My first car was a hand-me-down from my Dad, who was in sales and consequently drove a lot for most of when I was growing up.  He had a light metallic blue 1982 Subaru GL notchback sedan.  It had a 5-speed manual transaxle with a small in-line four cylinder engine.  It had a light gray interior with a pop-up sunroof, power windows and door locks, A/C, power steering and brakes.  It was a well equipped automobile that was great in the snow (FWD...) and served its purpose well for a few years.  It had well over 100k miles on it when the time came to either get the engine overhauled or get a new car.  Looking back, I should have kept the car and gotten the work done...well, hindsight is always 20-20.

I tried to find some pictures of this model Subaru but so far no luck, if you come across any by chance, click here to email me with the link info!

I only wish the 2 door 1985 Ford Escort Pony car 4-speed manual model I had looked as good as the picture above!  Once I decided to rid myself of the Subaru, my Mom and Dad took me shopping for another vehicle.  And so it was that we ran across the legendary Ford Escort with 64,000 miles on it and a bare minimum of creature comforts.  Power nothing in other words...not even A/C!  Boy was that ever a mistake!  Oh well, this car served its purpose until well into my college years...albeit it often overheated due to a slowly failing water pump which I eventually fixed.  I put my first aftermarket stereo in the Escort, a Sony tape deck with Alpine 6 x 9 3-way speakers in the rear deck spaces and Alpine 6 1/2 2-way speakers in the doors, along with an Alpine 11-band passive EQ and a 40x2 Alpine amplifier for the rear speakers.  Eventually I sold the Escort to an avid Corvette driver who needed a winter wrecker while his precious vette sat safely in the garage for a mear $500.00.  Goodbye Escort...ironically I swore off Ford products forever after this experience....oh how quickly we forget!

I came across a 1989 Honda Prelude Si 5-speed at Sheehy Ford in Wilmington, DE in the weekend newspaper adds one day.  It was labeled as a "Manager's Special" and was listed for around $7,000 even.  The car was in pretty good shape too, had about 76k miles on it, gold exterior/dark brown velour interior, power everything including sunroof, alloy wheels, premium stereo, etc.  My girlfriend at the time (now my wife!) took an instant liking to the car, so I bought it with my parent's co-signature.  I was working at Martin Honda at the time, so I took it down to the mechanics and had just about all of them under the car at one time checking things out.  It was in a rear-end collision but Martin had done the work and used new parts, when it only had about 34k miles on it, so considering the car had 76k on it, I wasn't worried about the past accident.  Everything else passed my and the mechanics inspection, much to my liking!  I kept this car until it had about 90k miles on it, about two years if I remember correctly.  What a car!  Never a problem!  Clutch was about to go when I sold it.  Oh yeah, I sold it for $7900 almost two years after I bought it for only $7000!  Not bad!

I don't exactly remember why I was at Martin Honda when I came across a 1993 Mazda MX-3 5-speed base model with only 300 miles on it.  Why'd it only have 300 miles on it?  Well, it was briefly driven by the daughter of a well to do local video rental business co-owner from what I understood, who promptly wrecked it, although not too badly, but didn't like the car to begin with and got rid of it after the accident.  Once again, I knew Martin Honda/Mazda had done all of the repair work, so what did I care?  I got a $14,000 car for only $11,000, complete with factory warranty!  At the time I was working at MBNA America, collecting money from past due account holders, but I still needed my parents to co-sign for the loan, oh well.  This was a great little car, my girlfriend turned into my wife while I owned it.  We drove pretty much the length of the eastern seaboard at different times.  We drove up to Cape Cod, MA and back twice, once for our honeymoon, once just for a mini-vacation.  We also drove down to Stuart, FL and Disneyworld for a week's vacation as well.