30 Day Challenges Day 26 - 10 Vehicles I've Driven/Owned

Some of these vehicles go way back, so if you're under 30, you may not have ever seen or heard of some of these "gems". 

Let's start the list with my first ever car that I owned instead of my parents:

1. '87 Buick Century

This is not my car, although I had exactly that colour. It was my maternal grandmother's car and had maybe 10K when I got it in '97. But it had been sitting in her garage not being driven for the previous 5 years. My grandma unwilling gave up her license when she ran into another car. It was parked at the time, and then she started to drive away at maybe 20km/hour. For those of you that think in mph, that's maybe 12.5 mph. 

2. '93 Chevrolet Lumina van

My parents purchased this in '93 or '94 and it was really exciting since it was our first new car in a long time. Ours was red, but it had that same long nose. It was nice, except there was a really large A-pillar and that blocked your view of traffic coming from the sides when you were turning on to a road. I never hit anyone, but it was close a few times. 

3. '77 Oldsmobile Delta 88

This is one of the vehicles I learned to drive on. Fortunately it wasn't the daily driver for me. I remember vividly driving it back from a hockey game on a country road and the dash lights didn't work anymore, so you couldn't see how fast you were going. It was a little eerie to just have the headlights working. The only way to see how fast you were going was to turn on a flashlight and look.

4. '12 Volkswagen Beetle

This is my current car and I love it! It's very fun to drive and has decent gas mileage as well. I'm a little over 50K miles at this point and it's still going strong. It even fits the baby seat in it fairly well. The back seat is roomy enough for adults. 

5. '98 GMC Sierra K2500

This isn't my truck, but we have the same colour. We still have this truck, and we call him Jake from the song "Good Ol' Reliable Jake" from the Evil Dead Musical. He's good for heavy lifting, including pulling up the stumps of some wicked vines we have in the yard, and bringing tons of cardboard, etc. to the dump. He needs a new body, he's rusting away, but the diesel engine is still in great shape. 

I used to use him as a daily driver when I had an hour commute if you can believe it. He has over 300K miles on him now. 

6. '01 Audi A4 wagon

This is DH's Audi A4 wagon. He loves driving it. I had to drive it for a few months before we got my Beetle and I had a lot of trouble at first because it's a manual and I hadn't driven a manual for a long time. It eventually came back to me, but not before I had 2 episodes of crying from frustration. If only there weren't so many hills where I work. 

7. '96 Toyota Camry

When my parents purchased this car, both my younger brother and I were driving and we'd fight over who got to drive this one. It was so nice! So much easier to drive than the Lumina van and I don't think I had my Grandma's car yet when we got this one. Plus, this one was a lot cushier than the base model Buick my Grandma owned. 

However, this car ended up with a lot of issues. We had the tires changed and I drove several hours to see DH. One of the tires lost pressure and a coil spring from the suspension punctured the tire. That was awesome and made me a day late returning to school. The same thing happened to my parents when they came to my graduation, only on the other side. Then my brother inherited this car and the same thing happened again. It was finally sent to the junkyard. 

8. '01 Ford Thunderbird

My mom bought this car with her inheritance from my Grandma. Mom visited her every week and she deserved to get something fun with her inheritance. She still has the car, but she doesn't drive it too much, although she has driven it out to see us before. It's a very fun car to drive and has a powerful engine. She's still on the fence if she's going to keep it or sell it now that she's getting older. 

9. '03 Ford Sport Trac

This was the first new vehicle I purchased on my own. I did have to have my dad co-sign the loan, but the payments were my responsibility. I got this shortly after I graduated school and had a job. It was great for moving because it had lots of tie-down areas, and fine for a short commute, but the mileage was terrible! If I was lucky I got 15mpg and that was in the summer. In winter it was below 14mpg. Ridiculous for such a small truck. It wasn't very stable either, I had to have 3 wheel bearings replaced, 2 on the drivers side and one on the passenger side and within the first 20K miles the differential seal on the 4 wheel drive leaked, and the entire driver's seat assembly had to be replaced. 

Basically this was a "Friday car". By that I mean that this wasn't put together well, likely by people wanting to get the heck out of work on a Friday afternoon. Some of the welds holding the truck bed to the frame weren't done properly and the bushing on the frame ended up going right through the cab. That meant when you hit a bump the truck wobbled like a bobble-head. It was great for my back... 

10. '78 Pontiac Trans Am

DH owned one of these for a while before we were married and it was such a fun car to ride in! I even drove it to a job interview that was over an hour away when DH couldn't get out of work to drive me. I managed the stick much easier than I did in the Audi. Of course, this car is not meant for short people and I was on the edge of the seat to get the clutch all the way in. I did it well though, and brought his baby back in one piece. 

We sadly had to sell it when we were out of money several years ago, but we hope to someday get another one. 

I hope you enjoyed the list, and tell me about your vehicles in the comments!

Happy Stitching,

Tiffstitch