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Inspired by DinK's new car search and all the answers!

I learned to drive on my mom's 1968 Olds Toronado, great car.

My senior year in HS, my folks bought me a 1972 Pontiac GTO. Lucerne Blue (close to today's Duke Blue, slightly metallic in finish), white vinyl top, sun roof (that leaked), blue cloth interior. 400 cu.in., 4 barrel, automatic transmission (by choice back then). Great car, very quick . When I totaled it off of Cornwallis Road, coming back from a night of beverages in chapel hell, I got a 1974 Pontiac Grand Prix, 455 cu.in., 4 barrel carb, auto tranny again. Blue, black half vinyl (Landau) top, sun roof, bucket seats. Almost as quick as the GTO. Great cruising car.

I posted this on LTE 2.0 but what the heck - white on red 69 Firebird convertible. Screamin' fast.
The speedometer went to 160 and I pegged it more than once (over about 140 the needle went apeshit so I don't know how accurate it was)
For those of you who drove to Duke down I-85 she was fast enough that if I were doing 90 something southbound and let's say to make it interesting there was a state trooper with radar at the south hill exit in Virginia ---- if I put it to the floor when he hit his lights and came after me he would just be a dot in my rear view when I hit the NC state line. I'm just sayin'

1967 VW Beetle. Bought it for $500. Two years later my mom made me sell it to pay for damages due to a week long party I threw. It was worth it, but I'd love to have another bug.

A 1978 Chrysler Cordoba bought* from my parents.


*I'm not sure I ever did pay them for it.

OZZIE4DUKE wrote: My senior year in HS, my folks bought me a 1972 Pontiac GTO. Lucerne Blue (close to today's Duke Blue, slightly metallic in finish), white vinyl top, sun roof (that leaked), blue cloth interior. 400 cu.in., 4 barrel, automatic transmission (by choice back then).

Oh. My. Gawd.

Great car, very quick

No shit ;)

I put this in the LTE, but I guess it belongs here, too. My parents were practical. Dad "loaned" me his '88 Camry when I went to Duke in '93. So the first car I actually bought was my '97 BMW Z3. I still love that baby. Still got it. Someday it'll be a classic. Not as classic as the boys you guys are talking about, but a classic nonetheless. My former neighbor, Army guy, had a mint green GTO in his garage. Hardly ever took it out. It looked great, but he had trouble getting it to run. I think it was a late 60's model. When it did go, though, it was a thing of beauty. Another neighbor of mine has an old Ford Galaxy. He drives it all the time. I like it, except it's definitely Carolina blue.

For a while when I was a kid, my parents had a '66 silver caddy. It was a big, beautiful boat. They sold it when my grandfather died and they inherited his copper '76 caddy. That thing was another big, beautiful boat. I looked it up. It had the biggest engine ever put in a production manufacture car. It was either 550 cu. in. or 576 cu. in., I forget which. But when you put the pedal down, you thought you were gonna hit warp speed. It was about as big as the enterprise, too, 20 feet long and well over eight feet wide.

bjornolf wrote:
For a while when I was a kid, my parents had a '66 silver caddy. It was a big, beautiful boat. They sold it when my grandfather died and they inherited his copper '76 caddy. That thing was another big, beautiful boat. I looked it up. It had the biggest engine ever put in a production manufacture car. It was either 550 cu. in. or 576 cu. in., I forget which. But when you put the pedal down, you thought you were gonna hit warp speed. It was about as big as the enterprise, too, 20 feet long and well over eight feet wide.

My dad had a series (1961, 1963, 1965, 1968) of black Cadillac Fleetwood Broughams, which was the bigger, fancier "boat" you are describing. And yeah, I remember he had at least one with that 5xx cu.in. engine . The string of Caddy's was broken when we moved to Florida in 1970 and GM was on strike, so he leased a 71 Lincoln. That car didn't drive, it floated down the road. My mom's 68 Olds Toronado had the 455 Caddy engine, and was no slouch either!

CameronBornAndBred wrote:1967 VW Beetle. Bought it for $500. Two years later my mom made me sell it to pay for damages due to a week long party I threw. It was worth it, but I'd love to have another bug.

I had a '68 Super Beetle for a couple of years. It was a hoot...helped me learn once and for all that having fun driving is not necessarily driving fast. Also a great example of how certain music just sounds better in certain cars.

Last August, I had a '92 Buick Park Avenue die on me. I loved that sucker, and had taken good care of it. It only had about 95,000 miles on it, but it just sat down and quit, along with my relationship at the time, on the way home from a Sunday morning post-wedding brunch. In August. A mile and a half from my house.
That car was like a living room on wheels. My friends always begged me to take it on road trips, and we often did. It was gunmetal gray with matching gray leather inside. Coming on the heels of the Beetle, it felt like driving an aircraft carrier, plus it was the right color, so I christened it the USS Dwight Eisenhower ("Ike" for short, of course). The typical comment I got was, "Oh, my grandmother used to have one of those."

windsor wrote:I posted this on LTE 2.0 but what the heck - white on red 69 Firebird convertible. Screamin' fast.
The speedometer went to 160 and I pegged it more than once (over about 140 the needle went apeshit so I don't know how accurate it was)
For those of you who drove to Duke down I-85 she was fast enough that if I were doing 90 something southbound and let's say to make it interesting there was a state trooper with radar at the south hill exit in Virginia ---- if I put it to the floor when he hit his lights and came after me he would just be a dot in my rear view when I hit the NC state line. I'm just sayin'

Wow, I'm in love...

