Easy enough, right? A few rules though lest you get confused otherwise. A) Let’s define “immediate family” as you, your significant other, your parents, and your kids. No grandparents, cousins, uncles, etc. Or perhaps you’re one of the likely few to never have partaken of the otherworldly goods, that’s okay too. B) We’ll also define “foreign” as from a different country than wherever you were/are. In my case I believe we always had German cars (VW, DKW, Audi, Ford) in Germany until we moved to the States and then there was a Pontiac Ventura that was replaced around 1983 by a 1979 Mazda 626 coupe that eventually became mine. That Mazda 626 would be my answer I suppose as my Dad bought it and it was his first non-domestic vehicle based on where we lived. (Note that Ford can be considered domestic by Americans, Germans and Brits, it’s a bit weird that way and adds a wrinkle). And if your home country doesn’t have a local auto industry, then just whatever was well outside of the norm back then.
The ’04 Camry above, although significantly more “American” than plenty of what we’d call American cars, would be considered foreign for these here purposes to anyone living anywhere but Japan. The brand’s origin is what matters in this QOTD, not place of manufacture. (I’ve really just needed a place for the last two years to share this ghastly picture, it has no other significance.)
My Dad bought a ’57 Bug around ’60. That’s the oval rear window, 36HP one. Drove it for 5 or 6 years until he moved to England. When he finally moved back to the States for good I think he always drove domestic, GM or Ford. But his second wife usually drove imported, Renault 16, which they both loved, a pair of Mitsubishi Gallants and I’m not sure what else. He had an assortment over the years especially in England/Europe, liked a 280SE, not sure which chassis or year, and a Chevy Caprice he bought in the early 80s returning to the US. But he just wasn’t much of a car guy. Actually there were a few he actively disliked, but mostly they were just appliances to him, some good, some bad.
Mom on the other hand never had any sort of imported car, during or after her marriage to my Dad. But she just kind of ended up with stuff, and she really only cared if it started and stopped, anything past that didn’t much matter.
Then there’s me who has only very briefly had a couple of domestic cars in many years of driving now.
My Dad’s first foreign car was a ’59 Beetle, bought used in 1966, as his first “2nd” car. He’d driven them before that; he was in the Army in Germany in early 50’s and was assigned a Beetle as needed; (also drove REO truck). No one else in his family ever had anything other than a domestic car, but my Dad could beat his own path; the ’59 Beetle was totalled in ’68 and he replaced it with a new Renault R10.
He had a series of Japanese cars ending in 1980 when he replaced his ’76 Subaru DL with a new Dodge Omni, after that he never owned another foreign car, only a series of full sized domestic sedans ending with his 2006 Impala. The “2nd” car went from being a small commuter to a regular family car as he got older.
His Dad had a Ford (Fairlane) and a Chevy (Biscayne). Neither of my grandmothers ever learned to drive (never felt the need). My other Grandfather passed away more than 55 years ago, but his only car was a new ’51 Chrysler Windsor semi automatic.
I’ve only owned foreign cars, and more specifically VWs, have been driving only them for going on 41 years; though never owned anything aircooled. Had a Datsun for 4 years of undergraduate study to round out my 48 years of driving.
I’ve only owned 4 cars in that time, I tend to keep them awhile (current car is ’00 Golf). Guess my Dad’s import ownership had a big effect on me, plus I prefer smaller cars, which have tended to be better as imports.
My Mother seems to prefer domestics; she had an ’88 Tempo, and when it was time to replace it we suggested some foreign makes but she had a strong domestic preference replacing it with a 2009 Focus. She doesn’t seem to hold my import ownership against me….she just stopped driving last year so doesn’t own any car anymore (her car was given to my sister).
