Did your Dad own a cool car?

My Dad bought the '70 Triumph GT6 when he graduated from the Naval Academy in 1970. When I got my driver's license in 1992, he let me drive it to school (it was bright yellow at the time). I still have it to this day

My uncle bought a 1965 Shelby Mustang and still has it. I'm trying to get him to let me do a story on it. At my moms funeral wake ten years ago the first thing my Aunt said was he still has the Shelby.

My dad was always a car guy but never had the money to own cool cars. In high school he drove his dad's '58 Edsel in pink, then when he and mom married they bought a brand new 1964 Chevy Malibu, then in '68 he bought his all time favorite car, an Olds Culass S with a manual trans. He would burn the tires up seemed like every month, he loved it so much. He also had an Olds Vista Cruiser wagon with wood grain sides and a 454 under the hood. Later he got away from the Oldsmobiles and bought a 1991 Corvette as a gift to himself ( he bought it a month before I got married and the month after I got married my sis graduated college, so he was done raising us. He gave me the Vette last fall as a gift for my 50th. Still is all original with 37,000 miles and the original tires still on it. Needless to say, new ones are in the works....

There's something to be said for runaway nostalgia.

Dad graduated high school in 62 and went to the Army as a helicopter mechanic. He's always had a jeep of some kind to plow snow and get to hunting spots. He came back to the states from Korea and ordered a new 1965 fastback Wimbledon white, red interior, but changed his mind and didn't take delivery. I forget what he drove until he got his 62 Corvette convertible used. He bought his 66 Corvette Coupe as a Hurricane Agnes flood car in 72. I was born in 75 (a twin) and by 77 or 78 both vettes were on blocks in our barn, covered in blankets. I can still recall finally convincing my dad to get the 62 out of the barn and start to partially restore it about 1988 or 89. It got new interior and running over that year and I drove it to my high school prom. Finally last year he finished the body work and repainted it. The 66 sat longer and he did a body off nut and bolt restoration on it in the early 2000s.

He showed me how to rebuild an engine with my 67 Mustang bought in 90 or sother that I still have.

The car he talks most fondly of is his best friend Lee's 1964 GTO, and a legendary road trip from GA to PA for some occasion, possibly an army leave weekend. I should ask to hear that story again.

Edited to add I wish he still had the 80s Toronado, red, white vinyl top and leather (ish) interior, and one of his Willys jeeps.

I'm a youngin' but he had all sorts of Mopars when I was a kid. GTXs, Chargers, Road Runners etc. The one I was most scared of was a 5-600 hp 68 Charger R/T. On street tires, it would break loose all the way through third. He even had a 64 Valiant drag car I wasn't that scared of. I'm not entirely sure where I went wrong, I've been trying to corner since I got my license lol.

My dad wasn't what I would consider a true, dyed in the wool car guy, totally mechanically inept and thought modifying a car was sacrilege, but I guess you could say he is one who appreciates good cars. There was a Saab 900 at the time I was born, followed by a Volvo 740 and then an 850. The Volvo's were both good cars, if a bit boring (both were NA and auto ) After that came his first new car, the crown jewel, an 04 S2000 in Silverstone Metallic. I think my own car enthusiasm had really begun to wear on him by then . He kept the S2k for 4 years nearly to the day and sold it, not coincidentally, at nearly the same time my first tuition payment came due. I'll definitely have an S2k of my own someday, as long as prices don't shoot through the roof before I get the chance.

After that came a 96 328is that I later "bought" from him, then (concurrently with the Bimmer) a creampuff W210 E350 that was sort of an impulse buy from a neighbor up the road. The Benz got dumped when things started breaking for a '15 Tundra, which he still has and still refuses to use as a truck (to his credit, he has always kept his cars very nice.) Luckily he has always kept an actual truck around for doing real truck things. Currently in that role is an '00 Tundra (I guess he's building a collection), preceded by a 94 K2500 that my sister killed, and a 90 F150 HD prior to that.

My dad has always had a thing for Porsches too, though he's never owned one. His old boss had an 87 (I think) 911 though, and there is some fantastic story of him driving it to the far side of Harrisburg in a completely ridiculous span of time that is often used to vouch for his driving prowess. He's almost pulled the trigger on a few air cooled 911s back when they were cheap, as well as an $8k e30 M3, but never did. I think I see a Boxster sometime in his future.

