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.)
Plymouth Cricket. My mom drove one in 1980-1982.
Was born into it here, Dad had a 80 something Saab 900 and Mom had a 85 Jetta. So the story goes that got them out of American cars was the new 1982 Lynx that overheated and needed an engine replacement early in their ownership after visiting my grandparents who had just moved to Denver. After it was repaired they went to a VW dealer and my Mom got a Rabbit and my Dad got a Jetta GLI company car. I think he had a Taurus company car briefly thereafter but they were pretty solidly foreign car buyers after that. First Japanese car came in my lifetime though with the “Mercury” Villager(Nissan), and shortly thereafter my Dad got a Maxima
A Lynx!
So fancy…😀
Short answer: 1975 Volkswagen Rabbit for myself. We were a loyal Chevy family up to that point.
Background: I had saved up about $1000 for my first car in 1975, which I thought would be enough for a 3-4 year old Oldsmobile Cutlass or equivalent. Unfortunately like rust, inflation never sleeps, and a grand would not be enough. I recall a ’68 Valiant being advertised for $800 in the classifieds, and didn’t want something that old 🙂
So I asked my mother if she could loan me another grand for my desired Cutlass. She emphatically didn’t want me to buy a used car (someone else’s problems and all that) and offered up enough to buy a new one! My choice was a VW Rabbit, which turned out to be a reliability disaster. No doubt that Cutlass would have been a better choice as it turned out.
Mine looked like this one (same color but was a 2-door).
my parents bought me a 1974 VW 412 in 1980 as a college commuting vehicle. What a mistake that was. Spent a fortune repairing it over the years in a classic case of bad money after good
Considering how bad my new Rabbit was in the reliability department, I can only shudder thinking about a 6-year-old 412!
My parents drove a Nash Metropolitan early in their life together. I think it replaced a late 1940s Studebaker. But those were family hand-me-downs. In 1956 they bought a new English Ford Consul. When that was totalled in a head on crash that my father walked away from with minor bruises, they bought a 1959 Zephyr. I guess he was impressed with English Fords. We’ve been a foreign car family for the most part with the exception of a new 1968 Checker Marathon and a year-old 1994 Dodge Caravan. After driving the aforementioned Checker for a few years I went through a couple of VW Rabbits. Now my blue 1993 Corolla wagon has worn out and I’ve got a new Forester on order. Blue of course.
My father was against buying foreign cars for fear of the scarcity of parts or access to service. We lived about an hour outside of NYC, and in the 70’s there weren’t a lot of dealers within a 15 miles radius, so I suppose it made some sense. He finally gave in when my mother fell in love with a 1982 Dodge (Mitsubishi) Challenger. He only relented because it was bought from his good friend’s dealership and it was branded as a Dodge. (He thought his clients and business associates expected him to own “mainstream” American cars, and nothing too flashy.) That Challenger was passed down to me a couple years later and Mom got a Conquest (also acceptable for the same reasons as above). Shortly thereafter a string of Jaguars ended up in our driveway. I never quite understood how Dad decided he could justify those considering his previous attitudes, but conspicuous consumption was in vogue by the late 80’s.
1956 English Ford Consul. Replaced by 1959 Zephyr.
Our first foreign car was an early 70s Suburu DL(?) four-door sedan bought around 1983. It replaced a Pinto that had the front seats held up with 2x4s. Dad needed something cheap (less than $500 as always) and I found it in an Auto Buyer’s Guide of some kind. He wasn’t sure about it, but the price was right. It was an odd looking car, but Dad ended up loving it until it too had tragic rust issues. My favorite recollection of it (other than being the first manual I tried to drive) was when Dad had to pick me up on a super cold Wisconsin night after a high school basketball game. He did not want me to take the Impala because it had a habit of stalling when cold out, but my friends and I convinced him it was an important game to see. Dad had to pick us up in that trusty Suburu. I remember being inside the Suburu and twice an inside door latche broke in my hand as I was trying to get out, both times leaving a very small part left on the door. That didn’t help my standing with Dad, but I laugh about it now. My first car was a 1979 Fiat Brava (131) which a couple people have mentioned as first cars. Got it in late 1986 and had it through college (1992 or so). I loved mine (warts and all) and continue to be a Fiat guy to this day.
My mom had a Renault Dauphine in 57 or 58. She fell victim to the swing axle suspension and rolled it one rainy day on a gravel road. Totalled it. My grandfather (her future father in law) made her go out driving the next day so she wouldn’t be afraid.
