My First Car(s) and Car Firsts! (Part One)

Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canucks!  Hope there was lots of turkey and good brew wherever you were this past weekend!

Today I want to talk about cars that I had historic firsts in.  For those of you who may be more on the conservative side, you can read easy.  The firsts I'm going to be talking about are all PG rated.

The First Car I Ever Had Care and Control Of

The very first car that I can remember actually starting, putting into gear and operating was a 1991 Chevrolet Corsica.  Once I was about 12 or so, sometimes as a treat my mother would let me back the car out of our garage and into the driveway.  It wasn't a long solo flight, but I can still remember being really nervous the first time I was given the responsibility of being in control of the car for that 20 some-odd foot journey.

Now given the fact that I only drove the car a short distance... backwards... I can't really comment on what it was like to drive.  I do know that if you accidentally have the sound jacked up when you insert your CD player adapter into the tape-deck (anyone remember having to do that?) the first note in Weird Al's "Amish Paradise" will blow out the driver's side rear speaker.

First Car I Ever Drove On The Road

The first car I ever actually drove was a 1986 Ford Taurus.  Yes, this is the front driver that revived Ford's status as a family sedan innovator (I will be doing a review of the 2014 model very shortly).  It was a great first start, since essentially the first thing I did with once I got it out of the driveway was crash it.  Now fear not for the poor Taurus, it was winter time and I backed it into a snow bank.  The problem was that in my mind I had changed gear, but in reality I was still in reverse... but it was my first time really behind the wheel which had put me in a fragile psychological state.

I would like to thank my patient mother with nerves of steel and my sister (who was two and blissfully unaware of how much danger she was in) for being my passengers that day.     

As for driving impressions, well I can't say too much since we didn't own it very long after I got my license, but I do remember that at the time it was the greatest car in the world.  I'll chalk that up to the fact that just driving anything when you're first starting is amazing and, well, I hadn't driven anything else.

First Car That Was Mine (sort of)

The first car that was ever considered mine (although since I didn't buy it, nor was my name on the ownership, it really wasn't) was a 1985 Chevrolet Caprice Sedan.  We had bought it from my middle school principal.  He had gotten it from his father's estate, so by the time it was in our ownership it only had about 145,000km, none of which were put on the odometer in the winter time, and a pristine interior.  I don't think anyone had ever sat in the back seat of that thing.  It was flawless.

The body, on the other hand, had some issues.  The most significant of which was a battle scar it had acquired from fighting a deer... a fight I imagine the deer wishes it was never involved in.  My uncle (with a little help from me) managed to sort everything out with the body a couple of years after we got the car, including an excellent new paint job.

The Caprice was the first car I ever got to drive by myself.  As such, I kind of remember the experience through rose colored glasses.  In reality , it was slow to accelerate, handled like a mattress, drank gas like crazy and uncomfortable in the heat since the A/C was broken.  But it was a great car to cruise on the highway in and super comfortable to boot.

Unfortunately, the car's life came to an abrupt end one stormy Christmas day... but we'll get into that at a later date.

That's it for today.  I'll continue the list in a later post.  Sorry about not having any interesting links, but I'll make up for it (promise!).

TTFN