1975 Ford Granada, automatic transmission, in a sort of faded goldish-brown. I paid $1000 cash, and the engine imploded (seriously—imploded) after precisely 10 months, which means I essentially had a rental at $100/month.
Now I don’t feel so bad having DS17 drive 1999 Camry. 
We bought it new when he was born as our 93 Hyundai kept stalling.
@VANURSEPRAC you win on the flesh colored. Ours was mint green with pinstripes…doublemint gum twin colors. LOL! I was upgraded to the 1970 Rust colored ( and rusting) Suburban after that and then a lovely 72 Plymouth Scamp which I took to college.
The Scamp just happened to be in the same colors as my sorority ended up being. Which somehow at the time we all found hysterical. I just miss the 8 track tape deck and that aqua blue vinyl interior.
These car stories are cracking me up.
My first car isn’t nearly as fun as everyone else’s. And I learned to drive a stick on a Geo Metro. LOL
I’m embracing a new, more laid-back, hands off approach with DS and high school the 2nd time around. However, going from a child who insisted on all A’s to one who is happy to do the least amount of work to get by may be my downfall.
'74 Pinto stick in the house. Wow, are we all the same age? I always feel like the most ancient parent; had D19 at 37…
Anyway, I also was required by the 'rents to take the driving test in a stick - I think the instructor passed me just out of respect 
I also drove Fiat X1/9, TR-7, MGB and my fave: '71 Mustang Mach 1 … all my dad’s project cars (he also had a Delorean).
But the Pinto served me well all through college. I then got an 82 Camaro with, get this, a stick and 4-cylinder engine. Yes, they actually made one that underpowered. It was an awful car. It became my NYC assault vehicle. Taxis got out of my way, it was so battered. It was stolen once and the thieves dumped it a couple of days later and the cops called me to tell me they’d found it - “but, miss, it’s really taken a beating.” - and they described all the damage and I said, “That’s how it was when they took it.” And there was an awkward silence on the other end. …
We have a Ford SporTrac truck with a stick and are making D19 at least learn how to use it; not sure she’ll end up getting a car with manual transmission, just because it’s so much harder to find one in the first place, let alone an affordable one with everything we need (4WD, mostly). Subaru is the obv. choice, but they’re not cheap, at least, not as cheap as we are.
1970 Bonneville V8 that had been my dads. Then in 1984 I bought his 1978 Delta 88 Royale V8. Both had been used to pull our trailer on camping trips so those engines were really good.
We currently have a 2001 Ford expedition that DS13 drive in Atlanta. A 2001 Buick Lesabre that DS17 drive to school.
Both of those cars are big enough that I think they are reasonably safe if a car hits them. I have a 2012 Toyota Camry Hybrid and DH has a 2016 Toyota Avalon Hybrid with the safety package. I will never buy another car without that kind of technology. Atlanta has some of the worst drivers and the safety features help when cars zip into your lane without any notice. It helps DH a lot on his daily commute.
Learned on a 1982 Volkswagen Vanagon, with its massive 67 horsepower engine. Considering it weighed over 4000 pounds, it was extremely slow. 0 to 60 in 20 seconds.
Luckily, my dad got a new car shortly after I learned to drive and got his old car, a 1984 Honda Prelude with a 5-speed manual… Its 100 horsepower engine doesn’t seem like a lot today (or even just a little later–my Mom bought a Sentra a few years later that had 110 horsepower), but it felt like a rocket compared to the Vanagon.
Tried to learn on our 1970s VW van and didn’t succeed. Then at 18 learned on my boyfriend’s automatic but took the test in my dad’s cargo van. lol. At least it was an automatic. My first car was a 1978 yellow Fiat X1/9 convertible (stick obviously) @Gatormama . I thought it was going to kill me. The brakes kept going out and I had to fix everything myself because I was broke. Next car was a 197X VW van, which also broke down all the time. Drove across country once with a broken starter. Whenever I stopped, I had to convince a random stranger to get in my van and start it for me while I was under the car tapping on the starter so it’d start up.
We have a 2001 Subaru stick and a 2014 Subaru automatic now. So nice to drive cars that are not possessed by demons and can handle the snow just fine. The list of possessed cars we owned before we had the means to do better… The Ford F150 with 3 cylinders that we bought we bought off a guy who took us on a crazy off-road ‘test drive’. I think he’d been drinking or smoking something before we came… The Ford Blazer that loved to spin on ice. Oy. Scary car. The Ford Aerostar that liked to fishtail if you pulled the steering too fast. The tiny Honda Civic that would have crumpled in any crash… The Thunderbird… oh that was a fun car but it wanted to go fast, too fast.
D16 doesn’t have a license but is able, kind of, to drive stick and manual. H and I didn’t get our licenses until after 18 either. Too poor to afford a car and our parents weren’t about to provide us one.
Oh, and funny teaching your kid to drive a stick story. While learning to drive, D16 set our clutch on fire in our 2001 Subaru. Like big plumes of billowing smoke… Yeah, that was fun. After that she got to drive the automatic. I drove the 2001 for another 2 years with a gimpy clutch. It was kind of impossible for the first 2 weeks after catching fire but then improved.
I don’t even know how to drive stick and have never been in a situation where I’ve had to drive a stick-shift car!
I can’t either @homerdog
I learned on my dad’s 1971 Cutlass Supreme. My first car was a 73 Chevy Vega with a stick shift. S19’s first car will be a 2004 Toyota Corolla with a stick.
Oh and @Gatormama you are not the oldest here. I was 41 when S19 was born.
I drove a boyfriends before and hated it. I wasn’t great at it and stalled a lot. My automatics are much better.
My first car in high school was a 1973 Mustang (the car was older than I was). I actually took my driving test in that car. The tester was not happy when she saw the car only had lap belts.
I also learned how to drive a stick in high school and ended up teaching my husband later. I’d like my kids to learn to drive one but we don’t own one so they’ll have to learn on their own. They are fun to drive but not as a daily commuter.
My mom always had driven manual cars and when she came for a visit, I offered her to drive mine, and she said I don’t know how to drive an automatic =))
^^ I could kind of see that, though—just one experience going for the clutch and slamming down the parking brake would probably be enough to put someone off automatics forever. :))
@dfbdfb – hahahahah!!!
@liska21 – Yes, cars sometimes are masters of self-healing, I have discovered
I currently drive a Santa Fe with the check-engine light on; it’s been on for over a year. The fuel sensor stopped working, and fixing it would mean dropping the tank - labor-intensive and expensive. So the empty gas gauge light and the check engine light are on permanently. We just fill it up after 250 miles on the trip odometer. It’s second nature at this point. But every now and then the gas gauge revives itself, and I know how much gas is in the tank. It’s totally random. Sigh.
^ The gas gauge hasn’t worked on our Buick for years. We use the trip odometer too.
My “first” car was only a timeshare thing with my older sister. After she graduated Law School I had the pleasure of driving a green 1977 Caprice Classic that had no AC and overheated after 10 minutes driving. My parents donated it to the women’s shelter after it was towed by the neighbors who claimed it was abandoned.
Then I graduated college and bought myself my own car
My first car was my dad’s 1975 maroon Mercury Monarch, where the bumper was held on to the car with bumper stickers and you could see the ground when you looked in the trunk.
D19 has driver’s education with her PE class at school but has a summer birthday (she turned 15 last month) and she is not the biggest fan when it comes to thinking about driving. However, she is doing a good job of reminding me about the mandatory “mandated by the state” parent and student Traffic Safety Program we must attend as part of the classroom driver ed program. Should prove interesting.
(And I feel better about my older parent status - I had D19 at 38 and younger one at 40.)