mudgeons' kids' first cars

[Alan]

Originally Posted by John V

It will never stop being a WTF moment for me.

I understand where you are coming from but here it is not unusual for the kids to get these type of cars, it is the norm, it is no surprise having a kid show up at the house with a new MB, BMW or Audi.

[dan]

Originally Posted by Alan

I understand where you are coming from but here it is not unusual for the kids to get these type of cars, it is the norm, it is no surprise having a kid show up at the house with a new MB, BMW or Audi.

And by “here” you mean the AF household?

[lip277]

Originally Posted by dan

And by “here” you mean the AF household?

Yeah - me too.

When I was growing up, there were some families that gave my classmates new cars. And new guns... new boats and such.

I remember one day I made a comment to my parents about a girl at school who had a brand new Trans Am (looked exactly like THIS).

The girls parents were the type that always had the flashy house - flashy watches, big hair and super white teeth. If you were a later teenager in those days - you know what I mean.

My mom and I made a bet - She bet me a weeks worth of doing the dishes that in 3 months the car would be totaled. I knew the girl (kinda/sorta) and thought better of the situation.

I won the bet. She made it past 12 weeks and the car was in good shape.
But not for long... after 14 weeks she wrapped that car around a telephone pole out in the farm fields near our city.

My Mom made her point though... I willingly did the dishes.

The absolute best part of this though was that her next car was something like THIS (as best as my memory 40 years later can get). A middling 6 or 7 year old used car in an obnoxious color. LOL

[FC]

Ha! Good story. I went to HS where I now live, and although it is an even yuppier town than it was back then (there are no lower income or undesirable areas anymore), it had many fancy neighborhoods. Most kids who got cars got hand-me-downs from grandparents or parents (old, high mileage cars - some nicer, some not), but occasionally someone would score a brand new Corolla/Cavalier/Escort. One girl got a brand new Eddie Bower Edition Explorer. That was the fanciest car in HS that was 100% assigned to the student. This was ~1996.

[kognito]

My parents gave me my first car.

It was a 9 year old Corvair convertible. (but it was in excellent shape, and I had helped my father install a new rag top when he first bought it)

They gave it to me after I stripped and painted all the trim on our house (2900 SQ FT ranch)

I was then told that I could paint the whole house for 12 months of insurance for MY car, or find another solution. At least, in 1974 insurance wasn't too bad, but that is when I took an afterschool job at the local Mobil gas station

[JST]

Originally Posted by lip277

Yeah - me too.

When I was growing up, there were some families that gave my classmates new cars. And new guns... new boats and such.

I remember one day I made a comment to my parents about a girl at school who had a brand new Trans Am (looked exactly like THIS).

The girls parents were the type that always had the flashy house - flashy watches, big hair and super white teeth. If you were a later teenager in those days - you know what I mean.

My mom and I made a bet - She bet me a weeks worth of doing the dishes that in 3 months the car would be totaled. I knew the girl (kinda/sorta) and thought better of the situation.

I won the bet. She made it past 12 weeks and the car was in good shape.
But not for long... after 14 weeks she wrapped that car around a telephone pole out in the farm fields near our city.

My Mom made her point though... I willingly did the dishes.

The absolute best part of this though was that her next car was something like THIS (as best as my memory 40 years later can get). A middling 6 or 7 year old used car in an obnoxious color. LOL

That's a rad Trans Am. Even as a Ford guy, I kind of wanted one of those.

Despite going to school in a rather snooty part of Detroit, there weren't a lot of people with really nice cars in my HS--one dude several years ahead of me drove an R5 Turbo to school from time to time, and another had his dad's M6 occasionally, but mostly it was relatively late-model Fords and GMs (a 6000 STE, e.g.).

The safety thing was a big deal back then, too, though; as janky as 80s cars are these days, I remember my parents becoming slightly alarmed at the idea that I'd rescue and press into service the semi-wrecked A1 Golf one of my neighbors had, or the Bavaria that was rusting into one of my other neighbors' lawns. They were also pretty reluctant at the idea of the 10 year old 320 that I found, even though it wasn't that expensive, because "if you have a BMW for your first car, where do you go from there?"

[SARAFIL]

Originally Posted by JST

They were also pretty reluctant at the idea of the 10 year old 320 that I found, even though it wasn't that expensive, because "if you have a BMW for your first car, where do you go from there?"

My first car was a 10 year old BMW, and have yet to own a non-BMW 20 years later. So maybe your parents were right! 😂

[John V]

I went to school in a relatively affluent area but parents buying new cars for their kids wasn't really a thing. One girl drove a 4th-gen V8 camaro (the first one I ever saw in the wild, actually.. they had just been released when I was a sophomore) that her parents bought her but the rest of us either drove shit cars we bought ourselves or got a hand-me-down Hondas and Toyotas.

I get that I'm not a parent and so my opinion on this subject is meaningless and it does make sense for kids who need a car to have something safe and reliable. Stability control, blind-spot warnings, maybe some lane-keeping kind of stuff. But buying a new luxury car for a 16-year old just kind of makes me shake my head. I always felt like luxury items were what you bought when you had worked hard and could afford to reward yourself.

[Jeff_DML]

I am actually having a related discussion with my wife. I grew up in a affluent area which was similar to what you guys described, kids getting fancy cars, while she grew up in a lower income area.

For our boys first car, her perspective is why wouldn't we buy a car for them since we can afford it but I want them to earn it/have buy in. My older son is about to turn 15 so we will see how this works out.

[robg]

Also grew up in an affluent area and went to public school. The kids who had new or newish cars drove stuff like fox body Mustangs, Chrysler Lebarons, and Golf GTis. The nicest car was probably a Dodge Stealth now that I think about it. My car was a hand me down volvo 240 wagon. Other kids had hand me down Jeep Cherokees that were still considered pretty nice. My wife, on the other hand, went a boarding school and we were talking about this the other day. She was like "yeah, our parking lot was filled with Saabs, BMWs and even some Porsches". I think there were a couple kids at my school that occasionally got to drive their dads 911 or 5 series but that's about it.