Who among us wasn’t absolutely counting the days until they could actually drive to school by themselves? No more indignity of being dropped off and picked by your uncool Mom or Dad, and the total lack of control of the car stereo that that entailed. Better still, no more waiting for the bus and the horrors within that were the garbage appetizer and rancid dessert to start and finish each day of school.
What sort of car you were allowed to drive or owned yourself scarcely mattered; yes, cooler was better, but literally anything that got you to school and back (and to parties and dances and your girlfriend’s house, etc.) was some level of cool by default. Because freedom is cool.
Lucky for me, the cars I drove to school were a mix of cool then and cool now. Cool then: the family’s Jeep J10 Thriftside, an example of which is not pictured below. That’s a Gladiator, because finding a usable pic of a J10 with a Thriftside bed was pretty dang hard. Aside from a different grille and blue paint instead of that sweet seafoam color, my (family’s) Jeep was just pretty much just like the pic, right down to the steelies and manual locking hubs.
Cool now, the subject of the topshot: a Toyota Tercel SR5 4WD wagon. This was primarily my Mom’s car, but I did take it to school a few times a month. It was not appreciated at the time beyond being a set of wheels to cart myself and the gang around, but it’s one of the Cars Of My Past I’d most like to have back.
The first car that was solely mine was a 1974 Super Beetle, one of three at my high school. The other was a sweeter-looking Super on mag wheels that looked faster (less slow) than mine, but was not, as proven by our stoplight drag races on the way to and from school. The other Beetle was also a Super, but equipped with the AutoStick three-speed semi-auto trans (you still had to shift it, but there was no clutch). This Beetle was the slowest of all, and I’m pretty sure it was also the slowest car at school, period. Mind you, the Spanish teacher drove a Chevette Scooter, so that’s saying something.
What did you drive in high school?
A 1988 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale Brougham.
Whorehouse red inside and out and a suspension that felt like sharing a water bed with a rabid baboon.
My first car that I actually purchased at age 15 before I had a license was an ’86 Chevy Celebrity with the 90 HP Iron Duke. After about a year it developed a rod knock and eventually seized. I replaced it with an ’85 Ford LTD when I was 17. That’s how I learned that Ford built a small number of them with the 5.0L V8, which sent me down a path of curiosity which has led me to owning a total of six of them over the last 30 years.
1987 Honda Civic Si — black with a red pinstripe. High school was 87-91 for me.
No power assisted anything (steering, windows, cruise, etc) but it was wonderful. Drove it all through college as well with essentially zero issues. Fueled my love of hot hatches.
’71 Cutlass Supreme Holliday Hardtop Coupe in Saturn Gold with a black vinyl top to start, my stepmom had ordered it from the factory.
After the Cutlass ended up in the back of a pickup truck, a ’90 Toyota Tercel EZ in ice blue, basically the anti-Cutlass.
1960 Maserati 3500 spyder
I had been searching through the San Francisco Chronicle wants for months, and Ferrari 250s and Bugatti type 35s were going for $3000-$4000, but there was a 1930 Rolls Royce Hearse listed for $750. I thought that would be perfect. Maybe convert it to a panel delivery van life one I saw the summer before. Or a boat-tail maharajah spec hunting car. Or a Rolls Royce Hearse would surely make some sort of impression.
My parents were in agreement on the surely make some sort of impression, and said i could get an interesting old car, just not that one.
So with a budget of a $2000 (the price for a VW or pinto without radio or heater) it got narrowed down to a mint looking 300 SL roadster that needed new valve guides because it smoked like crazy off throttle , or a 1960 Maserati 3500 spyder that a local grad student was selling to pay tuition.
We got the Maserati.
It was an amazing car despite the windows having been stolen and replaced by plexiglass shoved into the doors, and 57 Ford door handles to replace the stolen door handles.
My mom sold it while I was in college because she got tired of looking at it for the same $2000 I paid for it.
They go for about $250000 now.
The Benz for a couple million.
Sigh.
RIP your retirement fund hah. But seriously that sucks do you think you would of still had it today if she had not sold it? Oh also when was this when these were so cheap?
1970 ot so.
I used to have an issue of Road Road & Track with a 250 GTO for about $4500, and Bruce McLaren’s M6GT was for sale for a year or two mentioning that the seller used it to take his kids to school in it.
Old race cars were worth scrap value then.
Damn crazy times. I guess it is no different until the early 90s when muscle cars were going for cheap until the 2000’s came around and it seems anything before 1980 hell even 1990 at this point are going for stupid prices.
Such as the 1974 SD-455 Trans Am that randomly popped up in the local Auto Trader for 7500 bucks… but I was 14.
Jeez, and to think I’m grumpy about the 1977 VW Westfalia camper van I don’t have anymore.
Cars were my thing in high school, so I had several – up to 3 at a time. A ‘68 Malibu with a 307 and auto. The coolest was a ‘63 Renault Caravelle S convertible with soft and hard tops. 1100 cc of French rearend power. A ‘67 Opel Kadett. A ‘68 Javelin SST. Finally, a ‘72 Toyota Corolla that ended high school and started the college years.
2000 Focus ZX3 that I modified everything on.
ECU tune
Catback exhaust
SVT long tube headers and cat (I care about the environment)
8.5lb aluminum flywheel (car sounded like a woodpecker at idle)
Centerforce clutch
Camshafts
Adjustable cam timing gears
Shift knob out of an RS Focus
Underdrive pulley
Cold air intake
Poly engine mounts (that were promptly resold since vibrations were INSANE)
Plastic trim swapped out for painted trim
SVT Focus white gages
Steeda short throw shifter
Leather shift boots and steering wheel
Cruise control kit (official kit from Ford!)
