car: a Gremlin. a green one. my mother bought it for me. uck.

[Shawnee123]

OMG a guy in HS had a souped up Gremlin. What a hoot. To start it we had to push it so he could clutch start it. He must have bought the wrong soup.

[monster]

an old Fiat, something like this in white. the seats protruded out of the bottom. I coulda pedalled it Flintstone-style. Probably shoulda, might've gone faster.

http://s71.photobucket.com/albums/i1...rrent=fiat.jpg

[Shawnee123]

Thanks for the memory, monster. I remember a guy in HS had a Fiat and we thought it was the best. It was all, french and shit. I don't remember that it ran well. We were always pushing it back into the driveway.

[monster]

not so exotic in the UK

[Bullitt]

A $300 1981 stick-shift VW Rabbit convertible with sheepskin seat covers.

[jinx]

Originally Posted by Shawnee123

To start it we had to push it so he could clutch start it.

Ha... we drove around the damn country in a VW bus with the same starting feature. We had to park it carefully, and have one of the lighter people onboard starting it, lol... There was a parking lot on Boston that was flat enough that we had to try several times.... going back and forth across the lot. I wish we had video and youtube back then...

[Shawnee123]

A $300 1981 stick-shift VW Rabbit convertible with sheepskin seat covers.

ML8 ML8

Now we've come full circle.

@ jinx...the best of times.

[monster]

yeah, i had to bump start my Fiat a few times too. Fortunatley its pretty hilly in Birmingham, so not much pushing required. I had my one and old blow-out in that car at 80 in the fast lane on the M6. scary stuff.

[Juniper]

My first car, really my parents' car but they pretty much let me have it whenever I wanted -- was a 1978 Chevy Caprice. Not a bad car, mind you; it was in good shape, ran well, light blue. But the damn thing was HUGE and I was (am) rather a small person. The dash stuck up real high, so if I just sat on the seat normally to drive it, the best I could do was to see a little bit between the steering wheel and the top of the dash. Yes, I mean THROUGH the steering wheel.

So, if I intended to use this car, that meant I had to sit on cushions, like a booster seat. My dad had these seat pads the doctor had given him for driving after his back surgery; one under me and one for my back.

I thought that was kind of embarrassing! But it beat not having a car to drive.

I totaled it late one night (not my fault - no one hurt) and my parents decided to get another car and let me "make payments on" their old one (meaning: it took me two years to pay $1,000) which was my BELOVED silver 1984 VW Rabbit. I loved that car! I drove it till 1998, when it very nearly croaked and stranded my husband on his way back from dropping our daughter off at my parents' when I was in labor with our 2nd baby -- I was so scared we wouldn't make it to the hospital! Yup, time to get a grown-up car.

[Glinda]

My first car was a 1966 Plymouth Fury II. It looked almost exactly like this (sans fancy wheels), but in powder blue:



It came to me after grampa died (1974-ish), and gramma didn't know how to drive. Grampa kept it immaculate, and he was a mechanic, so it ran like it was brand new when I got it. Unfortunately, no one ever told me that you had to put oil in a car (whaddya want from me, I was 16)... so I didn't. For about two years.



Oh, the car never actually died. But it overheated a lot, so I learned that keeping the heater on at all times helped, and I discovered how to cool off the radiator when the idiot light went on, by using the hose on it while the engine was running, and once it was cooled down, refilling the radiator with water ("Anti-freeze?" What's that?)

I eventually sold it to a friend who put some oil in it (anti-freeze, too, I'm sure) and drove it for another five years before selling it to someone else (who drove it for at least another 3-4 years, as she saw it tooling around town all the time). That car is probably STILL cruising the streets of SoCal...

They don't make 'em like they used to!


P.S. Sorry for the gigantic image... don't know how to make it smaller!