OZZIE4DUKE wrote:Inspired by DinK's new car search and all the answers!

I learned to drive on my mom's 1968 Olds Toronado, great car.

My senior year in HS, my folks bought me a 1972 Pontiac GTO. Lucerne Blue (close to today's Duke Blue, slightly metallic in finish), white vinyl top, sun roof (that leaked), blue cloth interior. 400 cu.in., 4 barrel, automatic transmission (by choice back then). Great car, very quick . When I totaled it off of Cornwallis Road, coming back from a night of beverages in chapel hell, I got a 1974 Pontiac Grand Prix, 455 cu.in., 4 barrel carb, auto tranny again. Blue, black half vinyl (Landau) top, sun roof, bucket seats. Almost as quick as the GTO. Great cruising car.

I'd have happily raced you for pink slips.

I wouldn't drag race Windsor's Firebird on a straightaway, but I bet my baby could take her in a race on Rte. 33 coming over the mountains from Harrisonburg toward Fredericksburg in the Shenandoah Valley. She tops out about 140, but she's AGILE in the hairpin turns going up and down the mountain. She's got the turning radius of a schnauzer on speed , and those Vette tires grab on like an inorganic adhesive even though they're made of a polymerized tree sap. ;)

Course, I'd have the advantage since I actually still have mine. ;)


That's my baby.

bjornolf wrote:I wouldn't drag race Windsor's Firebird on a straightaway, but I bet my baby could take her in a race on Rte. 33 coming over the mountains from Harrisonburg toward Fredericksburg in the Shenandoah Valley. She tops out about 140, but she's AGILE in the hairpin turns going up and down the mountain. She's got the turning radius of a schnauzer on speed , and those Vette tires grab on like an inorganic adhesive even though they're made of a polymerized tree sap. ;)

You are right...she was a straight ahead drag racing car. She didn't handle too badly but on a twisty road I'd be shit outta luck. A girls got to know her limitations. I also need at least a quater mile - she wasn't quick off the line but her top end more than made up for it.

YmoBeThere wrote:

windsor wrote:I posted this on LTE 2.0 but what the heck - white on red 69 Firebird convertible. Screamin' fast.
The speedometer went to 160 and I pegged it more than once (over about 140 the needle went apeshit so I don't know how accurate it was)
For those of you who drove to Duke down I-85 she was fast enough that if I were doing 90 something southbound and let's say to make it interesting there was a state trooper with radar at the south hill exit in Virginia ---- if I put it to the floor when he hit his lights and came after me he would just be a dot in my rear view when I hit the NC state line. I'm just sayin'

Wow, I'm in love...

It appears it will be an unrequited love

But seriously, I have been looking for a good '67 or '68 Firebird for the last year now. I've seen a few but haven't bought one yet.

My baby's not the QUICKEST from 0-60, but she'll do it in about 5.6 seconds, which isn't TOO bad. ;) That inline 6 gives her enough horses and torque to pick up pretty good. In my younger days, I dragged a few of the newer ponies. I could always take 'em if I were smart enough to avoid the snakes. ;) I always laughed when a shmoe in an '02 wuss mustang started revving his engine next to me. Then I'd leave him at the line. I can't believe they ever bothered making a 4-cylinder Mustang. It's like a bad joke.

bjornolf wrote:I always laughed when a shmoe in an '02 wuss mustang started revving his engine next to me. Then I'd leave him at the line. I can't believe they ever bothered making a 4-cylinder Mustang. It's like a bad joke.

There was no 4-cylinder Mustang in '02. The base engine was a 3.8-liter V6.
The last 4-cylinder Mustangs were made in 1993.

That's even more embarrassing then. It was a bigger engine. The four cylinders were still embarrassing though.

My dad's first car was pretty sweet. His cousin went to the Korean War and asked him to take care of his car during his tour. Here's a pic of the same year and colors:



Yeah, he got to drive that for 18 beautiful months.

bjornolf wrote:That's even more embarrassing then. It was a bigger engine. The four cylinders were still embarrassing though.

To be fair, it's the driver who should be embarrassed, and not Ford. A 6-cylinder Mustang of that vintage actually puts up off-the-line performance numbers just about identical to your Z3. Should have been a good race.
The 4-cylinder Mustangs were indeed abominations, but they were largely Oil Crisis holdovers. Beginning with 1994's overhaul, Mustangs have actually been a solidly performing car, considering their price and ubiquity.

All I know is, it happened way more than once, with different drivers, I assume. Definitely different cars. Maybe they just weren't good drivers and figured their big, bad, pony could punk my little baby roadster. ;) Maybe they had automatics? ;)

The mustang should have had more horses, but maybe I had better torque? My father in law always says that all the horses in the world aren't worth crap if you don't have the torque to kick 'em in the rear.