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Got a Niced New Car Today.

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I see a new direction for this thread....

My car is a 1988 Grand Am on it's second engine. The left window has not rolled down since I was a turboprop FO, and the paint is peeling off so bad that my wife makes me hide it down the street when we have company.

Who out there has a funkier car?

P.S. It's my regular car - not just for leaving at the airport.
 
Funkier car

Ok, I'll bite.
I got a 94 Toyota Pickup, standard two wheel drive. I had to put the CD player(s) in it myself, but since that was the only thing of value I have had two stolen. Now it has the nice Radio Shack Realistic tape deck. It's got 94K miles on it, second clutch. Runs real well but it aint pretty. Got a dent in the right rear about 4 feet by two feet from a guy that ran into my while I was backing out of a parking space three years ago. Insurance wanted me to pay the large deductible since the cop said it was mutual fault so needless to say an instructor does not have that much coin in the bank. It's **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED** ugly and smells of vomit on hot days since I haven't quite got the smell out from when my roommate lost it two years ago, chunks still in the speaker grill which I can't get out with a toothbrush. Hoping to keep it another three years!
 
Don't know if I can top that last one, but here goes...
1990 LeBaron Convertible. 160,000 mi. Top doesn't work. Rear windows don't work. Headlight covers don't work. Tach, oil pressure gagues don't work. Dashboard vents don't work. Bald tires. No rust but plenty of dents and scrapes. Cracks in dashboard. Many squeaks and rattles. Terrible rod knock until engine warms up on cold days. Trans rebuilt twice. Power seats no longer powered. Shreadded upholstery on driver seat. Smells of cat pi$% on hot days (bad trip to vet one day).
This is also my normal car, not just the "airport car" Do I win?
 
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FBO Cars

Sounds like some of the classic FBO cars I've driven(experienced).

Hammond Muni (Top Gun Aviation), LA is my vote.

Evil
 
TriStar, I wish you guys the best as ATA is where I want to end up. On the car note, I drove a courtesy car from Muscle Shoals, AL. I flew there from St. Louis on my long commercial cross country. The car had just gotten out of the junkyard the week before but I was assured it was solid. After visiting Helen Keller's house in Tuskegee (she's dead), I was driving back. On upon making a right turn at an intersection, the drivers' door promptly fell off. I threw it in the trunk and went back to the FBO. Why they didn't give me the Jaguar parked next the beater I'll never know....maybe because I was only 19? Hmmmph!
 
Well, i think you all got me beat. I just got rid of my 93 corrolla (gave it to my brother). No power at all, had crappy speakers but it still ran great with 150K miles on it. minor maintence things, thats it. I just got a 98 camry fully loaded, which is very nice. Powered EVERYTHING, except seats.
 
ok, I'll play.

Just turned in the Suburban last month- no the lease wasn;t up but what are they gonna do? Screw up my credit?-too late.

SO, my father-in-law gave us his old car. Its a '91 Park Ave with 125k miles on it. We went to Asheville for xmas to pick it up and drive it back to Dallas. If you have never been in a Park Ave, its the car you see gramps driving 35 mph on the interstate. Has more articulating seat positions than a $10.00 hooker. The engineers must know something about old people needing more positions to sit in than known to man. Anyway, 200 miles on our way back to Dallas we started having ignition problems. Was only able to run 5 of the six cylinders 725 miles back to Dallas.

After a $850.00 bill, the coils were replaced and new intake gasket replaced. And we thought it would be a free car.

I think I'm gonna get some customer plates that says "old fart" to better fit the glove.
 
Not my car, but one of the best was the airport car one of my former employers kept for us at Grand Canyon Airport. It was a 73 or 74 Olds Cutlass four door. None of the doors closed correctly and you could usually see some daylight in the gaps. The windows didn't fit well either, so there'd usually be some leakage when it rained (much like the airplanes I flew at the time). All the tires were bald. Usually we'd load it up with as many pilots as would fit for the drive to the park cafeteria for our free lunch (Canyon pilots, do they still do this?). The combination of bald tires and overload caused many blowouts. I think I changed tires three times in the year I flew there. We'd throw on the spare, and put the blown tire and rim in the back of a Chieftain for the trip back to Burbank. Then we'd go to a used tire place and replace it with another bald tire for $10, and fly that one back to the Canyon.

The keys were kept on the gas cap. We never worried about it getting stolen, because no thief, if he wanted it, could figure out how to start it. You used to have to pump the gas as fast as you can and then when it caught, you floored it in hopes of keeping it running.

Once it was covered in snow and hit by a snowplow. The plow broke the tail lights. We couldn't find a replacement lens in the junkyard, so we put red tape on. That or the broken windshield would get us pulled over by the park police regularly.

Finally we took it to the only mechanic in the park one day for an oil change (don't know why). He wouldn't let the car leave his shop until he replaced some front end parts. Said he couldn't sleep at night if he'd let such an unsafe vehicle back on the road.

Ah yes, those were the god old days...
 
My Honda is beginning to smoke. I hope I can get hired on with a major before I become 'Mosquito Patrol'.
At least its not as bad as the Jeep I had that would backfire and stall. Chics dug that one!
When I was in Desert Storm, there was an old Buick that had a huge 8 cylinder in it that we would drive into Riyadh for administrative duties from where we stayed. Man, that car was dirty - solid brown from a white paint job. One of the struts was blown and it had a 'ghetto look' as it sagged to the left rear. It would also do about 120 mph. It had a speed 'warning' that would beep if you went over 60. Me and my buddy drove it so fast one night that the speed warning stuck on. It sure was funny the next day to see the look on the Major's face as he drove by in our compound at 20 mph with a constant "beep" emitting from the inside of that car.
One day, when I was on the base, we decided to put rocks in the hubcaps. We drove by a large group of journalists at Riyadh AB that were waiting on their a/c to get refueled. So there we were - hunched back in our ghetto mobile with about 50 reporters ducking down to look under the rattling car as we drove by slowly. Who says you can't have fun in the military!
 
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mine's interesting, if not really bad

I have a 1995 Saturn SC1. It's nicknamed the Plastic Fantastic, because, well- its body is made out of plastic. It's white and therefore attracts all the freeway grime and leaf parts that SoCal throws at me. The inside is that odd gray color that always looks filthy, and is approximately the right size for a circus midget. I am 5'9 and drive with my seat all the way back. No one sits in the back unless they sit sideways across both seats, because there is no leg room. It sits low to the ground, low enough so that you strain your hip flexors getting in and out of the thing. The bass speakers have an odd buzz to them, my CD player is an old Discman with a tape adapter, and the radio is insanely loud if you're listening to an AM station, for reasons still unbeknownst to me. The inside has a permanent smell of pine, probably from one of those "car scent in a can" things that I just haven't found yet because it's stuck in some random place. The car so light that it gets a horrid shimmy to it above 75 MPH, and while it's not underpowered, I wouldn't take it out of Southern CA, not for a second. On the back window is a sticker with that ugly FAA bird that reads: Kiss a Pilot and Enjoy the Difference, and a red rubber ducky with satan horns hangs from the rearview mirror.

I love my car. Cheers!

Ravengirl
 

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