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What was your first car? What happened to it? - READ ONLY

281 messages,  Last post on Jan 02, 2009 at 7:50 PM

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Messages Page 27 of 29

#252 of 281 Re: 3 on the tree!! [fezo] by fintail

Dec 20, 2008 (6:44 pm)

Replying to: fezo (Dec 19, 2008 6:04 pm)
That was an Adenauer then yes? Like this?
 

#253 of 281 Re: 3 on the tree!! [fintail] by fezo

Dec 21, 2008 (5:53 pm)

Replying to: fintail (Dec 20, 2008 6:44 pm)
That was what it looked like all right - though in no where near that condition as you could guess from the price tag. Dad bought it in November of 1968 and we had it until late 1972. He regretted letting it go almost from the minute he did it and for a good 35 year thereafter.....
 
The plate says is all - 1945 300B.
 
The wood was all alligatored and we stripped it and refinished it. Patched a few rips in the leather with instructions and some patches from a local shoe repair place. It didn't have a working dash until someone turned one up in a junkyard and that one was metric! We certainly had a fan club for that car back then. Great stuff.

#254 of 281 Re: 3 on the tree!! [fezo] by fintail

Dec 21, 2008 (7:20 pm)

Replying to: fezo (Dec 21, 2008 5:53 pm)
That's a heck of a first car, even if it was a bit of a beater when you got it. Those cars look very nice, but they cost an astronomical amount of money to restore, so unless your dad was either willing to sink a fortune into it or keep it scruffy, he didn't lose too much. A really nice one is worth maybe 30-40K today, with restoration costs double that if done properly.

#255 of 281 Re: 3 on the tree!! [fintail] by fezo

Dec 22, 2008 (12:11 pm)

Replying to: fintail (Dec 21, 2008 7:20 pm)
Oh, yeah. I have a brother who spouts the same things dad did about how we should have kept it but hearing restorations costs was a factor in selling it. It had reached a point where it was either bite that bullet and sink serious money into it and let the next owner do it. We ended up choosing the latter.
 
Oh, it was a ball to have. My older brother took it over to a large degree after my senior year of college but I still drove it lots. Was held together with bondo and a cheap paint job nut we loved it.
 
For its first year with us it had that real fun of multiple drivers and no gas gauge. My older brother always assumed there was gas in it and would get stranded. I always assumed there wsn't and did at times pull in, say "fill it" and have it take 50 cents worth....

#256 of 281 Re: 3 on the tree!! [fezo] by fintail

Dec 22, 2008 (4:00 pm)

Replying to: fezo (Dec 22, 2008 12:11 pm)
I wonder what became of it when you guys sold it. Someone probably thought they could restore it, took it halfway apart, learned what they were in for, and the car was never re-assembled. That's a fate that happens to a lot of old MB sedans, especially complex and air-suspended models.
 
MB of the 50s-60s are known for iffy fuel gauges, oil gauges, and nonworking clocks.

#257 of 281 Re: 3 on the tree!! [fintail] by fezo

Dec 22, 2008 (4:39 pm)

Replying to: fintail (Dec 22, 2008 4:00 pm)
The clock actually worked. One of the few things that work predictably....
 
Over our course of ownership we replaced an engine (that's why we found the gauge cluster in the junkyard) and a load of other things.
 
I don't know what happened to it but we put an as in Road and Track and some guy came up from Florida and shipped it down to restore so certainly going into it he was ready to spend. Lord knows what happened after that.

#258 of 281 Re: My first car [nippononly] by andre1969

Dec 22, 2008 (5:27 pm)

Replying to: nippononly (Dec 17, 2008 10:44 pm)
Oooo, just wait until andre reads this! He would love to discuss Chryslers with slant sixes with you, I'm sure.
 
My second car was a 1969 Dodge Dart GT hardtop coupe with a slant six and torqueflite transmission. Only had about 48K miles on it when I bought it in 1989. And to show how sad the state of automotive affairs had gotten in the later years, I think that car was superior in just about every respect to my first car, a 1980 Malibu coupe with a 229 V-6. It was a great little car (okay, not little by your standards, Nippon!) and I still miss the thing. Alas, I got run off the road by an F-150 back in 1992, and whacked a traffic light pole sideways, totaling the car. I held onto it as a parts car for a few years, and some of its pieces are in the '68 Dart 270 hardtop that I still have.
 
I've often wondered how long that Dart would have lasted, had it not gotten wrecked. It only had about 77,000 miles on it when it got totaled. By my calculations, I've gone over 300,000 miles since then, so I guess there's a good chance it would have ultimately succumbed. But you never know!

#259 of 281 Re: My first car [andre1969] by nippononly

Dec 23, 2008 (10:06 am)

Replying to: andre1969 (Dec 22, 2008 5:27 pm)
I think that car was superior in just about every respect to my first car, a 1980 Malibu coupe with a 229 V-6. It was a great little car (okay, not little by your standards, Nippon!)
 
I was in a Dart once for about five minutes, and you are correct sir: I would NEVER call that a little car! Quite big by my standards.
 
And I guess they were pretty solid - I have heard other stories about how long some of them lasted. By the time I came to the States in the mid-70s, the Japanese were already invading in California, and so I never saw much in the way of old domestic models, although I had a neighbor who had a couple of Malibus (the really gigantor older models) before switching to Toyota in the early 80s...

#260 of 281 Re: 3 on the tree!! [fezo] by fintail

Dec 23, 2008 (10:38 am)

Replying to: fezo (Dec 22, 2008 4:39 pm)
I wonder if one could find an old issue of R&T and see how bad your old heap was. I suspect in the 70s a pristine Adenauer was worth maybe a few grand.

#261 of 281 Re: 3 on the tree!! [fintail] by fezo

Dec 23, 2008 (12:31 pm)

Replying to: fintail (Dec 23, 2008 10:38 am)
Let's see.... What's the opposite of pristine?......
 
BTW, I actually have to admit that would be considered my second car. In the summer of 68 dad bought a 56 Ford so that we had three cars which meant he's always have one around. Had a Thunderbird V8 in it. Was a stealth rocket. At the end of the summer he sold it which we thought was the worst thing he could do. By November 9 maybe even October) ge found that a third car was more of a necessity than he thought.
 
If you want to go to the first car I actually bought taht would be a 69 Volvo 142 that I bought in 73. A slow but steady special. Definite tortoise.

Messages Page 27 of 29

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