Prior to your Mitsubishi Mirage/G4/Attrage you're currently driving, what was your first daily-driven beater back in the good old days of yesteryear?
Prior to your Mitsubishi Mirage/G4/Attrage you're currently driving, what was your first daily-driven beater back in the good old days of yesteryear?
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View my fuel log 2015 Mirage ES 1.2 automatic: 40.5 mpg (US) ... 17.2 km/L ... 5.8 L/100 km ... 48.6 mpg (Imp)
My fourth car (first car after getting my license) was a 1986 Dodge Aries K base model sedan. Gold paint, tan vinyl bench seat interior, and a noisy 2.2L throttle body injected four cylinder with a wide ratio 3 speed automatic. It was slow but it worked. I still love those old K cars to this day.
-Karl B. 2015 Mirage DE CVT Utility Machine (and lots of other cars)
My first car was a nine year old 1959 Opel Olympia Record. It had 6 volts and a three speed MT with the gear lever behind the steering wheel.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opel_Rekord_P1
It was so rusty, that when I jacked up a front wheel to replace a flat tyre, the front crunched upwards and the windshield broke...
Looking back today, the Mirage is probably my fourty or fiftyish car. With high European fuel prices intended to make us save CO2, this sort of car is very common in these parts. Current fuel price is around €1.60 per Litre, or US$ 6.83 per gallon.
Last edited by foama; 05-01-2019 at 08:48 AM.
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View my fuel log 2015 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 49.6 mpg (US) ... 21.1 km/L ... 4.7 L/100 km ... 59.5 mpg (Imp)
The '64 Ford Galaxie 500 my dad got for me to use to get to my summer factory job when I was in college was the most beater-like car I drove a lot, also the first one I did any work on:
--replacing the exhaust manifold gaskets
--installing a manual choke
--replacing the fuel tank
--doing some body work
Dad bought it for $200, and four years later he sold it for $250.
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View my fuel log 2015 Mirage DE 1.2 automatic: 43.0 mpg (US) ... 18.3 km/L ... 5.5 L/100 km ... 51.7 mpg (Imp)
My first car I bought in 1983 when I was 15. It was a worn-out 1973 Ford Maverick that I bought for $200. (equivalent to probably a $5-600 today) Way too many miles on it, and I believe I was the third teenager to own it. It had been beaten to death on dirt roads and the front suspension was completely worn out. It would chew up a pair of front tires in about 500 miles. I fed it a steady diet of used tires until I had the front end rebuilt. It had an engine that would burn a quart of oil every 200 miles when I bought it... and that got as bad as about a quart in 50 miles before I had some friends at school rebuilt the engine.
Being an old Ford, it went through a couple starters and alternators for no apparent reason... otherwise, it was fairly reliable!
After doing all that work to it... I then crashed it. Twice.
Simplify and add lightness.
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View my fuel log 2015 Mirage DE 1.2 automatic: 43.0 mpg (US) ... 18.3 km/L ... 5.5 L/100 km ... 51.7 mpg (Imp)
I did have to stop for oil more frequently than gas toward the end before the engine rebuild! I kept two quarts (cans, thank you very much) under the hood along with an oil spout wrapped in a rag. Bought the cheapest oil possible from wherever I happened to be.
Had anti-foul spark plug extenders on I think 4 of the 6 plugs. I didn't realize it at the time, but it's pretty amazing that the engine even ran.
Simplify and add lightness.
First car was a 1980 Chevrolet Monza. Not the V8, but the 4cyl. It was very rusted out underneath if you lifted the rear floor mats you could see the road.