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?
Drive to school?!?
We never had that kind of money.
It was a big deal if I could get my mother’s car in the afternoon to go to work.
Sophomore year – a 1971 Volkswagen Super Beetle, junior and senior years, a 1991 Volvo 940 Turbo (I ended up selling the Beetle, because I became uncomfortable with the idea of driving it year round, including in road salt conditions, it just seemed a little too nice to ruin)
’94 Thunderbird with the V8. Got it with really low miles and had years of fun with it. Rust took it in the end but it was still the bar I set most cars to for how great it was to drive. The interior build quality, on the other hand…
Got me all through higschool, college, college again, and made it all the way to the rust free south before it finally couldn’t go no more. Only major work in nearly 100k miles was a wheel bearing, a power steering hose, and an alternator. The factory auto-dimming rearview mirror still lives in in my Country Squire.
I drove my parents 1963 Chevy Impala 4 door “Sport Sedan”. A 283 V8 which produced all of 195 HP (gross HP) channeled to the rear wheels shod with 7.50/D14 traction optional tires (equivalent to today’s Chaoyang 195/80R14 but with much less traction and wear resistance), all through a 2 speed “Powerglide” transmission. I was grateful to have a car to drive, but did wish my Dad would have given me privileges to drive his red Austin Healey 3000 Mk1 to school, and on weekend nights for several reasons (and girls names) I refuse to mention.
This young man took his life in his own hands, by driving for a while a 48 Willy’s Overland Panel Truck! Not stock either!
Someone had installed the drive train from a
57 Chevy in it. 283 with a cam, 4 bbl carb, 3 speed with Hurst linkage, and the Chevy rear end may have had 4:11 gears. 2 bucket seats from a Corvair inside…not much else. Had an electric fuel pump. The switch was on the lower dash so sometimes going into 2nd I would turn off the fuel pump and run out of gas!!!
Had some custom wheels with cheater slicks on the back! Traction bars. It was grey so not too flashy, but you could hear it coming!
It had 426 Hemi emblems on the sides behind the front fenders!
For some reason nobody wanted to race me! Lol
But it was dangerous! Still had the original crappy drum brakes . It would go, but stopping was frantic down shifting with pumping of the brakes!
One 4th of July drove around with couple buddies in the back..throwing out fire crackers.
Took off hard on green light…they fell against the back doors, which weren’t latched well and fell out in the street! Thank God they didn’t get hit and just few cuts and bruises!
Once I saw all the rust underneath, I decided to get rid of it before someone got hurt!
Oh to be young again!!
Inheirited my grandparents’ green over green 1982 Buick LeSabre Limited (with the mighty 125 hp 4.1l V6 – rowr!) after they got stopped going 55 in a parking lot they thought was an on ramp. I didn’t mind that it smelled of my grandparents (they were farmers so it was an . . . earthy mix) but a chick magnet it was not.
Funnily enough, I got the only speeding ticket of my life driving this car after I somehow “won” a race against a friend from the last stop light heading out of town.
A better question might be what car did you drive before high school? And that would be a Chevy suburban a Dodge Aspen wagon Willys Jeep a Buick Century station wagon. not forgetting a Renault Gordini. It was orange and had a massive sunroof. Ford econoline , Whatever I could get the keys for. ????
I had $750 to spend and nobody to tell me not to buy a “furrin” car nobody had heard of. So I drove this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fiat_1500_Cabriolet.jpg
Car — the 1977 Thunderbird that had been in the family for a while since it was new. Medium blue metallic paint with dark blue velour interior. The typical thick beltline molding Ford usually put on them had been deleted on the order, replaced with thinner stainless-steel trim for the wheel arches and thinner rub strips on the doors that were less obtrusive. It had the 351 Windsor V-8, and was able to get out of its own way at least as well as or even better than a lot of malaise-era iron. It was eventually replaced when I went to college with a more useful 80’s era F150.
But due to the T-Bird’s appetite for fuel, I preferred to ride a bike a lot. (I was in shape from playing and refere4eing soccer, and biking was good exercise anyway.) I had a ’84 Schwinn High Sierra mountain bike, from back when mountain bikes used long, more BMX-style frames and wide “bullmoose” handlebars. It was pretty advanced for its day and was comfortable off or on the pavement. I still have the bike, and it’s still all-original except for tires. Still equipped with the original cantilever-type brakes that will stop it right now. Just needs to be polished-up and some get fresh lube on the chain and linkages.
started with a ’78 Datsun 510 wagon. ended with a ’74 superbeetle.
while I wish I had recognized how special the Datsun was, I’m glad I also had a beetle.