My first car was an Austin a30 2door it had mechanical brakes to the rear wheels only and the wooden floor was missing on the passenger front.My next car was an NSU prinz 30 which had the 2cyld sport engine good for 80 mph extremely fast and reliable , my next car was an NSU Prinz 4 again very reliable but not as fast as the previous prinz, several NSU cars later I purchased a new NSU 110 it was a very fast 4cyld air cooled 1098cc engine again extremely reliable, 2 NSU TT cars later I purchased an NSU RO80 imported from Australia with camel skin leather but its rotary engine had been replaced with a heavy V4 Ford Zephyr engine which I replaced with a lighter German Ford Tanus engine.
My next car was a New Mazda 626 diesel very sluggish which i sold after one year and bought a one year old BMW 525i which was a beautiful car to drive , I traded it in after 6months and got 2 new Toyota Corolla 1.8 diesels in exchange which were extremely reliable and fast.
My next car was a 6month old Mercedes 300d which i purchased with internal fire damage from a smouldering cigarette in the ash tray, I purchased 11 thousand Pounds worth of parts and repaired it before selling it and emigrating To Western Australia in 1990 with my wife and 7 children.
I purchased a 2yr old Mercedes 230 in AUS it was way underpowered and was written off 2yrs later when it was rear impacted,
I replaced it with a 2yr old Mercedes 260 e which was a big improvement for a few years before i sold it a bought a new KIA Sorento 3.5 liter v6 4×4 wagon which was very reliable until I traded it in for a new KIA Stinger GT V6 3.3 Twin Turbo which i am presently driving at my ripe old age of 75.
I still have a 1967 NSU 1200 TT which I drive occasionally a 92 ford Fairlane 5.7 v8 and a 1990 Toyota 3.0 Cressida which i also drive occasionally.
As you can see i am addicted to cars , I hope I have not been too boring.
Boring? Not at all. Actually none of these responses have been boring but yours is particularly interesting, anyone who moves their entire (large) family halfway around the world in their 40’s or later is interesting, and the cars just add to it. There can’t be many people with both an NSU and a Cressida. Thanks!
First was a 1982 VW Scirocco. Kind of like a Honda Accord coupe of the day but nowhere near the reliability. I always thought it was a nice looking update to the original, but ohhh the troubles…. electrical gremlins / frequently blown fuses, a dashboard plastic split, and generally poor interior climate control. And then there was that single windshield wiper with the odd clearance pattern. Despite its flaws, it remained fun to drive and sold quickly 5 years after my purchase, probably for the same seductive reasons it appealed to me in the first place.
My paternal Grandfather purchased a new 1956 VW Beetle in a very appropriate salmon pink color. He was a fairly accomplished Civil Engineer who worked on some large (and small) dams in the northwestern US, as well as an aluminum reduction plant. He certainly could have afforded at least an Olds or a Buick, but was quite fond of the little German car’s engineering and economy of operation. I understand that the family embarked on a vacation from Montana to Disneyland in the car, and made it there and back unscathed… that was two adults and three children. He later had a 1966 Beetle, while Grandma got the luxury of a 1964 Falcon with a 170 and a 3 speed.
QoY really, sorry for the delay.
Short answer: a bathtub!
In 1961 my father bought his 3rd car.
The first 2 had been under-powered, overheating, rear-engined, slightly capricious cars made by the RNUR (Regie Nationale des Usines Renault): a 1957 (or 1956?) Renault 4cv, replaced in 1958 by a Renault Dauphine.
But the time was ripe.
In 1961, we, in France, were in a long economic expansion started in the late 40s (thanks again Marshall Plan!), and the Common Market (sans UK at that time) was now bringing its fruits.
So we did not get the typical French middle-class car: the Peugeot 404, we got a Ford Taunus ‘Badewanne’ P3 instead.
A base model, base engine, no extras: a no nothing model in gray.
My mother immediately nicknamed it ‘Moby Dick’, not sure my father ever got the whole meaning.
As kids, we were in 2 minds about it: yes, it brought us some bragging rights in the playground, but inside the car, it was a different story: It was a two-door model. “The car body is more rigid that way!”. Yeah, sure…
So we had to ask permission to board or leave ship.
