First Car Series!

[Reegs]

Low mileage 1961 Rambler American 2-door sedan. Cast-iron flathead six w/automatic. Cost me all of $95 back in '71.

[BIG E]

Eric, not all of us Yanks had V8 power right off. First car I ever took down the drag strip at New York National Speedway here on Long Island, NY was the nearly new 1968 Ford Falcon I had borrowed from Mom and Dad (at age 17) to take my NY driver's test in. After becoming legal, I "blistered" the track with consistent low 19 (!) second E.T.s, winning my class in Q/stock Automatic a few times. Even made it to the bracket racing finals once, but lost that night time event to a big block automatic '64 Ford Country Squire, a bracket race terror he was - all the rear windows were covered in winner decals!
Yeah, a '68 Falcon... 200 cu. in. straight six, 1 bbl. carb, 120 hp, C4 three speed auto trans and some Firestone 6.95 x 14 Deluxe Champion whitewall tires. Air cleaner off, timing advanced a bit, back seats out, trunk empty, hub caps off, and tires set at 2 psi. above spec. Flew through the speed traps at an "earth shattering" 69 MPH, still winding out second gear! Popped it into drive for the shutdown.

First car I ever purchased (for $700 in 1971) was a '65 Ford Galaxie 2 door hardtop. Hi Perf 390 cu. in. 4 bbl. V8, factory dual exhaust system, Ford "Toploader" 4 speed transmission. Immediately added were my first two aftermarket accessories, a Hurst "Competition Plus" shifter and a Mallory Dual Point distributor. Now THAT car was a different story...

You can see by all the posts preceding mine that some of us did have some pretty cool rides, I love the '60 Ford Starliner, for sure!
Great posts everyone! -- Ernie :>)

*** Oh Yeah, I did model that car a few times for 1/24-25 scale hard body racing on both commercial and club tracks, Ford Tropical Turquoise paint and all. I have a dealer promotional model of it also, but still haven't gotten to building up a proper replica from one of the AMT styrene plastic kits. Another job on the model/slot car to do list...