My father always had some "souped up" car. I vaguely remember a late 40's Chrysler with some engine work done to it. After that was a 57 Chrysler 300C which I learned to drive in. That was followed by:

The Mustang (Alfa was mine, bought when I graduated college). It was the first 289 HIPO in SW PA. That Mustang was followed by this one.

390 engine that somehow found an extra 4bbl, some cams, and a bunch of Shelby suspension parts. He drove this one until he passed away in 1970.

The Mustangs were combination DD/Auto-X cars that got a good work out between my Father, my younger brother, and I.

kb58 wrote: If car interest was a pool, dad wasn't interested in a swim, cars were simply appliances to him. On the other hand, his brother-in-law loved cars. One picture we have is him in a really sharp suit posing next to his freshly waxed sedan - looks like he's right out of Mad Men. Of course dad didn't care for him. In spite of that, two of dad's cars are memorable: 1. A Dodge Polara station wagon, made special because at the time dad kept bees as a hobby and spilled this horrid-smelling stuff (used to repel bees from their hive) onto the carpet. Got to smell that for years, but the good news was that no bees bothered us. 2. A 1969 Dodge Dart in "appliance white." A very effective substitute for birth control, with its slant-6 engine keeping all girls away. Actually that last part isn't true since I hardly ever got to drive it. The repelling part was all me, but I digress.

My dad also wasn't/isn't a car guy, and also had a Dodge Polara station wagon. Here is a picture of it while it was still in service.

After we got another family car, it sat in the yard for a number of years before they had it towed away. To this day, still one of the largest cars I've come across. He also had a 1978 Toyota Corolla coupe that he kept bone stock, until I bought it off him at age 16 and did this to it:

Ummm, yep. Essex, Bugeye Sprite, '63 Jaguar sedan,XJ-12, various Caddies (including limos), 2-stroke Saab, '55 Chevy truck, '61 dual cab WV truck, various bugs and vans, '32 Ford, work trucks out the wazoo, I'm sure I'm forgetting some, and that's not including the boats, Ex police Harley, or string of Japanese bikes. He always wanted a Lotus.

Yeah. Wish I had photos but reportedly it goes like this: '63 Impala with TurboFire v8 (and rusted out floors. Suppoedly you could see the highway when you drove it), '61 Buick Invicta, a series of c10s when he was working construction, some year SuperBeetle (but I'm pretty sure every car guy had one of these in the 70s), '74 Volvo 142 wagon, '72 2002tii, '82? FB RX7.

Dad had cool cars before my time but i was child 2 so he had settled down a bit. He had an old jeep on "co op" mud tires that would sing me to sleep on the highway, only thing holding me in was a seat belt with the doors off. Sold that when i was 10 or so then got a 68 gto when i was 13 and man i loved that car, i ended up working on it all the time (dad doesn't do mechanic work only i do) and driving it more than him. He sold that when i was 20? Dad was always into hot boats though, donzis, scarabs, bajas so i had plenty of unmuffled v8s though my years. My grand parents on the other hand always had something cool, my grandmother still owns the 1954 corvette shes owned since the 70s and when i was young my grandfather had a pair of c3 corvettes. Before my time they had a barn full of vettes but only the 54 is still with them now

Within the context of his not being a car guy (doesn't even change his own oil) the fact that my pops has an MR-S - that he flew to NY (from WA) to buy and drive back - is pretty cool.

My dad's first car was a plain white slant-six Plymouth Fury III his friends called the "nun's car".

I was brought home from the hospital in a 5 speed Cadillac Cimarron.

His next car was a Lebaron Turbo 5-door with leather and a 5 speed. Then he got boring for the next 12 years or so before buying a first year Cadillac CTS 5 speed (with the 3.2L Opel/Vauxhall V6). Then he owned a series of new Mustangs and Camaros and just traded his Mustang for a Jeep as his daily driver and bought a lightly used C7 Z06.