And no windows to roll down, so in summer it was hard times at the back of the greenhouse.
On the picture, if it comes out right, if it comes out at all, my brother is reclining on it in the absence of the owner. We are on holidays, in France, 11 years later, in the middle of nowhere, exactly in the Aubrac, a beautiful place for trekking (and BTW, also the origin of the ‘aligot’, a delicious dish of potatoes and cheese, you have to try it if you have a chance).
The year after, I will get that car as a hand-me-down, but that’s COAL material, really.
My grandfather bought a Cadillac every three or fours years, like clockwork, from Casa de Cadillac in LA. In the late ’90s, he started to get disillusioned with the poor customer service. His last American car was a yellow ’96 or ’97 Eldorado. After that, he switched over to Lexus for the last decade of his life, and was much happier with their cars and service. When I turned 16, he proudly let me drive the family to lunch in his new ES-300.
Like many of the Greatest Generation, grandpa served faithfully in WWII and held no grudges against the Japanese. He was a very pragmatic man, and I think, like many who saw Cadillacs as a status symbol, realized that the tide had turned on the brand.
My Dad was driving Dodges/Chryslers/Plymouths primarily by the time I became of driving age (thus my nom de plume). He veered away for a while with a ’73 Corolla. A sister and a brother then had a succession of VW’s and Toyota’s, and a Honda. My sister’s early 90’s Accord coupe (which she finally sold a couple of years ago) so impressed Dad that he bought an ’89 SEi, and later, I got an ’89 LXi, my first purchase of car with mileage in excess of 100,000 miles! He went back to Chrysler, followed by a Mercedes-Benz, and his last car was a Chrysler 300. I own classic Mopars, a Chevrolet, and a Honda Fit. 🙂
My Dad, Uncles, and cousins all worked for the auto industry. My brother and I did also for 5-10 years. There were several auto assembly plants in the greater Bay Area. There was a Dodge plant in San Leandro, and GM had a plant there also, which later moved to Fremont. It became NUUMI, then finally Tesla. The Ford plant was in Milpitas and is now a shopping mall. My father’s side of the family was all UAW so they only bought American. My Mom’s youngest brother once bought a used Austin Healey back in the late 1960’s. It lost a knock off hub wheel one morning out by the Delta and my uncle’s enthusiasm for foreign makes disappeared. He later became a staunch Mopar fan. My Dad bought a couple of Corvairs, foreign enough for him. My Brother and I grew up riding Honda motorcycles, they seemed all American to us. My brother bought a new 1980 BMW 320I as a college graduation present for himself. I bought a used ’77 Coupe de Ville. Later, I bought a series of used Honda Civics and Datsun Z cars as second cars. I did buy a new ’90 Civic SI coupe, great car. One of the best I’ve ever owned. Lately I moved onto a series of used Jaguars, interesting and beautiful, but not nearly as reliable as my fleet of later model Fords.
A devotee of Detroit iron for years, I finally tired of the pitiful quality, reliability and propensity to disintegrate at 100,000 miles and bought a 2001 Acura TL. Haven’t considered an American vehicle since.
In my family that would be me. I bought a 1960 VW Beetle as my first car in 1966. My Dad deserves special mention. He was a Marine in the Pacific Front during WWII and at one point engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a Japanese soldier. My Dad was never a hater of any kind and he admired the Japanese for their bravery and technical skills. He was the first person at his plant to purchase a Japanese vehicle in 1974 – a new Datsun pickup – and received some criticism for it. The Datsun turned out to be a wise purchase as he got over 250K out of it and a co-worker bought the truck and got another 100K until the rust won out (though the motor and transmission were still fine). My Dad was still driving a Nissan product when he passed away in 2004 and I’m now on my fourth. He was a good and decent man who taught me so much and I still miss him.
