All My Cars

All The Gas Guzzling , CO2 Spewing Internal Combustion Monsters I have Known and Loved!

As I was filing some photos the other day I came across a bunch of pictures of cars I have owned. It is amazing how many cars one ends up owning in the course of a twenty-five year driving career. The fact that for 10 years during that time I did not personally own a car because I had a succession of company cars amazes me even further. Take a look... Some of these photos were not my car but are pictures off the Internet.

1969 Plymouth Barracuda
w/225 slant six
My first car. I loved this car, enough said.

1970 Volkswagen Beetle
Easily the biggest piece of crap I've ever owned. Other than the fabulous clutch and the huge trunk there was nothing to like about this hunk of "German engineering".

1969 Chevy Van (mine was Orange)
I traded the Volkswagen for this thing. It was a danger to me and any one who ever got near it. I ended up painting like a hippy van - huge mistake - neither the cops nor my girlfriend's dad liked it very much. Neither did I.

1970 Dodge Dart (mine was tan)
I hardly remember this car. I didn't have it for too long and don't recall what happened to it.

1980 Plymouth Horizon TC3 (mine was dark blue)
Easily the second biggest piece of junk I ever owned. It had - yes, you guessed it - a Volkswagen engine. There was almost nothing to like about this car... If I think hard enough... No, nothing.

1986 Chrysler Lebaron GTS (mine was a non-turbo)
This was the first and only NEW car I ever bought. My wife and I loved this car and took exquisite care of it. At precisely 100,000 miles it blew a head gasket and it never ran right again after that. We sold it with a heavy heart and vowed never to own a Chrysler again.

1986 Mercury Sable Wagon
This was purchased in haste to replace the Chrysler. It was a comfortable, capable car with lots of extras. It also had lots of extra costs too. Every repair required the equivalent of the entire GDP of a small nation. Talk about nickle and diming you to death... When the heater core went and we were told it would $550 to replace it we waited for spring and sold it!

1988 Chevrolet Celebrity Wagon
This was my first GM car. It was a retired taxi that had had the odometer tampered with. By the time I donated it to Camp Courage it was a rust bucket without a muffler, but it started and ran as smoothly as the day I bought it. The odometer said 209,000 - no telling how many miles it actually had. It was by far the most plain-jane generic car I had ever owned but it was the best, most reliable transportation I ever had.

1992 Pontiac Grand Prix LE (mine was light blue/gray)
Another car that I really loved. It gave me little trouble and the repair costs where reasonable. Except for poorly engineered rear disk brakes it was a very decently made car. I gave it to my daughter and at 14 tears old it is still used everyday.

1995 Pontiac Transport SE
We bought this one to pull around our little pop-up camper and to haul around kids and groceries. It served it's purpose. It was not as mechanically sound as it should have been considering it was the top of the line mini-van of its era. It sucked to drive, like driving a barn down the road except that a barn would have handled better. When the power windows started to fail and it needed a host of other repairs it was time to go. I donated to a school that trained mechanics and gave the vehicles to the poor.

2001 Toyota RAV4
My wife currently drives this little SUV. It is the first foreign car we have ever bought. (I have wiped the Volkswagen Beetle from my memory) What can I say - it is a great vehicle. It is a bit under powered for my tastes and the little 2 liter four banger is noisy and buzzy but it runs and drives great. Other than a water pump that the mechanic (who was replacing the belt) said was showing signs that it just might one day spring a leak it has been defect free to 71,000 miles. Face it, Toyota's and Honda's are great cars...


2001 Pontiac Grand Prix SE
This my current ride. I've had it just under a year so jury is still out on it. It has been defect free so far. It rides a little rough for my tastes but it handles great and I am surprised by the snort this small V6 engine has. The heat and A/C and the stereo are first rate. And just look at it - it is gorgeous car!