[Pat O'Connell]

I have the mentality that a first car should a least be partially covered financially by the child. My stepdaughter started off in an old Ford Taurus as a first car about 3 years ago, cost $400.00 and she paid for it out of her savings...We did a lot of maintenance/fixup on the car, and she really took pride of ownership because she paid for it herself (along with learning a lot about cars) My wife and I covered insurance and plates and she was responsible for gas money. I think it was a fairly easy way to enter into the responsibility of car ownership, in that she had a financial stake in the car, but knew that we'd help her with it along the way. She's now at Mercer Univ. in Atlanta working on a PharmD degree and stepped up to a Blazer for her daily ride. She still has the Taurus stored at my shop, and won't let it go because it was her first car that she bought. Now she wants to drive the Yenko!