My parents stayed with small European cars for a long time – the next car was the Volvo P544 that brought me home from the hospital, followed by a Saab 95 2 stroke wagon.
When I was born my folks had a 1956 Olds Super 88 sedan, later replaced by a ’61 Buick Le Sabre sedan. When it came time to buy a second car, they got a ’63 Peugeot 403, which was traded in fairly quickly for the only used car they ever bought (’63 Olds 98 convertible) — about 180 degrees different from the 403.
We had a Renault Dauphine ca. 1960. The family’s primary car at the time was a ’53 Pontiac. My father once said, “I decided that there was no sense in having two of the big gas-eating monsters from Detroit.” Our dirt road beat it to death in a couple of years. I have memories of various American cars my family had around this time, and one of them would have been the replacement for the Renault, but I don’t remember which one.
My dad bought a new Dauphine in ’61. He was a Francophile, having landed on Omaha Beach on 9 June 1944 but spending most of his time in Le Havre. He felt sorry for the poor citizens of that city, many of whom had been bombed to death in September of that year, but was very impressed with the survivors’ determination to rebuild. He was also impressed with the ingenuity of the residents to keep their cars and vans going.
Gosh, lots of Dauphines here!
In 1958, my maternal grandmother significantly “helped” my parents buy mom a new ’58 VW Beetle. This being her first car, she had to learn to drive a manual transmission, and I wasn’t sure my parents relationship was going to survive this period. But learn it she did, and she was a good driver. In 1967, my grandmother then bought them a new ’67 Beetle to replace the ’58. Fortunately, mom was the one to teach me how to drive a manual transmission, and then my grandmother bought me a new ’71 Super Beetle.
In 1950, my paternal grandfather bought a new Hillman Minx. Even though this was in California, I bet they never mistook someone else’s car for their own in a parking lot.
Another ‘50’s Minx in California?! That was my parents’ first car there in 1953.
Yes, in the East Bay, even. I never remember seeing one myself, my grandparents Hillman was gone in ’55.
I remember my dad occasionally making light of the car over the years, but I only saw a photo of it for the first time a few years ago when I uploaded their family photos. It was red.
The more relevant question for me is what was the first non-foreign car, as my parents always had imports starting with their first car in 1953 until the last met it’s demise in 2010. My older sister’s first car was a Mk2 Cortina, a year before I bought my own first car, a Volvo 122S in 1975. But a year later I replaced the Volvo with my Vega, which came a few years before my sister moved to a farm and bought an F150 (F100?). Since the pickup, she’s owned one or two VW’s but mostly Japanese cars; I however have owned a Pontiac and two US-made Fords among mostly German and Japanese cars and light trucks. Today our fleet consists of two Mexican-built cars, a VW and a Tacoma, and a Missouri-built Ford Transit.
First in my family was dad’s ‘64 Karmann Ghia. It was purchased well-used around 1974 and needed an engine pretty much out of the gate. There weren’t any nearby VW dealers in our part of southeast Ohio, so he and my oldest brother rope-towed it about 100 miles to the one in New Philadelphia, Ohio using his ‘69 Chevy Impala. A factory rebuilt 1500 cc engine was installed and the Ghia performed admirably for several years on his 50 mile daily commute. It was first in a string of used VWs for him, but the rest were all Beetles.
My first foreign car was a rusted out ‘74 Datsun B-210 hatchback in the stereotypical butterscotch yellow hue. It was really a smoker when the engine was cold! I’m talking mosquito abatement level smoke! I worked for an auto parts store at the time and parts for old were cheap. Out came the engine for home brew hone and re-ring job. I had the head reconditioned by one of our machine shop customers. Afterwards, that little 1300 ran like a top . I got a couple of years out of it as a daily driver / winter beater until the left front shock tower separated due to the rust. I sometimes miss that little turd!
My mother had a thing for Opels. Never understood why. I have very dim memories of her green Kadett B 4-dr, which was replaced by an equally green Kadett D circa 1983.
She apparently knew Opel would be French-owned sooner or later…a remarkably prescient lady. Was it that Opel green that’s similar to the avocado hue that was sort of common on the W123?
My parents were early Honda adopters. Our ’67 Pontiac LeMans 2-door was replaced by a 1974 Honda Civic hatchback. I remember as a kid that other Civic drivers would honk their horn at us as they passed by. It was like joining a club. We could never have imagined back then that Honda would outlast the Pontiac brand.
