My '73 Audi, and its lasting lesons

This post is from reader Andrew:
I bought my first car in college. While most everyone was driving rust buckets or building Mustangs and Cameros, my best friend rebuilt a 60's vintage MGB. That summer I fell in love with cars from across the pond and stumbled across a '73 Audi 100LS. It was perfect, low miles, fuel injected, looked and smelled like a BMW 2002 at a fraction of the price...I was sold. One problem, the lack of miles on the odometer was due to the cars second home, our local Euro-car care center. My friend convinced me that it wasn't the car's fault, it was obviously the lack of properly trained techs that had kept this sleeping beauty off the road. The deal was done, the car arrived in all its glory being dragged from the hook of a wrecker. Within a few weeks we had studied all the information available on this fine steed and set to work on her. The mechanical fuel injector was rebuilt as well as the distributor tower and transmission. Within a few months we were flying around the local roads as if on rails. Then it happened, on our favorite set of turns, a quick down shift to set up the turn, the suspension wound low to the ground like a leopard about to attack....then: bang, slap, slap, slap slap, thud......silence. There it lay, like a small robot with truncated arms....the trans-axle bleeding it fluid on the road. Once again it was on familiar ground, hanging by its nose from the hook of a tow truck. Minor set back, lesson learned, rebuild, stronger this time! Within months it was back on the road... well..............the side of the road actually, my soon to be ex-girlfriend grinding the starter as I tried to tighten enough bolts on the fuel injector to ensure combustion. Nothing says romance more than the smell of raw fuel. That fall, the ad went in the local paper: Classic Audi 100LS, low miles, perfect interior and paint corners like its on rails. Diane, if you read this, I buy American now!

My 1960 Dodge...in pink!

This post is by reader Kunzog: I never had a car while I was in high school like a lot of my friends. My older brother had gotten in several accidents with my parents car and then later his own so they would not let me even get a drivers license. I did not get my license until I was in the Navy in Newport RI in 1966. I came home on leave to take my road test. I tried to buy a 1957 Chrysler in Newport but due to my age, state laws and insurance regulations, I could not purchase it. I told my dad that I wanted to buy a car and he said he would find me one. He later said he found and purchased a car for me and I eagerly awaited my next trip home from Newport to upstate NY. The day finally arrived and I hitch hiked home as I did many times before to find my 1960 Dodge 4 dr awaiting me. Dad didnt tell me but it was Pink! Oh well he was color blind. It was a beautiful car. It had a slant 6 225 ci engine with push button torque flite auto trans, am radio and a heater. What more could a young sailor want. Classified as a compact car but I could stretch out in the rear seat and I an 5'10. I put a lot of miles on that car on the Mass turnpike and NY Thruway in two years I was in Rhode Island. I love those big fin cars, wish I still owned it. The attached pic is a Phoenix, mine was the less equipped Seneca.

I'll go first...

Man, I totally lucked out with my first car. It was a 1973 Cutlass Supreme. I got it when I was 16 and was able to drive, in 1978. My great-aunt sold it to me for $300, which at the time was a fortune. (Fortunately, my dad made a deal with me that he would match my savings dollar-for-dollar, so I had to put away $150 of my own money, made stocking shelves at the local dime store after high school.) We lived in North Carolina, and my great-aunt was in northern New Jersey, so we took a bus up north and drove the Cutlass back down. (Well, my dad drove.) I was a great car, and I took it to college (also in North Carolina). After graduation in 1984, I took a job in Connecticut, and six months after working there, the company relocated to Southern California. On the way out, the Cutlass got totaled while being towed behind a moving truck (hit from behind by another moving truck). So my beloved Cutlass died an ignoble death in the desert hellhole of Deming, New Mexico. RIP, girl. I still miss you. (Note: I'm still looking for a good picture of my car...the one shown his is a 1973 Cutlass Supeme that has the same style as mine. Mine was a pale green.)