The
Next Car Thread and a recent poll on
Jalopnik have me thinking. I'd love to hear from guys like Mike and Jerry who've owned hundreds and I'm curious how many are driving their first car (I wish I got an SVX for my first car
). This being an enthusiast's site, I imagine there will be a lot of great cars in this thread. It'll be interesting to see what brought you to the SVX. Was it a history with Subaru, like me, or do you love Italdesign and drove a Scirocco prior to this?
My first car was a 1973 International Scout II with a 345 V8 and some substantial off road modifications. My Dad had built it when I was a kid. When he moved he gave it to a friend for "safe keeping" until I turned 16. It was hardly road-worthy by the time I got it, so aside from tooling around the trails near my house I didn't get to drive it much. My Mom owned a '87 GL wagon and a '92 Justy so I used those to get to town. I sold it after 6 months to buy something a little more drivable, and I still owe my Dad a built Scout someday.
This is one of my first black and white prints.
With the proceeds of the sale I bought a 1987 GL-10 Turbo sedan (FWD). My first Subaru, although I'd grown up in them. I drove it out to California with all my worldly possessions in it and it served me very well at the start of college. At about 210K miles it blew a head gasket and I sold it to the mechanic at the local Subaru dealership for $1000.
The only photo of my GL-10 known to exist. My sister took this the day I got it home. No laughing at 16 year old Kit.
That's when I picked up the ill fated 1979 Volvo 242 GT. It was a blast to drive. So I did. A lot. In two months I'd put over 4 thousand miles on it with my 50 mile a day commute and 3 road trips. It overheated two miles from my house and I decided to keep running her all the way there. It never started again. I had big plans to install a new motor with IPD goodies on it but with no money and no facilities it sat outside my apartment for six months. I walked. A lot. Finally it got towed to the impound. I didn't want to pay $250 to get a dead car out of hock, so I ended up giving them the title and they sold it to the county fair. I sat on the hill the night it was run over by monster trucks, listening to the roar from the distance. I was sad. A lot. That Volvo made it to Valhalla.
Again, the only photo ever recorded. This was at Marin County Headlands overlooking the Golden Gate.
I spent a couple months searching for an XT. A 1987 XT Turbo 5-speed popped up 400 miles from me so logically I rented a car and drove out with a friend to pick it up, sight unseen. It was a mess, and even though I still had time to back out of the deal I bought the thing anyway. The previous owner had a stack of paperwork from various auctions in various states instead of a title, the tags were from Oregon and two years expired, and it lurched really bad under heavy acceleration. At the time I fancied myself an undiscovered Petter Soldberg and went out "rallying" every weekend. It managed to survive the end of college, although the air-ride collapsed and I'd broken five axles over a year and a half. I moved back to Colorado with it and commuted a 20 mile canyon in it for a year. With the flat suspension I could drift it by flicking my wrist. Tires were cheep and expendable. I remember it breaking 200K miles sometime before the fuel pump died one night in the middle of nowhere and I just took everything out of it and left it there. It sat there with its four year old out-of-state tags for about a month then disappeared. I never heard from it again. Not my most responsible era.
This car was heavily photographed. This was it's natural habitat.
I bought a 1992 Legacy L sedan in "geezer-pleaser gold" for a whoppin $3400, the most I've ever paid for a car. That thing was a tank. None of my normal car abuse would even faze it and it ran for 4 years with nothing more than oil changes, brake pads, and the occasional axle (it is a Subaru after all). In the time I owned it I went from mountain commuting daily in Colorado to a sedate commute through LA traffic and it excelled at both. In it's life it saw dirt roads in eleven states. At 225K miles some little things started going bad and I wanted to upgrade. It did one more crazy road-trip/rally for old time's sake and the radiator cracked on a jump. It leaked slowly but got me home 350 miles that night, stopping to refill the water every twenty minutes. I tried selling it on Craigslist for a while but there were no takers, so eventually it went to Pick-a-part although it still drove when they came to pick it up. What can I say, I was distracted by my new car.
Here it is stretching it's legs in the High Sierra.
1992 Subaru SVX. Coming up on three years of ownership and over 215K miles, it's the first car I've ever babied. It turns twenty years old some time this month. I should get it something special.
I've posted a lot of pics of this car here, but I just can't help it.
My post was a bit long winded, but I had fun trying to recollect them all. Let's hear what you've driven, even if it's just a headcount.