Also when I was 13 he bought a 1966 Mustang Convertible (2 bbl 289 V8, automatic). Cool looking car, not exciting to drive and pretty easy to drive. It's matching numbers so it has some value, but the paint is pretty flawed (it's a mediocre red re-spray done in the early 80's over original gold paint), so the car wasn't so valuable that it didn't stop him from letting me drive it almost as soon as I got my license. Driving that thing to football games and prom in High School was pretty fun. He still has it and some day I guess it will be mine and I won't know what to do with it. If I'm going to have a collector car I want it to be one that's actually exciting to drive, but I've known that car longer than I've known most of my friends, so it would be hard to sell it. I suppose I could also restomod it and keep the original 289, 3 speed automatic, suspension and styled steel wheels in a crate to sell with the car when the time has finally come, but that seems like a waste of money and at that point it wouldn't even really be the same car anymore so what's the point.

LONG POST AHEAD

My dad had an impressive array of great cars that started in the late '50s and continues today. Some of his highlights:

First car, Model A, then '39 Mercury convertible. In his college years he had a Triumph TR3 (when I was shopping for an English car of my own in the middle '80s, he said I could get anything I wanted EXCEPT a TR3. His was that bad).

He had a stretch during the late '50s and early '60s where he had a year-old Corvette, but wanted a little English car, and kept switching back and forth. He had a '59 Vette, then one of the first A-H 100-4s imported... traded that for a '61 Vette, then went back to a 100-6, then swapped that for a '62 Vette, which turned into a A-H 3000 a year or so later.

In the mid '60s he got married and bought a new '64 1/2 Mustang coupe for her. He had a Sunbeam Tiger and decided the 289 in the Mustang would be better in the Tiger, so he swapped engines between the two cars, and if I remember the story right, neither car worked very well afterwards.

He took up sports car racing with an early Spitfire in G Production. He needed a trailer and found what was a small travel trailer that was a victim of a fire. So it was a bare frame that he laid plywood over and that worked for years. His first tow vehicle was a '67 Corvette convertible 427/435 4-speed. Later on he raced a second Spitfire in F Production.

He started ice racing with NYSIRA and AMEC while also road racing, and continued doing that after giving up pavement. He ran a couple Corvairs and then switched to '70s Civics in the early '80s.

The amount of interesting street cars he had is huge and I doubt I'll remember all of them. Just off the top of my head: Karmann Ghia, Porsche 914-6, Fiat X1/9, Datsun Roadster, two or three MGBs, Spitfire, Lotus Elan... I know there are a bunch more. He had a handful of fixer-uppers that were either abandoned restoration projects or light renovations that he kept briefly and made money at: a couple early Mustangs, a '67 Riviera, and a A-H 100-6. He pretty much single-handedly built a Factory Five Cobra kit and drove that for a dozen years before selling it recently.

Then there were the Corvettes. In addition to the early '60s Vettes he had when they were newish, and the '67, he bought a '62 in the mid '70s and still has that today. In the early '80s he got a '71 454/4-spd coupe and kept that for 15 years or so. In the mid '80s he bought a '73 convertible 350/4-spd in screaming yellow but didn't hang onto that one long. On the plus side, that's the one I drove a lot in the summer of '85 after graduating high school.

All this time, my mother had zero interest in any of these cars. After the first Mustang, she drove station wagons that also towed dad's race cars. Then, starting in the mid '70s, she got a steady stream of stripped-down bare-bones hatchbacks ('74 Civic, '81 Plymouth Champ, '86 Mazda 323, then a couple Ford ZX2 coupes, and now a '07 Civic sedan, which was her first automatic transmission-equipped car since the station wagons). One of the fix-and-flip Mustangs - a '66 convertible - was supposed to be an anniversary present for her. She drove it a few times but quickly gave it up because it was a 6-cyl automatic and was no fun to drive.

Dear old dad is now approaching his 82nd birthday and maintains a small fleet. He still has the '62 Vette and the '92 Sunburst Miata he bought new. He also has a Chevy Cobalt coupe for winter duty and just last year bought a screaming yellow '04 Corvette convertible. He tries to put about 2500 miles on each car annually and still does all the work on these cars himself. I tried to tempt him to add another car to the fleet by letting him take my '08 MX5 for a test drive but he resisted.

I hope I'm as cool as my dad when I grow up.

My dad owns some cool cars, but prior to the last 15 years or so his cars tended to be more boring. A couple hundred dollar 50's and 60's beaters, some malaise era boats, some vans. I guess $75 got you a better car in 1965 than it does now, but still not one that burns less than 4 quarts of oil per tank of gas...