The first foreign car in my family was my first car purchase.
I was a junior in High School. Bought a ’67 Bug in extremely decrepit condition from a co-worker at the restaurant I worked at. I have no real idea why I bought the thing…I knew it was a rolling wreck and the guy I bought it from was a total pot-head son of a Military contractor at the end of his contract, moving back to…Seattle, maybe. Boeing-brat, I think. I was young and stupid, and sick of driving a hand-me-down ’66 Biscayne 283 2-barrel/Potatoglide which I had named “The Pig”.
I paid $300 for the Bug (crazy money, considering the condition) during lunch break at school. Drove it back to school, went to a class or two. Left the school parking lot at end-of-the-day. As usual, the traffic was backed-up at the stop-sign at the end of the block. So I stopped at the end of the line of cars, and very soon a Pinto pulled up behind me, and stopped.
The guy behind him didn’t stop, in fact he was doing a burnout. He nailed the Pinto, who got shoved into me.
I owned that car for two hours and ten minutes before it was “totaled”. (The Pinto did not burst into flames.)
I had not bought insurance, and I had not told Mom I was buying a car at all. Of course, I was cited for failure to have insurance, but the other guy’s insurance gave me $210 for my car, which I kept. It cost $28 to get a body-shop to pull the fan out of the shroud, and that made it driveable although the bumper and engine cover were rumpled.
I sold that car to another guy at school during my Senior year after many problems including but not limited to having the engine stall because the distributor popped up out of the engine and quit turning. One day he’s late to class. We, as a class decided he was late because the Bug burned.
Turns out we were right. He shows up an hour late…”my car caught fire” was his excuse.
The Pot-head I bought it from had a saying:
[Mock German Accent]
Ve Germans iss ze zuperior race.
Ve haff ze blonde hair. Ve haff ze blue eyes. Undt ve has ze Folksvagens.
Undt everybody knows, two out uf three issn’t bad.”
[/Mock German Accent]
COTD here. I literally LOLed.
Are we counting cars our parents owned before we were born? My Dad had a Datsun 411 when he lived in Southern California in the early 1970s, I’m told, but that car was long gone by the time I was born. And he owned Honda motorcycles before that.
During my lifetime, the first would be a 1979 Corolla wagon, probably purchased in late ’79 or early ’80 (Dad probably got a deal on it because it was leftover from the previous model year). Which would mean be bought it just a few months before I was born.
Yes we are counting those, especially when it’s a Datsun 411! We don’t hold your youth against you, it’s not your fault.
My Dad finally switched from the domestics (besides his 2014 Mustang) to the Japanese brands in 2004, with his first Japanese car, an Acura RL. He still talks about that one, and loves the 2017 Accord that replaced his Mustang because it reminds him of his RL.
Prior to that he’s always owned mostly GM products, with the rare Chrysler and Ford exceptions. Ironically, his second Pontiac was an ’85 Grand Prix that was built in Canada. But per today’s rules, that car doesn’t count. Heck, his Acura cars over the years may not count either. Aren’t they built here in the USA now?
For me personally, it’s my 2016 Civic Coupe. Up until then, it has always been the domestics, although various wives over the years have had Japanese cars. My second wife’s ’84 Celica GT was a particularly fun car to drive. 😉
Acuras (and Hondas etc) count as they are a foreign brand (even though Acuras are labeled as Hondas elsewhere), doesn’t matter where it’s built for this exercise.
Interesting though that you do sort of consider them domestic, I don’t really disagree with that either. An Ohio-built Honda/Acura or Kentucky built Toyota Sienna that was probably designed mostly in the US does far more for the economy here (i.e. workers and their dollars to spend) than a Ford EcoSport from India or perhaps even a Mexico-built Ford Maverick or Bronco Sport etc. That’s just my opinion.
Not just your opinion, Jim. I agree completely. Wasn’t the Ford Fusion Mexican as well?
My “Japanese” Honda Civic was assembled in Canada, with an engine assembled here in the US.
Such is the way with our global economy. 😉
I started buying VWs and Renaults and Saabs and Morrises as soon as I had money. My parents were “liberals”, but for some reason didn’t follow the “liberal” fashion for foreign cars until very late in life when they finally got a Honda Accord.
My dad bought an 80 Saab in 81, which he drove for a couple of years before trading it in on a new 83 Oldsmobile 88. It was the first foreign car in the family that I can think of and the last for my dad who went back to American cars, but not the last in the family generally. Having a Saab in Dallas in the early 80s turned out to be a constant frustration in finding mechanics that were willing to work on it.
