When did you get your first car?

 From my Storyworth collection

I got my first car as a graduation present…I think (1987). It was my dad’s “classic car” that he was so proud of. It was our old family car, a 1972 Chevy Impala convertible. One of the first places I remember driving it was to Steamboat Days (annual fair) on the river in Burlington, Iowa. The Beach Boys came to town, so I drove my friend Matt and myself to the concert. We put the top down and drove into town playing my Beach Boys cassette tape using an 8-track adapter in the car’s stereo!

This is not a picture of my actual car, but this is the 1972 Chevy Impala convertible, and it is the color of our car (although the paintjob on ours was more faded). The car was HUGE and huge gas guzzler.

I could not afford the gas and so my parents bought a 1980-something Ford Escort from a family at church in Burlington. I had a couple interesting stories with this car. This was my first stick shift, so I practiced driving it up and down our country roads until I was comfortable with the clutch. One of my first trips into town was to the library in downtown Burlington on a BIG hill. I pulled into a parking space going uphill so that when it was time to leave, I could push in the clutch and brake, put car in first gear, leave the clutch in and let off the brake so it would coast back out of my space. I could then brake and let the clutch out pulling forward and not have to focus on shifting the car into first gear since it was a BIG hill, and I was not really comfortable with a stick shift yet. My plan fell apart when somebody was standing next to the car to my right, waiting for me to back out so they could get in their car. I nervously put the car in reverse and back out, braked, quickly threw the car into gear and tried to pull off (going uphill). The car almost died, so I pushed in the clutch and hit the brake. I tried again and car bogged down, about ready to die. All this time, the person getting into their car was watching me and I was beginning to panic. Finally, I revved the car WAY up and was able to pull out going up the hill. The car still bogged down, but I made it. When I shifted into second gear, the car LEAPT to life! In my nervousness, I had thrown the car into third gear instead of first gear leaving my parking space. No wonder it kept trying to die and I had to rev the engine so much to make it!

Again, this is not an actual picture of my car, but mine was similar and it was tan. One day I noticed a couple rust spots on my hood, so I stopped by the auto supply store and bought some “tan” paint. I’m not sure what I was thinking, I guess “Tan car, buy ‘tan’ paint.” I had no clue about color matching, so I sanded the rust spots and applied several generous spots of primer paint. It looked pretty bad, but I wasn’t worried since I had purchased the tan paint. I covered the primer with the ‘tan’ spray paint I bought. When it dried, I had a concept of the importance of color matching! I ruined the paint job on my car. Fortunately, Dad was kind enough to do a business trade with a guy who ran an auto paint shop, so my car was soon repainted a very cool looking dark tan with gold flecks in it. It looked like a new car!

This is the car I drove to college in Kankakee, IL. My last memory with this car was when it had to go into the shop because it quit on my on the way to church one Wednesday night. I don’t remember all the details, but my church paid to have it towed to the shop of an auto repair place owned by a guy in the church. It appeared my newly discovered speed shifting skills were NOT good for my car. I am not sure what broke, but the church paid the guy at the shop what must have been a heavily discounted rate. He let me know it was a LOT of work to replace the broken part, it cost a LOT more than he charged and my speed shifting was NOT a good idea. I learned my lesson and took better care of my car after that.