After I got a job, then my license at 16, prerequisites in that order, my father bought me an 8 year old 1969 VW Type III for $900. Not knowing how to drive a stick shift, he took me to a nearby school to do some starts/stops, let me drive back home, and told me at that point I was on my own. That car sat in the garage for a few weeks before I got the courage up to venture out alone.

Being a VW, you never had heat in the winter time and had to scrap the inside of the windshield off as you traveled down the road. Other than that, the engine functioned without oil half the time as I was too busy to check the level of that vital fluid. But it just ran and ran and ran! It managed the winter roads of MI on half bald bias ply tires, and at the same time I began to discover the rot that was working its way through the underside.

The only times it ever let me down were a few instances the fuel injection electronics got damp and needed to dry out for an hour or so so it would start. 16 months later, with a rear bumper strut rusted through, and a driver side door inoperable from the inside, I traded it in for $100 on a brand new '78 Honda Civic. That first set of wheels I owned, faithfully got me out of our house on weekends, kept me off of the school bus with the little kids, and was there on more than one dating milestone. It wasn't much. But it was mine and it was a blast!

Mark