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In my high school years early 70's, I remember many vwagons, mustangs, toyota corollas. I always wanted a Toyota celica but couldn't afford it. I ended up getting a Ford Pinto.....that was a mistake.
Man, the Celica was my to-die-for dream car in 1977
I could only afford a Pontiac Sunbird Next to the Vega it had to be the worst car ever made
Man, the Celica was my to-die-for dream car in 1977
I could only afford a Pontiac Sunbird Next to the Vega it had to be the worst car ever made
Oh so true...my friend had a Celica but I just couldn't afford the 3,000 price tag....Settled for the 2,200 ford Pinto. I think the Pinto is right up there with the Vega. My family leased a mustard colored Vega and it was my first and only accident in a car ( I was 16)
Greenwich, CT high school had everything from a (very few) junkers, to small Toyotas and lots of BMWs, MBZ, Volvos..
looked like a foreign car dealership.
Oh so true...my friend had a Celica but I just couldn't afford the 3,000 price tag....Settled for the 2,200 ford Pinto. I think the Pinto is right up there with the Vega. My family leased a mustard colored Vega and it was my first and only accident in a car ( I was 16)
Actually the Pinto was a decent little car that got a bad rep from the lawsuit. The 2.3 engine that was available in the later models (after '74 I think) was efficient and virtually indestructible. I think the main reason that you don't see many today is that they were so cheap to buy people just considered them "disposable" and sent them to the salvage yard the first time they needed any kind of repair beyond basic maintenance. The few that I see running around today have held up very well and the owners who have had them a long time tell me they've had very few problems.
The Vega was a total POS, though. My sister had a '75 that I claimed when my dad bought her a new car about the time I turned 15.
But I'd love to have one of the early ones that had the front end similar to a Camaro as a project car. Preferably a Kammback.
Used, to down right beat up late 90s cars and trucks, for the most part.
There was a girl in my grade who got a brand new Jeep Liberty for her 16th birthday. Her Jeep always looked very out of place in the student parking lot haha. I beleive she has since totaled it, however.
There was another kid in my grade who had a 1969 Mustang (he shared it with his dad, they both worked on it/restored it) that he drove to school in the spring. That thing was sooooo loud.
I was in high school in the mid 80's. Popular cars were the GM G-bodies ( Cutlass, Monte Carlo, Grand Prix, Regal). The kids who were more well off drove Camaro Z28's and Mustang GT convertibles. The rich kids drove Nissan 300Z, Toyota Supras, and BMW 3 series coupes. Texas is the unofficial truck capitol of the USA, many students did drive them, especially the Ford F-150.
What were the cars that were most popular with your age peers as first cars when they started getting their licenses? Would you say most were bought by parents or the students themselves?
In the mid-1960s my then 10-year old 1956 Ford Fairlane was pretty popular in high school. Sporting its original sky blue paint, a 312 Thunderbird V8 with a 500 cfm Holley carb (small by today's standards), duel exhausts with cherry bomb glasspak mufflers, a Hurst floor shifter, blue naugahyde upholstery with white racing steering wheel and Keystone wheels it was an eye-catcher. It had a Town and Country AM/FM station-scanning radio and an overdrive transmission that made everyone think I had a four-speed.
Some cars I recall in the HS parking lot included one new GTO, one early 1960s Corvette (bought by his grandma), a couple of new Mustangs, one new Camaro, and a bunch of 1950s and 60s frumpmobiles. I would say most of the cars were bought by the parents. My cousin had a fast, and beautiful, white 1955 Chevy 2-door hardtop called "Gypsy Woman". My closest friend had a black 1955 T-Bird. I pumped gas at a local Texaco station to buy my Fairlane paying it out three or four payments and picking it up from the little old lady who owned it (no lie) after I made the last payment. The car cost $300.
In Texas I took driver's ed in HS and got my beginners license at age 13 and a real license at 14. Every Saturday night was a scene from American Graffiti at the local drive-in restaurants.
I lived in the best years we ever had for car, the 60s..We had real muscle cars and cheap 100 octane gas.
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