I don’t reminisce about cars I’ve owned in the past very often, but I do think about them, nearly all of them, from time to time. Some are tied to nostalgia, which I’m sure is true for a lot of you as well. Who doesn’t think about their first car, or the one you fixed up like new, or the one you … lost something in.
Other cars I think about because I had a ton of fun with them, and at the top of that heap for me would be my 1974 Super Beetle, 1988 Plymouth Horizon, and 2012 Mustang GT. Oddly enough, the GT was probably the lesser of those three, because A.) having fun in it tended to get unwanted law enforcement attention, and B.) I was always afraid of money-shifting its Getrag MT-82 gearbox. Between keeping my eyes peeled for the five-oh and that gearbox, the car was pretty stressful, TBH.
Other cars I think of fondly just for being good cars, and they’re all Toyotas – 1990 Corolla, 1996 Camry, and a pair of RAV4s (2008, 2015). Also a Toyota: the one car I almost never think about despite having been a regular driver: my wife’s 1992 Corolla, our first new car. Make no mistake, it did its job of providing economical, reliable, comfortable transportation just fine, and in its champagne paint and dealer-gold-plated emblems, it was even quite deluxe by our newlywed standards. Unlike every other car I’ve owned or driven regularly, I was completely unable to recall what a ’92 Corolla looked like beyond the broadest compact-sedan strokes. Likewise I couldn’t form an image of the interior at all, other than beige cloth. Even when I looked it up, I wondered if I had the right car or not.
If there’s a recipe for the perfect good-but-forgettable car, that Corolla followed it to the letter.
Your turn:
’94 Mazda Protege with a slushbox. Technically was my first car bought towards end of college for less than $1k. Best thing it did was keep me safe when it got t-boned shortly after I moved to grad school in CA and yielded me an insurance payout of $4k which I used to buy a ’95 Civic DX – manual everything, that thing was a hoot.
I think of them all, constantly. Dude, how could I not? I’m a car guy. Every machine has it’s own personality, so they were all characters in my life’s story in some way. I have an easier time forgetting people in my life than forgetting my cars.
2008 CRV and 2011 Impreza.
Both were purchases made out of semi-desperation at different points in my life when I realized my project cars weren’t going to cut it as daily drivers. Both did their jobs reliably while I needed them and did not elicit any emotional response when I replaced them with something better.
I forget the 10 year old ’68 Volvo 144 I bought from a cousin. It lasted about 6 months before if just up and died. Since it cost vertically nothing, I couldn’t bring myself to spend what was needed to revive it.
I wish I could forget the ’68 VW Fastback I was given by my parents that they bought new for my brother. It was junk by this time and had been sitting in our yard for years (we had acres of yard). The patina was so bad, the engine smoked (like the old mosquito fog trucks) then broke down over and over. My dad, a diesel engineer, worked on it again and again, finally declaring defeat and got rid of it. Good riddance!
’91 Plymouth Acclaim
Red on red, on red velour, on red carpeting, on red plastics…
A perfectly cromulent automobile that belonged to my Grandmother, and became mine after she passed. It worked. No drama, no breakdowns, no excitement, it literally was the definition of appliance. Did I mention that it was red?
For me it is the 92 Dodge Spirit that was handed down from my mom. It was a base-base model. Had air con and an auto trans, but manual locks/manual seats/etc. It may have even had manual mirrors, but I don’t remember any more.
I do have memories of the car, like the time I pulled over to assist someone who had hit a deer in the suburbs of Chicago, or the time I sped down an onramp in Michigan and looked in the rearview mirror in time to catch my roommate getting a bit of air after drifting sideways into the guardrail in their VW Quantum. Bent the car enough that it was crabbing pretty badly after the hit.
But I have not thought about that car at all until I saw this article.
I remember the fun cars, and the crappy ones as well, but the 2007 Mazda 6 4cyl hatchback that we owned was perfectly cromulent, and forgetable
Oddly, my first one. 1984 Ford Ranger. Had some great times, made some awesome memories but I can’t say that I have thought about it much… probably because I wasn’t a car enthusiast until I got to drive other cars
“That you don’t think about anymore” Ummmmm, sir, we’re car geeks. In the words of the great Lucille Bluth, “I don’t understand the question, and I won’t respond to it”. OK that’s a lie. I think about every single car I’ve ever owned. VW Bug (blue 66, red 71, yellow 69), VW Bus (orange 74), VW Squareback (orange 71), Chevy C10 (White 69), Chevy C10 (teal 69), Fiat 124 (Red Rally, 80?), 88 Chevy Nova Twincam (FUCK YEAH), Chevy Lumina 91, Honda Accord (white ex coupe, 91), Subaru Legacy (green 95), Hyundai Elantra (damn fine car, shut up, I put 125k no problems ’01), Kia Spectra (pile of shit my ex insisted on instead of a Rio, gold, 01), Mazda 3 (blue, ’05), Toyota Previa SC (gold, 95), Chevy Volt (’10), Volvo 245 (died at 417k, still sold for same I paid, ’89), Chevy S10 (red ’01), Toyota FJ Cruiser (yellow), Smart eD (’13, silver), Honda Fit (’19 silver), Suzuki Sidekick (blue 95), Toyota Tacoma (09 red), Mazda Miata (black 92), Chevy Bolt (22 gray)
What a great legacy of cars (including the Subaru).