I also have a memory of him leaving me in the Saab parked at the curb while he went to attend to something at one of his rental houses. I promptly knocked the gear shift out of gear and the car rolled into the car parked in front of it.
2012 Acura MDX
My brother was the first “furin” car owner, bought a Honda, sometime in the 70’s. My dad and oldest brother were not impressed. Dad was a WWII vet and still held resentment of the Japanese and Germans.
My wife’s dad wasn’t a car nut but loved buying cars. Had been pretty solid GM guy working up the tree from Chevy to Buick and then Olds. One side trip to Ford for a loaded 84 T-Bird. After his fling with the Olds, 91 Tornado and similar vintage Olds 88 he bought his 1st Toyota, mid 90’s Camry, then a ’98 Avalon fllowed by three Lexus, last one was a 2010 GS350. My wife ended up with the T-Bird, 98 Avalon and the 2010 Lexus. The Avalon was bland and had some issues, crapped out struts and strut mounts at 11,000 miles, expensive failed heater controls. The Lexus was passed on to the daughter, wife had a 2010 Fusion Sport at the time and was not impressed with the Lexus.
My first was a 2008 VW GTI. Loved that car, DSG trans, what a fun car. Only regret was I didn’t put a thermostat in it, VW refused to replace it under warranty and I passed this car on to my son when I bought my F150. Its a darn good thing I don’t have a pole barn as a lot of cars I owned would otherwise still be here.
Every car we’ve ever owned was furrin, as we never had a DAF, Donkervoort, Spyker or anything that was built in a Dutch plant, like (these days) VDL Nedcar.
The first one was a mid-seventies, three-door Simca 1100. It was a seven-seater, sometimes.
“Sometimes”! 🙂
Well sure. Our family of four plus my uncle, aunt and niece. My brother and I were sitting in the hatchback’s trunk. Enough drinks and snacks aboard too. Beekse Bergen here we come!
My 1989 Honda CRX. My first new car and still my favorite of all the cars I’ve owned. I would have kept it but it was eaten by rust.
Dad has a Lexus ES. His first foreign car. Mom is on her 5th Civic.
Well, it took over 90 posts for someone to say “Simca”…and Johannes didn’t grow up in the US 🙂
Simca 1000 for my family in Baltimore in 1964. The little car in my family was always foreign. This continued to be the case until my folks were done entirely with domestic cars by around the early 1980s, whereupon all of their cars were imports.
Western Canada: My dad bought a 1956 Porsche 356 before there was a dealer in the province, and later traded it for a new 1960 356 (which I still drive) when a dealer started selling them. When my older sister came along, mom wanted dad to have a more practical vehicle, so he repeated his theme a bought a Saab 850GT long before Saabs were sold in Canada. Dad didn’t always think practically but we always had cool cars.
That’s one extremely nice hand-me-down.
After Austins, a Hillman, a Jag and Fords, Dad bought an ex Demo Lancia Beta in 1975. Due to the rust the only option to replace it was another one. Which was worse.
After that his employer offered company cars which had to be British. He chose a Triumph Acclaim which was every bit as dull as the Honda it was. Then more Austins. It took almost 2 decades to go foreign again with a Citroen Xantia which piddled hydraulic fluid all its life. The Renaults were better. He has the Mercedes now that he should always have had. He’s 92.
Mum however never had a British car. 2 DAFs, a Fiat and now a VW Up.
I’ve had 1 British car out of 49. A Lotus with a Toyota engine…
I don’t think most British people now have any idea where cars come from – and that Ford is American
My Mum got a Peugeot 104 (previously seen on these pages) in 1980. My Dad got a VW Jetta in 1986, and neither had a British car again.
I sold my second Austin Metro in 1994; that was the last British assembled car (as opposed to a car with British built engine – Ford Focus) in the family until Big Brother bought a Jaguar F Pace in 2016. That was his first British car.
My Dad bought a 1953 VW Beetle, and picked it up “at the docks” in New Jersey immediately after it was driven off the boat. He switched back to domestic cars – primarily Fords and Mercuries – when the Beetle became too small for our growing family.
That ended in 1996 – in retirement – when Dad became frustrated with his experience with Ford products, and simply couldn’t stand the ugly “ovoid” Tauruses and Sables. At that point, he switched over to Honda Accords, which he continued to drive until he passed away in 2012.
