It was a white 4-door Dodge Shadow, which I bought secondhand when I was 17. My dad, who is very good at used car shopping, helped me find it.
The main downside of this car is that the previous owner smoked in it. And this fact was never more apparent than when the car sat in the hot summer sun for a few hours.
Once you got the A/C running, it was much more tolerable, but the smoke smell never did completely go away in all the years I owned the car.
The other problem was a mysterious one. A few years after I bought the car, the passenger side floor would fill up with rainwater.
Mr. FG and my dad tried to troubleshoot it, but they had no luck replicating the problem no matter what angle they sprayed water at the car.
We would possibly have looked into it further, but shortly after this problem developed, I was driving to work at Nordstrom and got rear-ended really hard.
Hard enough to total the car.
And hard enough to break my nose (a problem I didn’t address until pretty recently!)
I was very unhappy about my car being totaled, but I do remember thinking, “Well, now we don’t have to figure out the rain problem.” Ha.
Mr. FG and I bought a Saturn sedan to replace the Shadow, and we paid it off in less than a year (insurance didn’t pay us enough to completely cover the cost of a new car).
And right after we paid the Saturn off, someone hit me and totaled that car too.
Sigh.
I am happy to say, though, that since that last accident in the year 2000, no one has run into me at all.
I hope that streak continues for a nice long time.
1967 Chevy half-ton pickup. It’s bathroom tile green with a wood floor in the bed and has one of those toppers with the bubble windows on the sides. It has never been in my name, but I drove it for five years when I started driving. Dad has had it since before I was born and it was one of the vehicles that first went on harvest with him and Mom.
Not so long ago my dad called and asked me if he could sell it and I cried off and on for the rest of the day — I still love that pickup, but I’m in no position to take care of it right now. It does deserve restoration, really. Few pickups of that age are as nice as that one still is.
Anyway, my sister overheard the conversation and bought the pickup to prevent the family history from going out the door.
It will be interesting to see what comes next. 🙂
p.s. My best friend’s second car (the first one rolled down a mountain after she had had it maybe three or four months) was a Plymouth Sundance and without googling it I’m wanting to say that was exactly the same car as your Shadow. 🙂
Yes, I think you’re right! It’s like how Caravans and Voyagers were the same except one was Dodge and one was Plymouth.
First one I drove was one my parents bought for me and my older brother to share so we could drive to our (private, no buses) high school. I can’t even remember the name of it, though I do remember it was a small Honda sedan. And it was very, very dark blue, which made it very, very hot in Tucson, Arizona. Not as bad as my sister’s first car, which was our family’s station wagon with zero air conditioning. She called it The Sweat Mobile.
First one I bought myself was a Subaru Outback, which I actually bought from my parents because they had no need for an all-wheel drive car in the Tucson suburbs, and I definitely did in rural upstate New York. I loved that car and had it for years. I was sad when I sold it and moved on to a GIANT VAN for my many children. Some day I want to have a Subaru again, though.
I had an Outback for a while! The head gasket kept going out which was super annoying. The last time it blew, we sold it instead of pursuing because it wouldn’t fit three car seats abreast, lol.
Oh wow, I can’t imagine driving in AZ with no A/C. Yikes.
My first car was a dark green 1969 Chevy Camero. It had a spoiler and mag wheels. My father, who loved cars, bought it off a friend. It was a sweet ride. I cried when my father had to sell it.
I had a Chevy Camaro too! 1982 bright red with T-tops. So fun!
A 1969 Ford Mustang convertible; green with white pinstripes. That car started my love affair with convertibles! I’ve owned several more since then.
I had a red Dodge Daytona. Named it Fever. Loved zipping around in that car.
My brother had a Daytona, and come to think of it, it might have been red. Or maybe black.
My husband had a black one!
I drove my mom’s Chevy Nova – might have been a ’67 or ’69, don’t remember what year. It was a really nice car – 2 door, gold body, black top, but no AC and no power steering. I wrecked it shortly after I started driving. It was raining and I hit a slick spot and jumped the median. I think it bent the frame or broke the axle – don’t remember exactly but it really messed up the car and my parents weren’t too happy with me. I took it with me when I got married but had a lot of problems with it and eventually sold it.
In 1980, after graduation college, I bought a 1977 Toyota Corolla from my uncle. It had a manual transmission (you learn quickly when you have to get it home) and no air conditioning but low mileage. I drove that car until the end of 1987 when I wanted something better. My next car was a 1988 Toyota Corolla with air conditioning but still a manual transmission. I drove it and then my husband drove it until 2000.
My first car was a 1987 Cadillac DeVille. (I was born in 1986.) That car was a beast. I grew up in Michigan and my Caddy was so heavy that I only remember really sliding on ice two times. It had a digital thermometer that gave both indoor and outdoor temps. The ceiling fabric in the back half was held up with push pins. I got into an accident right before my 17th birthday and since my car was such a huge beast I only had to replace one fender (the new one was blue, the rest of the car was gray.) I drove it until my sophomore or junior year of college when my older brother needed a car. My parents bought it for $850. Eventually, my brother sold it for $850.