Got feeling nostalgic last night, dug up a few pics of past rides

April 02, 2007, 12:31:20 PM

I had to scan almost all of 'em, since they were pre-digital camera. I also had to size 'em pretty small to make it possible to post them with dialup. This probably represents about 1/4 of the cars I'd owned (No pics of the three Hyundais, two Sentras, the Saturn, the Opel/Daewoo, the Topaz, etc)

Let's start with my third car (no pics exist of the first or second one): 1980 Firebird Formula 301. Nice car but couldn't follow in the footsteps of car #1, a '78 Trans Am, or car #2, a '66 Galaxie 500 4-door hardtop

I traded the Formula in on a light sage green '85 Thunderbird V6 (my first Fox). Unfortunately this dark-ass picture is the only one I still have of it - my ex girlfriend took most of the pics when she fvcked off:

I then traded this in on a '91 V6 'Bird. This pic was actually taken after I sold it to my father, so technically it wasn't "mine" at the time of the pic. Notice the Cougar, Jeep, Nissan and Toyota in the picture - they were all mine at one point. More on them as we go on:

I hated that Thunderbird, and I won't bore you all with a repeat of why I hated it. I traded it to my father for two trucks (both shown in the above photo).

Truck #1 was a '90 Nissan King Cab 4X2. Dad bought this new in November '89. It had about 250k miles on it when I got it from him, and had about 500k on it when I sold it. The truck its had original engine coolant, spark plugs, air filter, brake rotors & drums (pads & shoes had been replaced regularly), ball joints, tie rod ends, and shocks at 500k miles. The only things that ever went wrong were the tranny (three times) and the body rusted:

Truck #2 was the '82 Toyota 4X4 affectionately known as the "Bawg Hawg". This truck literally fell apart - there was not a section of original frame longer than 6" in the whole truck. It left me stranded once when the starter fell off in a pouring rain storm. The transfer case seized up one time, turning the driveshaft into liquorice. The hydraulic clutch leaked. It was JUNK! Fun to beat about in the woods though - I sold it when the rear end imploded:

I got tired of driving trucks, so I parked 'em at Dad's place and bought an '85 Volvo 740. No pics of that one, but I also had dabbled in motorcycling and bought an '85 Honda CB450SC Nighthawk:

Then I wrecked the Volvo (got rear ended). The injuries prevented me from riding motorcycles, so I sold the Honda and reverted back to driving the Toyota and Nissan trucks until I could find a car. After a while I bought this '88 Cougar:

In addition to the Cougar came the first of two Cherokees I'd own - this one was an '87 two-door, 4-cyl, automatic 4X4. Yes, it sucked as bad as that sounds, and this vehicle still holds the record for worst fuel economy of anything I'd ever owned. You can just see the edge of it parked in the street (behind the Cougar) in the 91 T-Bird pic above - here's a better pic:

I ended up wrecking the Cougar, so I drove the Cherokee and searched until I found my '87 Sport T-Bird:

The two door Cherokee was dying quickly, so I got another one, this time a four-door, 4.0 model:

About this time I added a '94 Saturn SC2 to the fleet (no pics) and sold the 87 Sport. It was just too rusty to save. I hated the Saturn, though, so sought out another Fox. I hit paydirt with the current '88 I have now. This is how it looked when I bought it. I didn't take the wheels (he wanted an extra $500 for 'em):

The "Safety Inspection Gods" were calling the '87 4-door Cherokee back, so I sold it for parts (floor rotted out and rear end was failing). I replaced it as a winter beater with this '88 Dakota 4X4:

I ended up deciding that the '88 Bird should be retired from "Daily Driver" duty, and the Dakota sucked too bad to be seen in on a regular basis (and eventually had to be retired and sold for parts), so I bought this 2000 Volvo V70 XC AWD. It's junk:

...And finally, my first and only TC, which I owned for about two months before dismantling it for parts. It had rotted shock towers and front frame rails, but has provided a wealth of swap parts for my '88: