Throwback Thursday: My First Car

I’m guessing that many of you are on Facebook. I am basing this on the fact that I am friends with a lot of you on Facebook. And also, isn’t everyone on Facebook? This post actually has nothing to do with Facebook other than stealing the title from a Facebook thing called Throwback Thursday.

In truth, I sometimes find Throwback Thursday annoying. I mean, really, a photo from 2 years ago? Not a throwback.

Today, though, I have photos from 27 years ago and I think that definitely puts them in the throwback category. I found them last night when we were reminiscing about cars we have had, a conversation that was inspired by this week’s Ten on Tuesday topic.

As I said on Tuesday, my first car was a 1987 Mazda 323. I bought it brand new with the $10,000 my (real) father gave me when I graduated from college. Originally that money was going to be used to pay for grad school but I quickly realized that I had no way to actually get to grad school unless I got a car. And my license, of course.

Yes, indeed, I managed to graduate from high school and college without getting my driver’s license. I had a mom who didn’t work and a boyfriend with a car and I just had very little need (or interest) in driving myself anywhere. But then I graduated from college and I got my first job in a library (part time because I thought I was heading right for grad school which I didn’t end up doing but that’s a story for another day) and my mom had to drive me to work.

Ummmm. So not cool. Not that I was anywhere near cool to begin with, working in a library and all. But still. It was time to get my license.

I practiced driving in my mom’s big yellow Dodge Diplomat and I signed up for the road test and I went and looked at cars that were in my price range. This little blue Mazda caught my eye and I fell in love with it. I had to borrow $300 from my mom to pay the sales tax and it was mine. Except, of course, that I still had to get my license.

The car salesman couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to pick up the car until Friday when it would be ready for pick up on Wednesday. I didn’t want to tell him it was because I couldn’t drive it off the lot myself until Friday when I actually, you know, got a driver’s license. Heh. In any case, I passed my road test and my mom took me to pick up the car. It was July 17, 1987.

mazda 323

My first car. And me.

mazda 323 with salesman

My first car. And me. And the salesman.

mazda 323 elbow on trunk

My first car. And me. Man, I was young. And I looooooved that skirt. Loved it.

mazda 323 going out

My first car. And me. Heading out that first night to go see my boyfriend play in his band. (Even back then I had a thing for musicians.) I remember backing out of the driveway to go pick up my friend Lynn and thinking – wait! how do I get to her house? It was a whole new concept for me.

So there you have it. The story and pictures behind my first car.

Throwback Thursday indeed.

 

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This Post Has 19 Comments

  2. what Kym said! (and I can’t help but think that in the summer of 1987 I was the mother of a six month old! also, I got through high school without a drivers license but did get it the first Christmas break I was home from college…my own first new car didn’t come until a few years later)

  5. I’m not on facebook. I don’t know how to twitter. I never even played Angry Birds. Who’s a throw back?
    I bought my first car in 1988. It was a new 1987 Ford Festiva. My boyfriend, now husband had to drive it off the lot because I didn’t know how to drive a standard. He taught me and I drove that car for 16 years. It was a great car. I just wish I could go back in time and look exactly like I did when I bought it!

  7. Awwwww….you look so cute. There is such an aura of openness and great potential at that age. And driving and owning a car just makes it all more possible.

  8. Love the pictures! You were so totally preppy … and Hannah looks just like you 🙂 (minus the preppy of course)!

  9. I got my license after high school, age 18. You do look very much the same, although your hair was more Lady Di back then. In many cases, throwbacks are fun to see and this one is great, but for some of us, it just shows our age! xox

  12. Wow! No family resemblance between you and Hannah, is there?

    And somewhere in my box of photos, I have one with the salesman who sold me my car, too.

  13. How fun! Your pictures take me back to the 80s. You were classy from the start Carole- cute hair cut and I love the skirt too!

  14. Who’s a throwback? Me! I bought my first car at the end of senior year at UNH, 1966. It was a black VW convertible, and I loved it mightily. It (my cars did not have names back then) and I and my friends had many adventures in that car. I wish I still had it – although it was manifestly unsafe.

  15. Holy Hannah’s face in that last photo! My first new car was the 323 and on 7/17/87 I’d been married about two weeks! And the skirt is fab!

  16. My first “brand new car” was a Mazda 323, too! Great little car! I love Throwback Thursday (although I totally agree with you — 2 years does not make a “throwback”!!!). You were young and beautiful and full of life! What an exciting time. (I got my driver’s license as soon as I turned 16. Such FREEDOM!)

  17. Thanks for sharing such a happy memory. I graduated from high school that year. I was driving a 1979 Volvo, white four-door sedan. My mom had a wreck in it the year it was new. We all walked away from that accident and I asked my parents to save it for my first car. My sister and I drove it for many years to come. She even took to driving it without oil in an effort to kill it. She had her eye on something else. I had moved on to a Toyota Celica (a 1982 I think). Thanks for sharing here too….I’m not on Facebook either.

  18. I was later than many in getting my license — pretty close to 18, I think. I wish I had more photos of my cars & me!! These are so cute.

    I admit, sometimes I throw back to… last week. It depends, you know? And it’s personal. Maybe I want to hang on to (or not let go of) some good feelings or something.

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