I managed Pizza Huts in Spokane WA ’95-’01 and that Subaru Legacy was my work car. It is to this day the single most amazing vehicle I’ve owned. One of the very few automatics I purposely chose, and in this case for the AWD. literal feet of snow; just floor it and it would dig down and then go forward with zero trouble. Several years of nasty nasty winters but never a problem. I had to replace the front bumper cover because I tore off the chin wading through drifts, but that thing was <chef’s kiss>. Now I’m in Seattle and the snow is rare, but I love to take out my Sidekick and play when it does snow. and the Smart would do the most EPIC donuts, silently.
Honestly, I’ve been lucky enough where all of my cars have met the “I wouldn’t mind owning another one” threshold, so I have to move to my parents’ cars: While my stepfather generally had good taste (hard to argue with a Saab 900 SPG or an E38 BMW 740i short wheelbase), he also had a late 90s Jaguar XJ8 that was just terrible. Horrible quality, tiny trunk, boring to drive, and nothing really luxurious unless you were impressed by the leather and wood.
I haven’t thought of that car for decades, until this post caused the memories to come flowing back. And I’ll forget about it again by tomorrow.
I think of them all, pretty frequently…
Never mind, I had forgotten that I owned a 2011 Hyundai Accent for a year. Completely slipped my mind. It was a black, 3 door hatch. It was theoretically fine, but completely overmatched by winters in the Adirondacks. The Suzuki SX4 I replaced it with, and kept for 8-9 years, blew it out of the water in every way.
Until this post, a 1978 Chevette with no radio, a hole in the floorboard and wipers that didn’t work.
Chrysler Cirrus – what a pile of poo. Early Ford Tauruses – I had them as company cars, and they were competent but forgettable. The 80s-era Toyota pickup I had was just as competent but also forgettable.
I think of them all from time to time, and my parents’ cars, although they is probably because I am here all the time and get reminded of them regularly for one reason or another. That said. I saw a Fiat Croma (second generation) last week and realized I had forgotten my father owned one. Forgotten so badly I can’t place it in order with his other cars. Which now reminds me he had an 04 VW Passat wagon. I’d forgotten about that too. Maybe it came before the Croma? So it seems I don’t think about the practical but dull ones.
What Cars Did You Once Own That You Never Think About Anymore?
I forget.
1986 Chevrolet Celebrity wagon. It was just sort of there…
I remember them all clearly but my most forgotten is my 05 WRX wagon that I owned for about 10 months a decade ago. I bought it straight out of college because I had a job and needed something that can handle snow better than my Miata.
It was a fun car and I liked it but it was just too clapped for me to want to keep. While it was reasonably solid for me, it was at that age and mileage where it just felt like many big, expensive things were about to let go and since I lived in an apartment at the time, I couldn’t work on it myself. That plus the rust I found months after I bought it drove me to ditch it sooner rather than later.
I’m 71. I lived in Manhattan 35 years. Consequently I remember the 4 cars I’ve owned… especially the one I’ve had for 12 years since I retired and moved. 2015 Fit.
1995 Acura Integra SE. I bought it off my brother when he graduated college and moved to NYC in 2003. Kept it about 9 months, then threw it up on Autotrader. Had my phone blowing up within two hours. I wish I enjoyed it because “INTEGRAS R AWESOME!” but it felt gutless to me and I felt like I sat on it rather than in it.
Probably my orange AMC Hornet.
Loved that it came from the factory with a piece of plywood for the floor of the hatchback area.
I had a lime gold 1971 Sportabout for a few years. It did me good, and I love 5 door hatchbacks to this day.
Mine was the 2-door (plus hatchback) version. It had the straight-6 and an automatic.
I think I paid $300 for it.
Mine was a hand me down from my Dad because he felt bad about letting me buy the Fiat 128SL that fell apart within a year. I was maybe 20.
Now forgettable rentals are legion except for the first generation Neon and facelifted Fusion.
I had to sell my Alto Works due to the yearly inspection expiring about 3 months before I left Japan- I traded it for a 2003 (?) Daihatsu Move.
I know there’s a lot of Kei car-fetishizing amongst car enthusiasts in the US, but that car was well and truly crap, and not worth remembering.
I’ve owned 50-odd cars over the past 40 years. I suppose the ones that were more-or-less duplicates don’t get thought about individually much – and there were quite a few duplicates. For example I have had a BUNCH of Volvo 7/940s, that were much the same. But I do tend to reminisce about cars gone by quite a bit. Especially the “ones that got away” – which is an annoyingly large list at this point. Sigh.
Probably my ’96 200SX SE. It was a Sentra Coupe and my first stick shift. I didn’t own it long before I bought my SE-R Spec V.
For about 10 years I had an ‘89 Toyota pickup that I used on the farm. Tough little truck, and I definitely enjoyed it. But since I’ve sold it, Toyota tax has gotten so bad on these things that trucks far rustier than mine are selling for ridiculous money. Pretty much turned me off owning one ever again.
A late 1970s Capri. Bought for ~$800 from someone from my then most recent temp tech job in the mid 80s. Got junked when it had an unfindable electrical gremlin that would drain the battery. Nowadays I might actually fix it. But I haven’t thought about that one for a very long time.