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Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Welcome To The Ugly Car Club!

Oh, friends.  I may have been expecting a big ole' laughing pity-party last week when I posted the story of my first car. 

I may have expected to hear that my own first car was -- by far -- the worst first vehicle to ever have graced a teenager's driveway, even if it was only a joke of an unveiling. 

But I didn't expect to laugh so much when you all told me about the cars you've had.  And there were some doozies.  Let's get started, shall we?  (With pictures I found all over the internet, not actually from my readers' past.  I'm not that nosy.  Usually.)

First up, Catholic Mutt had a gas-guzzling Plymouth Reliant.  I was super excited to hear this, because one of my best friends in high school drove a Reliant.  Hers was brownish-yellowish-bronzish, and she covered it in girl-power bumper stickers.  The old Reliant...

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Elizabeth had a Buick Skylark (about which her family made some impolite comparisons!):

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Now, I was a little jealous of Stacia's first car: an '88 Maxima.  But it wasn't the car that made me jealous, it was the unabashed love she had for her vehicle.  That, and the awesome nickname her car wore: Veronica Maxima.  Is that the coolest name ever, or what?!

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My friend Jill showed a similar love of her first car, and often threatens her husband with purchasing one just for kicks.  And while many men would be happy to own a 'classic', I'm not sure Jill's husband would agree that a 1985 Dodge Omni classifies as...classic.  What do you think?  Is this car cool?

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Katie's first car touched a nerve with me.  It was a 1984 Mercury Topaz.  Red.  And that is the exact kind of car I was hoping for when my dad took me to those used-car lots.  Something small and unobtrusive.  Neither so noticeable for its hideousness, nor very stand-out-ish for its perfection.  But I didn't get a Topaz.  Sigh.
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Jamie had a wash-free car -- a tan Ford Thunderbird -- but I don't know the year!  Was this about right, Jamie?  I wouldn't have been ashamed of this car, either.  My Uncle Buck car could have fit 3 Thunderbirds in its undercarriage alone...

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Oh, Lori.  Lori, Lori, Lori.  I didn't think too badly of your first car (even knowing of its un-openable passenger door) until I scrounged up a representative photo.  You poor girl...your parents owe you big time!  But, I guess, to look on the bright side, a car like this Plymouth Gran Fury has GOT to build character:

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Hyacynth's car was from the 90's -- a clear case of someone trying to prove her superiority above all the vastly older 1980's cars... -- and it seemed pretty straightforward.  A 1995 Pontiac Bonneville.  But she made me laugh, oh so hard.  Because her car's nickname?   The name her friends gave to her car?  Was Bonerville.  Oh, I die...I just DIE!

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I almost want to skip over Emily's first car.  It's far too pretty and presentable to show up on our list of ugly cars...but in the interest of fairness (and to prove that we underlings can be friends with officer's wives), I'll allow an exception.  Emily is wonderful even if her car was pretty!  Feast your eyes on this little beauty: a 1998 Honda Civic. 

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Another too-lovely vehicle to grace our list of clunkers is my friend Katie's car. (Get a blog already, Katie!)  She drove a brand new, 1995 Mazda Protege.  A car my hooptie would have dwarfed and then stomped upon.  Which would have been a waste, given the beauty of the Protege.  Very cool car, Katie; now scram!  Before we leak some of our ugliness onto you!

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What a bunch of cars we had, huh?  And don't worry -- I'll reveal my real first car this week.  It's not bad -- it's actually pretty cool.  Far too cool for the likes of me, as my brother repeatedly assured me.

But for one last parting shot...would you like to know what my handsome husband used to pick up ladies with?  The car he counted on to secure his awesomeness and supplement his already excessive good-looks?
A 1989 Oldsmobile Cutlass Sierra. 

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My poor, gorgeous husband.  My Uncle Buck car would have gassed his Cutlass out before they could have even made it past first base.  But it would have been a close race.

