First Cars and Musclecars

[Beavis]

My first car was a pile of junk.

I bought it with two or three months of paper route money and was PROUD to own it.

It had something we called....potential.

That was over 30 years ago, and I worked it every day in my spare time.

My Dad poured his extra time, money, and talent into my project for it to become a great car [unbeknownst to me this was major bonding experience] and we eventually sold the car for a profit after I graduated from high school.

Here's the difference.

Nowadays most kids don't want to know how stuff works on their cars, and most parents don't either.

Given the fact these kids really don't know much of anything about cars, it doesn't matter much. They still don't want to drive some un-cool, (old), fixed up car!

When my son turned 16 he already appreciated the nice cars I've owned. So because of his good grades [and saving his own money] he ended up with a very nice used low mileage 2008 Saturn Aura XR.

It was a little more than I wanted to spend, but since he was such a good student I gave in and he ended up with more options than you'd expect for a sixteen year old, plus a damn good powertrain! (the General rated the 3.6 at 265HP but was later rated at 300HP in the Cadillacs a few years after).

I'm talking about a kid who claimed not to be looking for anything sporty, who wasn't a car oriented kid, who had no list of things to meet his "basic" requirements.....that suddenly changed his tune.

We started looking for cars and all of a sudden <span style="text-decoration: underline">he had to have </span>such items as a V6 engine - check, dual exhaust - check, fog lights -check, 18&quot; wheels -check, heated leather seats -check, sunroof -check, really good factory stereo -check, and the list went on and on....

Here's the bottom line, some kids may not (say) or seem interested in modern cars, but in fact they really are. We ended up buying the best car in our price range that hit all of his hot buttons (sort of like 1970's Dad giving into the muscle car era crazed kid I guess).

I know my kid's not into muscle cars like his father, but he does have some passion for his car and he thinks is pretty cool. Getting back to the original point, the times have obviously changed with our kids....but the same priorities we had in our 80's high school days are still alive today. We just wanted to drive something cool, within our price range, that got respect, and wasn't going to get us laughed at.

Thirty-plus years later, whitewalls still suck..........but four-doors are now finally considered okay in school.