How Old was Your First Car?

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I'm pretty sure you missed the joke...
Nah, I've had friends call it a deathtrap (due to the acronym) since the day I got it.

That whizzing sound you hear is the "joke" going by for the second time.

Hint:

I think it's an Army thing"
It really has nothing to do with the car at all. Just the name.
No, I know what KIA stands for, hence why my friends called it a deathtrap waiting to happen.

 
My first was a Ford EXP...a 1982 or so. But, looking back now I can admit I was a gigantic idiot. A friend of my parents worked for the Ford plant and restored cars in his spare time. At the time we were looking for my first car he had a '48 Ford for sale. It had a 302 and was in primer at the time, but he had the interior just about done (although it was red velour) and had installed power windows. Like a giant idiot, I decided I didn't want an old car, I wanted the little sporty looking red one.

(not mine, but a reasonable facsimile)

ford-exp-parts.jpg


 
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My first was a Ford EXP...a 1982 or so. But, looking back now I can admit I was a gigantic idiot. A friend of my parents worked for the Ford plant and restored cars in his spare time. At the time we were looking for my first car he had a '48 Ford for sale. It had a 302 and was in primer at the time, but he had the interior just about done (although it was red velour) and had installed power windows. Like a giant idiot, I decided I didn't want an old car, I wanted the little sporty looking red one.

(not mine, but a reasonable facsimile)

ford-exp-parts.jpg
It's always the one that got away...

Happy Belated Birthday, by the way...

 
^^^^^ HEY, For my freshman year in college, I had a navy blue 1983 MERCURY LN7

bought it for $550, drove it for one year, and sold for $500

Imagine this baby in Navy Blue....

1983_Mercury_LN7.jpg


 
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Only the best. Only the best.

I did however, go through most of college with a 1985 Ford Bronco II.

It rocked.

1985_ford_bronco_ii_4wd_5spd_v6_1800_bonners_ferry_id_7968932.jpg


(not mine, mine had a bad arse brush guard on the front, but same color, same wheels)

 
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I hate to admit it, but when they came out, I thought the EXP was a pretty cool car. Too bad it weighted a couple hundred more pounds than the already underpowered Escort it was based on. I saw a white EXP with blue stripes on it, a la GT350 with a Shelby decal in the windsheild back in college. Didn't look too bad.

 
I hate to admit it, but when they came out, I thought the EXP was a pretty cool car. Too bad it weighted a couple hundred more pounds than the already underpowered Escort it was based on. I saw a white EXP with blue stripes on it, a la GT350 with a Shelby decal in the windsheild back in college. Didn't look too bad.
Didn't they make an SVT (Special Vehicles Team) version of the EXP?

 
I don't recall one. I think the second gen EXP had run its course before the first Cobra or Lightning came out.

 
My dad bought me a 1979 Ford Grenada in 1984 or so. It was only 5 years old, I guess, but it was already a piece of crap. The engine caught on fire at an intersection 3 months after we bought it. That put it out of its misery.

Damn America made some bad cars in the late 70s/early 80s.

 
^^ That is awesome. I actually drove a '79 Ford Granada for about a month during H.S. I had to do some work on my car, and it was a spare car of my Grandma's that I was allowed to 'borrow' until I fixed my own. It was green with green interior and an inline six cylinder engine. it actually did good.

 
^Mine was blue with serious hail damage (Dad got a "deal" froma co-worker) and the 302 V-8. I was pretty proud of it just because of the engine.

True (and shameful) story: The day before he actually paid for it, he brought it home to check it out. After school, before he or my Mom came home, I pilfered the keys and drove it over to a friend's house to brag. I drove him around town a little, and then took him home. About a block from his house, some woman does a U-turn right in front of me, and I slam into her, broadside, at ~25 mph (guessing because I hit the brakes pretty hard from 35 or so). She was driving some sort of early hatchback - a Civic, I think, and that Ford Beast punched a hole in her door and pushed a front wheel under her car. She hit a split rail fence, too. I thought I was f*&cked.

She comes out of the car - unhurt, thank God - and starts pleading with me to not call the police, because she has had so many accidents that her insurance company was going to drop her. So she hands me $50 for my damage (a broken front turn signal lens - seriously, that's all that was damaged), asks me if I think that's enough, and sends me on my way without even getting my name or phone number.

So my friend grabs his car and we both high-tail it back to my place. I had the forethought to collect the broken pieces of the turn signal cover from the accident scene, and I scattered them on the ground in front of where my Dad had parked the Granada before he went to work. And then we took off to try to find a replacement at the junkyards in the area, which we couldn't - no junkyard would offer anythign less than the entire grill assembly, for a lot more than $50.

So I came back home and sweated it out. Sure enough, right after dinner, my Mom comes inside the house and says "Dammit! Come out and see what some kids did to the new car! They busted outt he signal cover with a baseball bat!"

"Really???? Oh my God!!!""

To this day, I have not confessed to my parents what really happened.

 
LOL, Dleg. I know a guy with a similar story (not me, I swear!).

For got a lot of mileage out of what ended up as the Grenada. It was a tarted up Maverick, which was a reskinned Falcon.

 
1964 Chevy C10. Had the same engine, 200K+ miles, and the wood slats in the bed.

Purchased circa 1996 when I was around 15.

I miss that old clunker.

 
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