Adjustable windshield wiper module
Stickiest tires that lasted less than 20k miles (never again)
Literally every dollar I earned from working went into that car.
I drove the family hand me down 1962 Dodge Dart Station Wagon, with the slant 6, and three on the tree. It was pretty average for what most people drove at the time, so there wasn’t any stigma.
Little bro drove our old ’85 Colony Park as dad already had his Lincoln.
High school was 82-86. 1979 Fairmont coupe in black – purchased for the sum of $999 (plus tax and license) from the local Datsun dealer.
1966 Pontiac LeMans and after that didn’t want to start anymore, 1971 VW Bus. Being the eldest child meant that now I got to ferry around my younger siblings to piano lessons, etc. as well as being the default ferry for myself and my sister and all our friends in marching band.
1978 LTDII coupe, (rotted out) silver with maroon vinyl top and interior. Bought it for $500 in 1992. It got gallons per mile with the 351W/ FMX combo. Drove it a year or so until it threw a rod bearing. Graduated in 1994 with a $750 ’84 Fox body LTD sedan (carburated 3.8 V6) that got me 2 years through college. Replaced it with a high mile ’88 Buick Regal 2.8. It had EFI and actual working A/C.
God cars were such crap back then… The newest car in my fleet is 12 years old with far more miles and is not one step away from the crusher.
When I think of how much tighter, faster, smoother, more luxurious, and even more fuel efficient my 14-year-old G37X is at 153k miles compared to the then-decade-old 1978 Camaro I got for my first car, with less than 80,000 miles, it’s truly amazing.
’84 Subaru GL wagon and an early ’74 Datsun 260Z.
Want to see what I drove in high school? Come to Lime Rock.
In 1980, I got a 1974 MGB in bracken (orange.) Last year for chrome bumpers. Did you know that you can fit six teenagers in an MGB? I kept it for ten years.
Love that color
1982 Mustang GT 5.0, with a 4 speed manual. At the time I thought it was the greatest thing ever because my dad did a huge burnout during the test drive. Turns out its easy to do a burnout when your car only has 3″ wide tires on it. I paid $1950 for it in 1993 using a loan from a grandparent.
1968 Dodge Charger, primer gray. Fast, fuel hungry and ferric oxide full. Killer car.
It was a 1990 Isuzu Trooper 2.8L and a 5spd
Burgundy with tinted windows, running 31×10.5 on steels with bronze centers
In retrospect, a pretty cool ride. Much cooler than I was.
High school was 1983-1987 for me. I started in the family beater 1976 Ford LTD, affectionately known as Edna the Sky Blue Tank.
https://itisgood.org/auto-biography/#76Ford
But after a year of safe driving, my dad and I bought at 1948 Plymouth P15 Special Deluxe 2-door sedan. I daily’d that through four seasons of Indiana weather until my last year of college. For a nerd I was quite popular.
https://itisgood.org/auto-biography/#48Plymouth
I started off in my mother’s 1979 Capri, a 4-cyl automatic that’d previously been an Avis rental car. Blue paint, blue vinyl interior, and I added an Audiovox cassette deck and Kraco speakers. I also sometimes drove a 1979 Dodge van (a short one) with Cragar SS wheels, metallic brown paint, and an interior my dad customized with velour seats, wood paneling, and shag carpeting. Around my senior year, I got “my own” (title said otherwise) car, a 1981 VW Scirocco; I thought I’d died and gone to heaven
My first car was a 78 T-Bird. It was an “old” car at the time. A 16 year old car with 80,000 miles on it….. Currently my daily is coming up on 25 years old with 265k on it (02 Tahoe). Yet the truck feels newer and is in better shape (and more reliable) than the Thunder chicken ever was.
1998 Chevy S-10 Extended Cab. It was the first car my brother bought new and I bought it from him for $3000 in 2007. He broke the third door handle, the tailgate did whatever it wanted and the mpg was so bad that you could see the needle move as you drove.
I loved that truck and I still miss it
My 3rd vehicle was a 1996 S10 (in 1999), Overall it was one of the most reliable cars I owned. Sold it after putting 176,000 miles on it over many years.
A 1978 Chrysler LeBaron from my FL grandmother. As big as you remember but in terrible shape. Sunburned olive green paint. Fake wire wheels. Push button radio and cracked steering wheel. We even had to pull the headliner out
It rarely got serviced so you could flood the carb at any time. Had little rear weight for new england winters.
It’s only saving grace was the gigantic olive green vinyl bench seats. You could seat 6 comfortably or 2 very comfortably when needed. Just what a teenage boy wanted.
When we’re driving in my Malibu
It’s easy to get right next to you
My very first was my late grandfather’s ’50 Chevy, complete with a huge metal sunshade over the windshield and a thick pea-soup green paint job from Earl Scheib.
Sometimes, I could drive my father’s I-H Scout to school. Or, if I was very good, his Austin-Healey 3000.
But most days, I drove my ’59 Hillman Minx, which I bought for a whole $50, from the guy I was working for after school. That kept me going until we resuscitated my father’s ’53 Kaiser, the first of three Kaisers I would own over the years.
Circa 1992-94, a 1986 Dodge Caravan (maroon with red interior), because as my dad described it “it’s the only one that’s been around long enough to buy Used.”
I had my Grandmother’s 1969 Ford Galaxie 500 2 door 390 2-barrel. It was as old as I was and she bought it new. The windows did not work well, the radio was a boom box strapped in next to me on the vinyl front bench.