My MOM on the other hand got a 70 mustang as her first car. it was only a 6 cylinder, but it had a stick. She recently told me if she made more than $2 an hour as a waitress, she would've preferred a 1970 Cougar with a 351. Later she had a Mercury LN7 which she says was sporty looking but gutless, though it had the benefit of having valves that actually sealed (mustang was toast by then, so much flooring it burned up the engine). In the 80's she got a MKIII supra turbo that she had for my entire life (up to now, she still has it), though she currently drives an NC miata for her day to day driving, unless she needs to bring passengers. She once looked into a Boxster, an M roadster, corvette, but never wanted to give up her Supra.

The short answer is no.

My Dad owned a couple of cool cars purely by happenstance but other then his new Covair all rest were dull.

Now my Great Grandfather was in the planning stages of manufacturing a car at the time of his death in 1903.

I've rectified my fathers sins by owning & racing several cool cars.

In reply to irish44j:

That's really cool. And explains why you can never sell that car.

I sometimes wonder what things would have been like had my father bought one of the Triumphs he was looking at in 1978 instead of the F10. Of course, after 8 years of living outside, by the time I was driving in 1986 it would have probably rusted away to nothing.

Like a Healey 100, a Shelbyized Mustang, Datsun 2000, a few Triumph Spifires? Nah.

In reply to Claff:

You win.

Man, you guys have some seriously cool families.

Also, a lot of you are older than I thought.

(none of these pics are the actual cars)

My dad was always interested in cars, but never totally got into it. First car was a Chevy truck that he shared with his brother, and lots of storied from college, where he had an Oldsmobile Omega (1973 I think?).

He had the opportunity to buy a cool car that I have since forgotten, but ended up with the Omega because it had a bench seat, and his girlfriend at the time wanted that particular feature.... My mom started out with a big old '70s Bonneville, and then had a turbo Sunbird for some time, around which time my dad actually had a Buick Grand National.

I've heard a few stories about that one, but now that I'm thinking about it, probably fewer than I should have expected. After that, he had a series of GM cars due to working at Delphi, most of which weren't interesting at all. There were a few Corvettes (I remember a C4 and a very early C5) and some 4th gen F-bodies. It usually ended up being whatever vehicle needed field test hours on it, and we'd have them for a few weeks. When I was born, the cars we actually owned became leased family vehicles, mainly Tahoes and Astro vans.

Dad is very mechanically inclined and did/does most work himself, but never modified anything or got involved in competition. I, on the other hand, have apparently always been a car guy. Even as a kid, matchbox cars and legos (which I'd build cars out of) were the best thing ever. My mom took cross stitch classes when we lived in Europe, and her teacher had a '60s Mini with Panasports and driving lights on the bumper. I would pretend I was driving that car once a week, for 2 hours at a time, no problem.

When I was 12 or 13, my dad was looking for a mid life crisis car, and was set on a 964 911, before they shot up in value. We almost bought a 911 America Roadster, but it sold from under him. Mom saw an old red BMW in the corner....and long story short, we ended up with a 1993 E34 M5, which he still owns today. Mom is so proud of picking that car out.

That E34 was a big part of me getting my E30 as a first car, and I actually got dad to autocross and go to a few HPDEs with me in the M5. We hadn't really bonded much before that, but cars really brought us together. And since then, I've also gotten him to get an adventure bike (BMW F800GS), and he rides more than I do now.

So not a gearhead like a lot of people here, but definitely with car guy tendencies.

My mom and dad always liked cars. They took me to the 12 Hours of Sebring, and the 24 Hours of Daytona when I was a kid. I guess that made an impression on me. They bought me my first Sprite ($100) and, later, my first set of NEW race tires for my racing Sprite.

Some cool cars my dad has owned: 1970 Challenger R/T 383 Magnum (Plum Crazy purple, of course), MGB, MGB-GT, Bugeye

iceracer wrote: My dad was a Stutz dealer until they closed shop.

I think you win this discussion.

My Dad owned a 1969 Chevelle SS 396, which he laments selling to buying a house to this day. My Mom owned a Volvo P1800 that rusted in half and an 78-ish MGB, both of which qualify as cool (modulo rubber bumpers on the MGB)

Neither one of them has owned anything cool since, although Mom is eying the new Miatas for retirement

When my parents got married my Dad had an Alfa Spider and MGA

Previous to their engagement, he had owned a Peerless GT and Jag 140 coupe

(these pics via google as he never got around to photographing his cars)