15 comments:

  1. this is so funny! i rolled in a small pale blue mazda truck (a b2200? i know NOTHING about cars and have no idea what year it was.)

    it only sat 2 (legally) but it was an awesome ride. miss it!

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  2. This is SO funny! Oh my goodness... I am still laughing.

    Thanks for taking the time to share the first-car-joy. :)

    (Mine, BTW, was a zippy little 1990 Dodge Dynasty. It was black. It had amazing pickup. :) It was an awesome, awesome car. And happened to have been my first boyfriends' car before it was mine. LOTS of memories in that thing! It ran beautifully, but we had to donate it in 2007 because a computer chip died and cost a ton to replace. Sigh...)

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  3. ha ha, I loved the Veronica Maxima nickname too...way cooler than what my sister named my car "Smalls"

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  4. Great pictures. So fun to actually see some of these first cars...or their likenesses. Although I have to say I found myself feeling old when some of these first cars were from the mid to late 90's. Not only do I feel old having started driving in the 80's, but I realize it wasn't until 2000 that I moved up to a
    90's model vehicle.

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  5. I think Lori wins. Really. That's a boat with wheels. Oh boy.
    lol.
    And I can picture Justin strutting his stuff in that lovely piece of metal. Niiiice. :)

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  6. Haha - this is awesome! I have to agree with you about Emily's car; a Honda Civic was what I pined for in high school; so cool, so modern. Although I can't really complain about the vehicle that was my inaugural transportation: my parents initially bought a Nissan Sentra for my brother and I to putter around in, then decided at the very last minute that their baby girl would drive my dad's truck instead - a huge, double-cab Ford F350. (Their logic was that there really wasn't anything safer for me to drive other than a tank.) I'm pretty sure mine was the biggest car in the parking lot. But to this day, a truck is my dream vehicle, no lie :)

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  7. Yep, we have all had ugly cars at some point in our lives. I had one that I named "the boat!"

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  8. Oh this was hilarious! I really was giggling so loudly that my napping dog cocked his head and grunted at me to be quiet. I'm sorry that you're a little jealous of my Topaz. Trust me - nobody else was! It wasn't quite as cute as your picture. It was a 4-door without the illegally-dark tinted windows. And my dad paid a whopping $500 cash for it!

    Great post! You really did your homework!

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  9. What a fun post! I do feel that my Reliant beats out some other folks in the clunker department, but I sure wouldn't have traded with Lori! Sorry, Lori! :)

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  10. Oh, my I needed this laugh tonight! What is up we all had a bunch of old lady cars. I can't believe you dug up all these photos.

    And BTW - mine was an '83 T-bird - you hit it almost perfectly

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  11. Oh my goodness, this was so funny! Maybe because I could literally laugh *with* all these girls at their stellar first cars! I was in the *boat* club!

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  12. Why is it name as ugly car, I could not understand ? But most of the used car is also popular in today's market. I'm in search of a good quality used car for my family.
    Nice to know about your blog.

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  13. Yes, yes, yes. It DID build character. I think that's the only car in the history of the world that anyone MADE money on. I bought it from my elderly great aunt for $200 and sold it for a whopping $600. So, it was an investment of sorts. But every old mechanic that laid eyes on it offered me money for it. Which was oh so tempting but then I would have been biking it everywhere and then I would have missed out on letting my boyfriend at the time (NOT now husband) out of the passenger side which he found pretty amusing...oh the ways we separate the jerks from the princes :)

    Hyacynth, I'm still laughing about "Bonerville"!!! :)

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  14. I love knowing that I am not the only owner of an ugly 1st car! Mine was an '85 Buick Skylark with rust spots all over it. So (of course) we called it Rusty. And it broke down ALL of the time.

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  15. So funny, I should have cought up sooner!

    I had a Bonneville as well, although I am apparently much, much older than Hyacynth as mone was a 1979 and banana yellow!

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Hmm...And how did that make you FEEL?