yes i had to vote it was a gift if you could actually call it a car.

in 1984 i got my drivers license. My dad bought me a 1970 chevy impala. it was wrecked and had been sitting outside rusting away for about 5 yrs. we picked it up put new tires hoses and battery in it and nursed it home at about 15mph

He paid 100.00 cash for it. I spent the summer fixing it up, body, engine etc and drove it for about 2 years.

To be honest i would really have prefered my bike. [:)]

mike

My grandfather gave me his 1985 Ford Crown Vic with 75k miles on it.  I had it for several years and ended up putting another 100k on it.  

76 Maverick, my Dad paid $700 for it in the summer of 90, I paid for the gas, insurance and constant stream of replacement parts. I think he thought that it was a good way for him to teach me how to take care of a vehicle, but things went askew very quickly. The day he bought I went out to the driveway, jumped in it and went to pull out to go show it to my best buddy, and I see a huge puddle of waterwhere the gine was when I cranked it, yep water pump failure the first time I started it. No big deal at this point the next day we fixed it together, the day after that we left on vacation in Florida. A week into the two week vacation we my dad gets a call, "Rusty, you need to get your ass back to Campbell, Iraq invaded Kuwait, Pilots need to report to Sabre in 36 hours to fly the birds to Jacksonville". So we get back to Ky from Florida as fast as an 89 Voyager could manage (which was pretty damn quick). I didn't really get a chance to drive the Maverick for during the next few days, until after he had left. The second time I drove the car I was driving down 41A when smoke starts billowing out from under the dash, yep electrical fire. At that point I knew jack about cars, my dad was overseas, and all of the neighborhood Mr. Fixit types who would have normally been glad to help out while dad was deployed were deployed with him. Fortunately I had already had a couple of years of electronis class so after it sat for a couple of months I got motivated and taught myself how to rewire a car, and this was no small feat, all of the wiring under the dash and most of the wiring under the hood had to be replaced. Finally after a lot of cussing and cut hands we got it working as good as new, two days later the fuel pump went south, replaced that but didn't use a torque wrench, good thing the parts place didn't ask questions when I returned the part, a week after tha the battery went bad, but after that I never had another problem with it. I did learn alot about wirking on cars, the only help I had was another neighborhood teenager who knew less than me about cars, his dad had bought him a car that needed a new engine, he had just bought a engine out of a wreck when he deployed, so we agreed to help each other out, both of our pops told us if we wnated to try working on the cars without them that was fine, so we got to leaqrn the hard way. My advice if you have never swapped an engine before, and you are not particularly experienced with automotive repairs, find somebody who knows what they are doing and beg them to help. My car took us six weeks to get completely rewired, his engine took us two months to replace, both projects should have been fairly simple weekend projects.

My dad paid for my first car, but I earned the righ to call it my own soon enough, my mom begged me to have it towed to the junk yard (the thought of this happening was what motivated me to fix it), plus in the end when I shipped out to basic my dad was driving it back and forth to work, just before I graduated a deer jumped in front of him on his way home, the car rolled.

Good for you, BigZ!  When I was born (1966), my Dad was driving a '64-1/2 Mustang convertible, which went for a '67 'Vette, which went for a '71 'Vette.  I can't (and won't) complain about anything I've ever had to drive, but I would have given ANYTHING at 16 if he had held onto any one of those three cars for me when he made the switch to "luxury cars."  He had the resources to do so - he just didn't think about it.  [chauvinist pig mode] If my forthcoming first child is a boy, I plan to do something like you are doing - restore something classic over time for him, hopefully with his help along the way; if it's a girl, she'll drive something big & safe - girls don't really appreciate cars anyway! [/chauvinist pig mode] [flame]

BTW, for the Corvette nuts here, Dad's '67 was a big-block convertible.  I realize what those are worth now (he maintains all his cars immaculately) & I cry every time I think of him getting $4000 in trade on that '71...