I misread OP’s title but she was a momma cat and I was a little kid, so she used to lick my hair when I was on the floor reading the funny pages in the newspaper. And she was very comforting when anyone was sad.
mine was a five speed and it made me feel so superior to my 16 y/o peers
Fucking everything. But if I had to pick it’s the cassette-melting, vinyl-evaporating hot box it was capable of. Smelled like freedom.
Not my car/pic.
Lol Smelled like gearbox
Not sure if this counts (as a car), but it was a three wheeler (Reliant Robin), gutless and rattly, all the fun of going 50 mph without breaking the speed limit. All the engine weight was directly on the front wheel, so the back end (no weight at all) would slide out wonderfully around corners.
It came with a snake.
Lol
Two couches on wheels, 1989 Oldsmobile Delta 88
It was a small subcompact hatchback but ran on diesel. Back in my home country, diesel is cheaper and considered more economical, and it was rare for a small car to run on diesel instead of gas.
It had a distinct smell that, when I smell it now, brings me vividly back to driving home from high school listening to Metallica.
That i bought it for $400 and traded it in for $600, also it had a nice big back seat.
My camaro broke down quite often. I had to replace a starter, water pump, alternator, something about the universal joint in the drive shaft, brakes, battery, etc. The clutch was the hardest and I got it wrong 2 times before I got it right on the third. It made me start thinking outside of what was easy and spoon fed. I started to realize that a Haynes manual was extremely limited. Eventually this line of thinking took me deep into fundamental understanding. Most people never think past throwing parts at a problem, but I learned how all of it works at a fundamental level. That journey started with my first car. It shaped my mind and who I am to a large extent.
The fact that it would run with no oil and all four engine mounts broken
It was reliable like having a loyal dog in car form.
Tiny
Came here to post this too. 2011 two-door Hyundai accent, and I really value how small it is with two doors rather than four, easy to maneuver and park and drive in general.
It’s had some issues (horrible repair job after an accident led to me driving it a while with badly leaking transmission fluid, I really think that’s contributed to 90% of the problems over the years) and a few months back I tried looking into new cars and I literally could not figure out if anyone sells a car that size in the US anymore. So I’ll stick with dealing with it breaking down once or twice a year.
Breaking down can be a huge headache depending on timing, but I’m not interested in buying used because I don’t feel like I have enough intuition for cars to test drive something for an hour and feel confident I’m not putting $10,000 or whatever into a lateral move.
My first car was a 1995 Hyundai Accent my dad bought from a friend for $800. The best thing about it was it was purple. People at work and school knew it was me because I was the only person with a little purple car.
The most annoying thing about owning that car was that the door handles would freeze during the Chicagoland winter. I’d go out to warm it up before school and ever so gently try to open the door. If I tugged too hard on it, the thin piece of plastic connecting the handle to the metal bar and latch mechanism would break. I changed driver and passenger side handles maybe 7 times while having that car. For a short time I was waiting on replacement door handles for both sides to arrive and I had to crawl in through the hatchback to get into the car. Good times
Same issue with my 2-door '93 Buick. It had the vertical door handles and I snapped a few of them clean off in wonderful Minnesota winter.
Air springs with pushbutton height adjustment on a Subaru XT.
