A Reminisce - Favorite or First Car(s) You've Owned

[jstell]

Another thread got a little derailed by this post.  I have a feeling @Newbeeee™ may have already "won".
An E30 Alpina.  I've been a BMW fan for decades and I'd never heard of such a thing!

I nearly bought a 2002Ti once....ended up with a C2 Alpina instead.
I still have a diecast model of the 2002....

The first car I owned (not parents') was a '75 Celica ST.  20R (2.2L), 4-spd, vinyl hardtop, and a "true" coupe - no B-pillar so when the windows were all rolled down it was just open straight thru.  Glad I never rolled the thing!  Bought for $550 winter of '91-92.  To get a nice one now, you'd have to add a couple zeroes.  Back then it was just an old car.
Mine was very similar to the first link, with the light interior, and exterior about halfway between that and the second link, kind of a darker brownish red.
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1976-toyota-celica-10/
https://bringatrailer.com/2012/08/15/original-owner-and-paint-1974-toyota-celica-gt/

[mowens]

When I was 16 I bought a 1966 Pontiac Le Mans for $750. This would have been somewhere around 1973.

[jstell]

When I was 16 I bought a 1966 Pontiac Le Mans for $750. This would have been somewhere around 1973.

Sweet!  Basically a GTO, but without all the goodies.

[Newbeeee™]

I wanted to build my own Alpina B6 - use my other car - the E30 325 sport with LSD and swap out the motor for a straight 6 3.5 lump.
Cam and pipe would easy have been 275 bhp which would have been great!
But.... "f'kin work"....

[jstell]

I wanted to build my own Alpina B6 - use my other car - the E30 325 sport with LSD and swap out the motor for a straight 6 3.5 lump.
Cam and pipe would easy have been 275 bhp which would have been great!
But.... "f'kin work"....

I always wanted to put a 325is head on my '86 E30 325es for the benefit of the bigger cams on the stroker block.  In '86 the "es" was the flagship because they didn't bring the "is" to the states until '87.  So it had the Ricarro seats and the little trunk spoiler, the "s" suspension, and all the little idiot lights up by the mirror.  No Euro-style bumper/spoiler though.  Sold it shortly after it clicked over 200k mi. for the same $1600 I bought it for five years before.  (Again, add a zero to touch one now - and that was only 15 years ago!)  I had to put front wheel bearings and control arm bushings on it, and a muffler, but other than that only oil changes in a little under 40k mi. of my use.  (Neat little trick - the front bearing hub is the perfect press tool to push the outer control arm bushings out.)
Pretty much exactly this, and yes it had the basic "bottlecap" wheels, except mine had the sunroof (never leaked!): 

from r/E30

edit:  looking closer, this one has the sunroof as well.

[Bucky Cornstarch]

My first car was a Datsun 510 that I bought in '85 or so. Sold it and bought another a short time later, did some pretty neat mods, but eventually sold it to fund rock star dreams.

It wasn't until '99 that I bought my E30 '89 325is, which was my first BMW and first track car. It was like my 510s, but quick and modern and everything worked. Sold it for what I paid for it to buy an E36 M3. Dumb.

I also bought a '72 Porsche 911 in '00, which I still have, and am in the process of restoring into a track weapon.

And despite what some here may suspect, I've never owned a Miata. Yet.

[jstell]

Sold it for what I paid for it to buy an E36 M3

E36 M3 is arguably a "better" car, but the march continued to heavier, more gadgets...
I did the same, switched E30 for a '94 E36 325is.  Saw my E30 come back on Craigslist not too long after and seriously considered buying it back for half what I sold it for (Kid couldn't drive stick, lurched it away after I drove it for his test drive.  I guess he never learned.  He did send me a nasty text saying he had to replace the clutch master cylinder.  I didn't bother to respond "I wonder why.")  There was actually another E30 325is that came up around the same time with only 48k mi. on it, for a little more than what I picked up the E36 for, and I'd kick myself for not jumping on it except I would likely not still have have it today.

The '94 had the strangest differential I've ever seen.  Still not sure what, but I have seen the same in an E46 325is.  Normal open diff if you have it in the air and spin one wheel, the other one goes opposite rotation.  LSD they both spin the same direction, right?  This one, the other wheel just didn't move.  But it would light up both tires if you dumped it at a light.

[mowens]

Sweet!  Basically a GTO, but without all the goodies.

Even worse,  my best friend at the time had a real GTO that looked exactly like it.

[TSmcam]

A 1970 Toyota Corolla SL Coupe, then a 1959 Volkswagen Beetle and a 1955 Chevrolet Sedan (owned both at the same time), then a 1965 Type III Squareback VW, then a 1979 Mitsubishi Mirage 3 Door, then had a company car for a couple of years, then a 1992 Honda Civic, then a 2007 VW Golf Wagon, then a 2014 Mazda 3 SP25 LTD, and now a 2022 Mazda CX30 Limited (and a 1942 Ford GPW Jeep)

Quite the mix really. Wish I still had the 1955 Chevrolet

[Newbeeee™]

And despite what some here may suspect, I've never owned a Miata. Yet.

I had you down for a light blue AMC Pacer.... with flames of course....

[Newbeeee™]

E36 M3 is arguably a "better" car, but the march continued to heavier, more gadgets...

I nearly bought a E36 sport.... but didn't love the look enough....
I bought a Citroen C15 van instead.... "work"....

The BeeeeMerrrrs lost their way IMHO.
The original 3 and 5 series were great, and the 7 was a great motorway car but as big as a boat.
It was only a few generations later that the 3 series was the size of the original 7.... and the 5 was bigger still.

At a Glance — 325 Lineage
Gen           Power     Weight   Length
E30 325i   170 hp   ~1,180 kg   ~4,325 mm
E36 325i   192 hp   ~1,350 kg   ~4,430 mm
E46 325i   192 hp   ~1,450 kg   ~4,470 mm
E90 325i   215 hp   ~1,520 kg   ~4,530 mm
F30 328i   245 hp   ~1,570 kg   ~4,624 mm
G20 330i   245 hp   ~1,650 kg   4,713 mm

They all did it though. Look at the original Golf GTI....how it added half a meter in length and 50% weight....

Back to 1st car.... Original Mini Clubman 1275GT.
What a 'lil goKart

[Jeff]

My first car was a 1975 Chevrolet Caprice Classic 4 door behemoth of a car.
then a 1979 Mercury Capri
then I bought my first brand new car, a 1989 Chevy Cavalier. Some asshole pulled out in front of me going 70 and it was totaled 3 months after I bought it.
then a 1978 Malibu, traded that in for a brand new 1992 Cavalier Z24 (that little fucker was fast!), 1997 Chevy truck, 2001 Ram, 2003 Jeep Grand Cherokee, then Ram trucks ever since.

[TylerBeer]

15 passenger Ford e350 V10 that I drove across Canada. It was a tank that was taken down by the rust gods of road salt.

[neurosis]

My first car was a 1965 Plymouth Barracuda. We paid $250 for it at a junk yard and had to spend about another $200 to get it running.

It was my first car at 16 years old. I had a lot of fun in that car.

There are people that I went to high school with that don't know my name and just remember me as that barracuda guy. 

[Smit]

1971 Volkswagen Beetle.

I was in the Army stationed in North Carolina. My buds and I drove that car all up and down the east coast, from New York to Georgia. Great times.