Your dad sounds like he would have had a lot in common with my grandfather, whom I described a couple of entries up. A WWII vet, Grandpa was a progressive thinker and very intellectually curious, despite having never attended college. He was a self-made man who did well for himself and lived modestly, a new Caddy every few years being his only real status symbol. He was also a very stoic man, however, I never doubted his love and warmth for me and the rest of the family for a second.
THANK YOU for all the pictures ! .
The stories are great too, never ‘boring’ .
Pop’s went to Germany in 1954 and brought back a spanking new VW Kombi ~ this being the cheapest Passenger van VW made then .
At that time you had to pay over invoice and wait months to a year or go to Canada, his work took him overseas .
I remember riding above the engine . moms said it was a good reliable car that used an engine now and then (pops _loved_ lugging engines) , she said it was cheap and quick to have the dead engine replaced .
With six screaming brats in it I never thought it cold in New England .
Right about this time he also bought a 1937 Bentley St. James Coupe, another nice car I remember riding in, he scrapped it in the 1970’s when my idiot middle brother killed it .
Being on either coast in the 1960’s meant all manner of weird and (sometimes) wonderful imported vehicles, not only cars .
-Nate
My Dad was a domestic car guy, so it was a bit of a surprise when we got a VW Beetle (don’t know the year, but likely from the 60s) in the late 1970s. I didn’t ask at the time, and my parents are gone now, so I’ll never know, but I think that Mom wanted it.
Though my siblings and I thought the car was cool looking, it was an impractical choice for us because our family had 4 kids. I don’t recall whether all 6 of us were ever in the car at once, but Mom and us kids (two of whom were teenagers at the time) made for tight fit, and adding a friend or two made it downright uncomfortable. We didn’t use seatbelts back then, so we just shoved everybody in somehow.
To add insults to injury, Mom smoked, and we lived in an area where the heater had trouble keeping up with winter. Spartan, crowded, cold, and stinky are my lasting impressions of that car.
Fortunately, yet sadly, it was gone before I got my license, so I never got to drive it. I remember it as being noisy and slow, perhaps because it was always overloaded with human cargo.
That was the only foreign (by the criteria laid out by the original poster) car to ever grace the driveway of my family of origin. My personal first was a 1990 VW Golf, purchased in 96, since succeeded by Subarus.
I’m in the US. I was the 1st in my family. I bought a new 1979 Fiat Strada (Ritmo). My 1st new car. Owned it for 11 years in Wisconsin and Michigan. It survived all the Winters I owned it although the last couple were getting sketchy.
The first imported vehicle in my family was a 1976 Chevy LUV my dad bought in about 1988 and later replaced with a Ford Courier. My wife and I have only owned GM or Ford US built vehicles in the 24 years we’ve been married. Currently a 2000 Chevy Tahoe, ’02 Pontiac Sunfire and ’79 GMC Sierra Grande
In 1973 I bought a new Datsun 1200 sedan exactly like the one shown, though this is not the actual car. To this day, I am the only one in my immediate family ever to have bought “furrin”.
My parents bought a used 1966 Mercedes 250S in 1969 as replacement for a Plymouth Valiant, their next US brand car was my mother’s 1994 Saturn SL2, and so far the last.
My first three cars were Volkswagens, then we bought a used Ford Ranger in 1992, a new Ranger in 93 and a used Ford Escort in 97 to replace my Jetta. This made us the only US car owners in the family for many years.
Our first foreign car was a 1951 Riley RM 2.5 liter sedan, bought used from, I think, Clarence Talley in Dallas. I suspect it was in my father’s mind as close to a ’34 Ford as he could hope to get. We were still a one-car family and the Riley and my mother were not really compatible so it didn’t stay around nearly long enough. Had the 1953 Plymouth station wagon bought not so long afterward been available things might have been different. I still have the owner’s manual and a screwdriver from the tool kit. The manual is interesting in that it clearly believed a Riley owner would want to take that hemi head off to lap the valves at the stated intervals.