I’ve owned more than a dozen cars in my life beginning with this example of a 1970s gas guzzler, a 1974 Mercury Montego Brougham.   MX Brougham to be exact.  It was identical to the one in the above picture, right down to the faded blue paint and vinyl roof.   For some reason I didn’t take any pictures of it, and as evident in the photo below, I spurned it on prom night for my parents’ Mercury Monarch, whose color embarrassingly matched that of my awful tuxedo.   At least my mullet was cool, right?

I picked up the Montego for about $700 from someone in my hometown of Norwood, Massachusetts.  As I recall, it had about 80 thousand miles or so, and chugged down about 12 miles of gas to the gallon.  It had those elongated safety bumpers mandated by the federal government in the 1970s and by the 80s when I bought it, the car looked pretty out of style, but it was cheap, and I loved it.

I had a few more beaters after that until I graduated college and bought my first new car, a 1986 Buick Skyhawk T-Type.

Again, not mine in the photograph, but this Skyhawk is a dead ringer: same color and I never took the fog lamp covers off either.   Buick only sold a few hundred of these models, so they were pretty rare.   I haven’t seen one in the wild in years.

I was sold on the funky interior and a built in tape cassette holder.  Loved that baby Buick until I traded it in for this:  https://dennishouse.tv/2013/12/02/my-wheels-in-big-wheels/

What was your first car?