As an Aussie, all our cars have been foreign owned.
Dad got a Morris Oxford in 1950; not sure whether that was imported or locally assembled.
Various aunts and uncles had Austin A30s in the fifties.
My wife had a locally-assembled Toyota when we married, followed by two locally-assembled Mitsubishis, then an imported one. You can throw in a ’10 Mini Cooper there too, not sure just where that was made.
My first imported purchase was a Mazda 3 in 2005, following two locally-assembled Fords.
My kids have always had imports; two Hondas, two Mitsubishis.
I assume your parents weren’t in the market for a car during the brief period when the Hartnett was in production, or they didn’t think it suited them. It wouldn’t have been my car of choice to drive across the Nullarbor Plain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartnett_(car)
No way! 🙂 Dad’s business travels took him from Melbourne up to Far North Queensland on occasion. He’d rather trust a brand he knew than the then-unproven Holden.
I’ve often wondered what those long trips were like though – better than the 1927 Essex it replaced, I guess.
Before my immediate family were my immediate family, my mother’s parents bought an early (’50something) VW Beetle. They handed it down to my mother, who eventually cracked its engine block, thus eventually preventing my ever getting hold of those same grandparents’ loaded ’72 Dart.
Next one after that was my folks’ new ’90 Jetta.
Our first family car was my Mom’s well used Morris Minor convertible, soon replaced by a new ’56 MG Magnette ZA sedan when my kid sister was born. Dad then bought a ’59 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider, which had the optional seatbelts at my Mom’s request. That car would be banished by Mom after an unfortunate incident involving said sister on the transmission tunnel “seating” position and several stitches to her forehead. So it was traded for our first and only sensible “foreign” car, a ’62 Chevy II. That car left such a lasting impression that the family went through a couple of Swedish and French cars before settling on Japanese cars. As you can imagine, I grew up reading Road & Track.
When we moved to upstate NY in 1968 my dad bought an Opel Kadett to commute back and forth to work. 6 months later, after it had spent 3 of those months in the shop, he traded it on a Pontiac. He never bought another import.
Before I was born, my mom had both a Fiat 500 (first car) and a Volvo (122?) Amazon (college car). My Dad had an Audi Fox when they met and after they got married, they bought a VW Rabbit. Not long after I was born my dad bought an Audi 4000s. So in my lifetime, the Audi 4000s and before me my mom’s Fiat 500.
My brother’s first foreign car was a Saab 9-3 Convertible and my first was my first car a Toyota 4Runner.
Coincidentally, I’m just making a list for my grandson of cars that I’ve owned. Definitely more European and Japanese names on the list. Very first car was 1960 Sunbeam Alpine – great fun for a 17 year old but needed lots of ongoing work. Still, I wouldn’t trade that experience. There was an interim 1956 Pontiac (winter beater) while the Alpine got some repairs. Followed by a 1957 VW Beetle that someone had hopped up. I’m guessing it made maybe 65 plus HP, pretty quick, and sounded great.
Then 1969 BMW 2002 – had to borrow ALL the money to buy it but at 19, it made so much sense. Loved that car too.
Lots of forgettable cars on my historical list, but the earliest and the quirkiest are the fondest memories.
The first foreign car I had was my very first car, a 1962 VW Beetle. I learned to drive stick on it, but it didn’t last through the first winder I had it. Great memories of that car, although I only had it for a short time.
I didn’t buy another foreign car until I got a 1998 Honda Accord, in 2005. My wife drove it, and then my son. It was succeeded by a Honda Civic.
I checked the rules to see if there was anything regarding owning the car or not. Consequently I would have two answers. The very first person to use a foreign car as a daily driver was me. A 1972 Audi Fox but it was a company car given to me to use for 12 months. OTOH my father chose, as his company car, a 1973 Porsche 911E Targa to use for two years before turning it in for a new Mercedes 450SL as a company car. The first family owned foreign car was my mother’s 1976 Audi 100LS. Not the most auspicious beginning you could say.
My father supposedly owned a Triumph sports car sometime in the early 80’s, but that was before my time. The first import that I saw in the family was a mid 80’s Toyota Tercel 4×4 wagon that my dad picked out around 1995-96. It was his daily driver for a couple of years before being replaced with a ’90 Escort GT. That was the last import any of the members of my immediate family has owned apart from myself. I picked up a ’92 Saab 900 in 2009. I’ve owned 16 other cars since then, half of which were from foreign brands.
