Requiem for a Lemon

A '96 toyota camry, which served our family well for 12 years until it succumbed to age last year. But even then it upheld the finest samurai tradition in surviving a 4 kamikaze run from DC to my parents' house in SW Virginia. By the time I arrived there was coolant actively leaking onto the engine block and I was running on fumes. And we still managed to get a cool thou for it on trade for a 2008 Hyundai Acccent.

Ah, the memories.

'56 Chevy with 283 and "four on the floor". Traded in during college for a '57 chevy 4-door, in-line 6.

A '62 Pontiac Catalina. A Pontiac dealership was near our house and it was the family brand until I got my first Subaru in the '80s.

My father had a 1966 Firebird Convertible. It's probably the one factor in my young life which prevented me from become a full-on tree hugger......
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Learned to drive in a 74 Vega....
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It could go from 0 to 60 in 30.....days.
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First new car '76 Mercury Capri......
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I'd go through clutches like normal people go through oil changes.

When I was a senior in high school, I drove my mom's 79 Chevy Impala station wagon, but the first car that was truly mine was an 86 Chevette that my parents gave me during my first semester of college.

Learned to drive in a 1965 Chevy Corvair Manza with red bucket seats and standard transmission. (Dad had just turned 40...)
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Our first car as a married couple was a also a Corvair -- a 1963 Greenbriar van. $200 and worth every penny, but not much more.

'66 Chevelle SS. Piece of junk with no help from Mr. Goodwrench. My current Buick is 12 years old. A jewell. Will last until Pat Robertson holds the final tribulation trials. The Buick is a shoo in for everlasting life. Not sure how I will do. Stay tuned.

A 1966 Pontiac GTO was our "family" car until the old sky-blue Mercury Comet (also 66?) was replaced with an 1980 Ford Fairmont. 389 V8 with a four barrel carburetor. You didn't so much hear it coming as feel it. Mysteriously became un-repairable before I was old enough to drive and my dad sold it to some a young guy for $150. RIP, Pontiac.

formerjames,
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A '66 Chevelle 396 was the car I wished had been my first - that or a '68 Pontiac GTO.
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Alas, was not to be, probably because the insurance premiums for me as a male teenager would have rivaled the GNP for a lot of small countries at the time.

PD:

I'm no car nerd, but I'm pretty sure the first year for the Firebirds was 1967. One of the earliest ones was my first car, a 326 V8 4-barrel, 4-speed with WAY too much horsepower for anyone, much less for a college kid with a weekend gig playing in a rock band and a fondness for cereal malt beverage.

afguy, the GTO was my all time dream car. You are lucky you didn't possess a Chevy in those days. Trust me.

I did, formerlyjames. A '66 Chevelle with 327 installed. First car after I joined the AF in '68.
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I know about the reliability of the Chevy big block engines - many needed major overhauls because of the tendency of the owners to drive with their foot in the carb.
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But the small block engines were almost indestructible.

Black 1959 Cadillac Sixty Special purchased by Dad at a garage sale for $400 in 1978. With a 393 c.i. V8 with a triple 2-bbl carb(!) and unencumbered by air-conditioning, it had surprisingly brisk acceleration for a car that weighed north of 4500 pounds. Christened "The Duchess", it easily accommodated seven teenagers and was the ultimate party car.
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For the first and only time in my life, my ride was the grandest of all. Thank you, thank you, thank you Dad. Paradise lasted about two years.
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It blew a rod in the driveway one morning shortly after a stoplight drag-race with a guy in a Porsche who didn't beat me nearly as soon as he expected. Dad recouped his investment by selling "The Duchess" for $150 to two creepy looking guys who claimed they were going to "restore it".
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They did restore it, so the story has a happy ending.

Sorry, formerlyjames, just remembered - it was a '65 model.

FO,
I realized the mistake after I typed it. The 66 was a Triumph Spitfire. I also have fond memories of my 68 Chrysler New Yorker for which I paid $200 in 1977.

2004 Cadillac Deville, which I bought for $15,200 in 2006 a year after graduating from college. It runs beautifully.

Not a lot of romance in a '76 Audi Fox with 1st-generation fuel injection. I got clipped in the rear fender one day because I couldn't make it all the way across Porter Wagoner Boulevard in 10 seconds.

afguy, no sorry to it. I was also off on my SS. It was a '67 not '66. Gettin old. But even with all of the changes at that time, it was a wonderful time. Leading up to the year of years, '68.

PD:

That's about all the Firebird was worth when I was done abusing it.

I did take a drunken ride through Mexico with 3 friends in a '67 Firebird. That's another story I won't embarass myself with, but it is fond memory. I need to leave this thread, I'm tearing up in memories.

The downside of being the youngest was that my parents car was never available to borrow, so I never even got to drive until I got my own car, a 1968 Chevy Camero 327 RS. The upside of being the youngest was that my parents allowed me to get such a cool car (my oldest sister got a Pinto).

KT, you appear to have located the mother-lode of nostalgia. I'm feeling happier than I've been all day.

1988 Dodge Dynasty with the grey vinal top, gold hundred spoke rims, and 2/3 of a tire mounted to the rear bumper. It died against the side of a Ford Tempo before its wonderful chrysler tranny had a chance to go out. Oh and good riddence to Pontiac which hasnt made a decent car since ... well before i was born anyway.

A 1985 Chevy Blazer SS, for $800, in college. No AC, no CD player. It was one of the first years they tried a smaller model, so the engine was weird - it took an act of Congress to pull out the oil filter.
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One night after a date, it refused to start. The ignition had busted, so a friend of mine wired up the battery to a button in the dash and I started it that way.
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We tried to rebuild the carburetor on it, and it ran horribly - so much that I gave up driving it and sold it off for $100.