I may owe my existence to my mom’s purchase of her first imported car. In the early 1960s, before I was born, my mom traded her Chevrolet for a Triumph TR3. She lived in the same apartment complex as my dad, and my (future) dad had noticed his fascinating neighbor and her sports car. They were both invited to a Christmas party by a neighbor in the apartment complex, and my dad started a conversation with my mom by asking her about her Triumph. The two of them hit it off, they began dating, and eventually married.
That would be me. 1974 Capri V6 four-speed. Was 14 years before my Mom went import, with an ‘88 Honda Accord LX sedan.
I was first in 1969 with a ’67 VW Beetle. Dad would have preferred a Corvair because he was a GM guy at the time, but in the end was ok with it.
My dad bought a Renault Dauphine in 1958, Followed by an Opel Rekord two years later. My dad lied strange cars, I recall a Henry J in the early fifties and also a bathtub Nash during the same time frame. Personally, the first car I owned was a Borgward Isabella sedan. I followed that with a Mini two years later, then various European cars for many years. Morris Minor, another Mini, Anglia with the reverse slant rear window, a number of Austins, Fiats, Cortina, Mazda station wagon,Since then all Hondas or Acuras, except now I have what is my last car a Ford Escape, 18 years old but holding up well and will never wear out as I drive less than 1000 miles a year. I live in a small town in the mountains of Mexico and mostly ride my motor scooter.
“Borgward” is an awesome answer!
My grandfather traded his finned 1961 Chrysler New Yorker for a new 1968 Mercedes-Benz 280SE, which surely must have made for a radical change when driving to the supermarket. We inherited the car from his estate about ten years later, but did not keep it for long, as it was by then rusty and maintenance costs were too high for my father to stomach.
For my parents, the first foreign car they actually bought was a new 1984 VW Rabbit diesel, which my father loved. After that, my parents never drove another domestic marque again, eventually settling into a long series of Toyota Camrys.
My first car was a 1984 Buick Regal, bought new. Since then, most of my cars have been German, Swedish or Japanese marques, but I have also owned three Fords.
My parents never had anything but GM cars after their first – a ’54 Ford. My father refused to even consider a Japanese car, as he’d fought in the Pacific in WWII; even after his GM x-car flipped ends on a rainy highway.
I bought my first foreign car in 1986 – a Honda Civic Si hatch. Still the best car I’ve ever owned. My father; classy guy that he was, never put me down for that purchase.
Plymouth Cricket (an automatic too), bought new by my dad for my mom. Probably around 1972/73. Replaced by a Honda Accord in 1976. The biggest memory of the Cricket was it’s inability to go up the driveway in D, had to use R. Am counting it as it was a captive import in Canada. The less said about it the better.
Never owned a foreign branded car. owned or own 8 GM products, 6 Chrysler products and 2 Ford Products. Flirted with buying an 85 Honda Accord but bought a used Chrysler instead and kept the 79 Mercury Marquis I would have traded in for. My parents only had one, a 76 VW Rabbit which was one of worst cars Dad ever had along with a 80 Citation and an 86 Taurus. My brothers family bought a used Mazda Miata in 2017 along with a Nissan Rogue and a Murano. He also has a 2013 Ram and a 2019 Jeep in the family fleet. My sisters family went foreign in 2004 with a Toyota Sienna. Have bought 2 Honda’s since. My last car purchase was a slightly used Chrysler 300 last year which is based on a Mercedes platform, screwed together in Canada and manufactured by a company controlled by the Italians. Love the car even if it is a mulato.
My mom traded the ’62 Olds dynamic 88 with a leaky front transmission seal, squeaky front end bushings and an insane thirst for gas for a 1st generation Civic in 1973.
Honda dealer gave her 50 bucks trade on a $2500 car.
It served her very well, thanks in part to a couple of ex-dealer mechanics in North San Jose, the Nakatsu brothers.
Next was my brother who got a 1978 Toyota 3/4 ton long bed brand new. He still has it.
My parents bought my brother a new Fiat 850 Sport Coupe for his 21st birthday, apparently because they had had (and loved) a Fiat in England just after WW2.
It clearly wasn’t happy in Nova Scotia. I’m probably exaggerating in saying that it had to be put down after a year, but you get the general idea. Maybe it was ‘sent to a farm’. Or maybe a kindly stranger put in on a freighter one night, so it could go home to sunny Italy. I like to think so.